SEPTEMBER, 1935
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
agitation to form crystals of lime levulate. This solid portion is removed by an Oliver filter and, after suspension in water, is carbonated, precipitating carbonate of lime and leaving the levulose in solution. This solution is evaporated in uacuo to high density, seeded with crystals to grow, and later cen-
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trifuged, washed, and dried. The result is a beautiful, white, fine-grained sugar, which is practically non-hygroscopic. RECEI\ED April 1 8 , 1 9 3 5 Presented before the Division Sugar chemistry a t the 89th Meeting of the 4merican Chemical Society. N e a York, N Y , .Ipril 22 t o 26, 1935 411 photographs reproduced by courtesy of the National Sugar Refining company of N~~ J~~~~~
Food Supply and Human Progress H. C. SHERMAN Columbia University, New York, N. Y.
HREE centuries ago, when chemical industry began in this country, American and European food supplies and food habits were modifying each other to some extent, perhaps significantly for the time being, in the rapid spread of potato culture in Europe and the consequent reduction of scurvy. But from the point of view of industrial development, or of scientific control, the general food supply situation three centuries ago was much as it had been several centuries earlier; nor was there any great change in the two centuries following. Much the largest part of the food supply of the great majority of people was produced and consumed in the same locality, and with a minimum of any other than household manipulation or technology. Sir Walter Scott’s description, in “Peverel of the Peak,” of the preparations for a very grand dinner show how nearly all of the food supplies arrived at the point of consumption in the baskets or the carts of the farmers who had raised them, or on the hoof. I n even greater measure was this true in ordinary daily life and in America.
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IF W E T U R S from the scene of three hundred (or 0 even one hundred) years ago to that of thirty years ago we meet a striking and significant change. Concentration of population into cities and extension of agriculture to more remote areas, together n i t h the growth of commerce and of the industrial refining and preservation of foods, had brought about a situation in which the majority of people had ceased to produce any economically important part of their own food or even to obtain it from neighbors. Most people had to buy nearly all of their food; and it came from greater and greater distances and was distributed under conditions which made it increasingly difficult for the consumer to exercise any individual control over the methods by which his food was produced and handled. Consumers also began to wonder whether the refining, preserving, coloring, and elaborations of form to which their food was being subjected might not involve undue degrees of sophistication. One result of these conditions was the pure food movement. Consumers sought to substitute for the individual control which was no longer feasible a collective control of the food supply through legislation and inspection. Just what this food legislation should involve became the subject of prolonged controversy. The passage of a federal food law in 1906, and of supporting state legislation which followed rapidly, was a triumph for those who had labored in the pure food movement, and it was also a result and an indication of the scientific and technological trend of the times. It meant (among other things) that the methods for scientific control of the food industries, as well as for the policing of their products through wholesale and retail trade, had been developed
bo a point capable of commanding the confidence of the leaders among producers, dealers, and consumers. Primarily designed for the protection of the consuming public, the food laws also function as rallying points for standardization and advance within the food industries themselves. Correspondingly, the officials who administer the food law find that they can exercise a more effective control by using more of educational than of punitive measures. And in addition to the scientific developments in the food industries and the agencies of food control, we have the farreaching and efficient forces of agricultural and food research -federal, state, and privately endowed-working constructively upon all sorts of food problems in the interest of producers and consumers alike. So thoroughly has the pure food idea been assimilated during the past quarter-century and so effectively have the principles of sanitation been applied in the production, handling, and inspection of food in recent years, that in general the consumer may now safely assume that a food product offered for sale will be: (1) What it purports on its label to be, in nature and amount. (2) Free from anything actively injurious. (3) Possessed of a nutritive value within the normal range of its commercial grade. NOT fear of injury or exploitation but intelligent use of Q nut’ritional resources for the advancement of posit,ive health or, as the Journal of the Smerican M e d i c a l Association puts it, “buoyant health as distinguished from merely passable health,” should be chiefly in our minds as we now think of food. The choice of food is as worthy of thought as it ever was, but it has become a more constructive and a more cheerful matter. The center of gravity of the problem of the relations of food to health has moved forward from sanitation to nutrition. And the nutritional problem, while it carries heavy responsibi1ity;is an inspiring one as well. The new knowledge of the past thirty years, on the nutritive values of foods and the relations of food to health through nutrition, is one of the most important scientific developments of our times. It emphasizes the fact that health is more than merely freedom from disease; and that, whatever the constitutional inheritance with which one starts, one can build to higher levels of positive or buoyant health, not only by avoidance of things that may injure hut also (and even more important) by mise choices and a sound sense of proportion in the use of ordinary wholesome foods. For the newer knowledge of nutrition has now made it quite clear that a food supply composed of wholesome articles, freely chosen according to conventional or traditional ideas or to please the individual palate, is not usually sufficient to in-
sure tile hest nutritional conditioii arid resulting health unless further giiided by present-day sciericc. To obtaiir t,lte best resiilts, u-e iieeil to give n inore tiinti average place to those iaods vhich tngctiier enrich our diet,ary in cert,:iin iriirierd elornetits :urd vitamin valiies. Tlie ordinary articles of food which nre wort,hy of special eiripllnsis from tiiis poitit of view liavc brcn cnlled by McColliiin “t,he protective foods.” This term is tiow it.;cd to cover four t>ypesoi f w d : milk (vith siicli of its products as cliecse aiid creniii), iruits, vegetables, and eggs. TVlicn such foodi rriakr up a hrger prq)ortion of tlie dietary or food supply, they may be expected, in the grext inajorit,y of C N S C S , to result ill higher health a t all ages and in a longer life.
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WHILE this has only recently become perfectly clear, it
IS the outcome of forty years of continuous, consistent research in liuman nutrition. Most of this research has doalt directly with humans arid hiinian iooda. Naturally the direct studies of tlie human have been supplemented by animal experimentation, for it is oiily with animals that we can have strict experimental control throughout the whole natural life cycle; hiit it is worthy of ornpliasis that the newer howledge of food values is knowledge derived primarily from the study of human nutrition. Further research will doubtless make it more explicit in
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wm: detnils and add to the fuhiess of the scientific explanat , i m s ; but the new knowledge as i t iiow stands is ready to
guide 11s in oiir h i l y use oi food. It nhows us how to avoid tho so-cnllcd hidden hungers of specific nutritional deficiencies :ind RISO Irow to inipove our bodily intake so as to build up :I siiperior interiial environment for the life process ns a whole. r l I his (:an enaily rm:m a longer lease of healthier, happier, more abiinrinnt life. L i e can then be less lrurried and more Jiiimine, with better fitting iii work t o worker, i%.ithmore of it,isfnction (if iiidividunl act:orrrplislrrnent, and with an ever-gruwing enriclirricnt of tlie social inheritance of all. The direct,iiinof Intixian evolution is now largely social, and swiety is ii contini~ingorganism interested in its owti future. What prowises to affect this future should influence our decisions from day t o day and will do so more effectively now that the world expects progress; but rrieariwliile the shortness of individual lives has tended to set n limit to the actus1 use of knowledge by man. Hence the longer lease of healthier and more efficient life, which the newer chemistry of nutrition offers, may he of far-reaching significance to human progress in affording fuller opportunity for the use of the ever-growing body oi knowledge. lteceivm April 19, 1935. Presented before the Division of Agriaultursl and Food Chemistiy at the 89th Meeting o i Ihe Amerioan Chemiosi Society. Y.. ~\pril 22 t u 26, 1Qd5.
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With No. 57 in the Rcrolzhriiner A1d:tramicaI and tf istctrical Reproductions we introdiice a new artist into the series. Carl Spitsacg was lrorn in Munich, Bavaria, in 1808 awl died there in 1885. He was a pupil of Hanson and most of his work was genre and landscape pnint,ing. He has a yerg large niirnbcr of paintings lo his credit. The original, painted about, 1861, is in the Art Gallery of Stuttgart. In addit.ion, two copies, painted by Spiteweg, exist,, one in Brahmschweig and ono, privately owned, in New York.
I h r Alehimist Uy Carl Spilzweg
Janudry to AninKof tbia year. reapeotiveiy, on pages 86, 204, 814. 409, 618. 631.768, and 882.
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