Margarine

“ As the fatty portion of the article is the only one of value, some manufacturers make great efforts to produce margarine with as small a percentage of fatty matter as possible, either by incorporating excessive amounts of water or of milk—margarines with over 30% of water being met with—or by introducing sugar, glucose, starch, gelatinous matter, in fact anything that is cheaper than fat. ”

“ The so-called “filled” cheese of American origin, in which the butter-fat of the milk is partially or wholly replaced by some other fat, would come under the head of “margarine-cheese.” In making such cheese a cheap form of fat, usually of animal origin, but sometimes vegetable, is added to and incorporated with the skim-milk, and thus takes the place previously occupied by the genuine butter-fat. The act is regarded by some as defective in that it does not prohibit the artificial colouring of margarine to imitate butter. ”

“ The vegetable-oil margarines still remain comparatively cheap, and the danger is that unless measures are taken to insure a proper milk supply for infants at a reasonable charge, these infants may run the risk of being fed, so far as fat is concerned, entirely upon an inferior brand of margarine, destitute of the growth-promoting accessory substance. It would be truer economy even for the poor to purchase smaller quantities of an oleo-oil margarine if they cannot afford the luxury of real butter. ”

“ It might be argued that the American farmer, whose butter is, as we have seen, usually of a low grade, does not deserve the protection the Government gives him against the underselling of the margarine maker, because good oleomargarine is preferable to bad butter. ”

“ Section 8 is of much practical importance, as it limits the quantity of butter-fat which may be contained in margarine; it states that it shall be unlawful to manufacture, sell, expose for sale or import any margarine the fat of which contains more than 10% of butter-fat, and every person who manufactures, sells, exposes for sale or imports any margarine which contains more than that percentage shall be guilty of an offence under the Margarine Act 1887. ”

“ There is an important industry which has sprung up out of animal waste, in the utilization of purified tallow and other fats for food and domestic purposes. It was originated in France in 1869 by M. Mége, and was intended for the manufacture of artificial butter from fat, by extracting the oil at a low temperature, and converting this, by churning, into butter. It was first known as oleomargarine, then as margarine, and latterly as butterine. The manufacture of this product has spread extensively, and it is carried on in the United States on a very large scale. ”

“ He said that people could not expect to obtain real oil-paintings for such small sums.
"You do not call them oil-paintings," he said, "you call them pictures; and if people think them oil-paintings that is their fault: it is because they are ignorant that they make the mistake. You are not answerable for that. The case of margarine and butter is different. It was because margarine used to be called butter that it was made illegal to sell it as such. Margarine is still sold, but it is called margarine."
"How very sensible you are, Bernard!" said Doris. ”

“ The chief culprit in the matter of the adulteration of butter is the small dealer, who buys margarine from the margarine manufacturer and skilfully blends it with butter in a proportion that is small in a single instance, but is sufficient to bring him in a handsome profit in the course of a year. ”

“ As now well known to all concerned, a great deal of ‘butterine,’ or ‘oleomargarine,’ or ‘margarine,’ or ‘bosch,’ is made by extracting from the waste fat of oxen and sheep some of its harder constituents, the palmitic and stearic acids, then working up the softer remainder with a little milk, or even without the milk, into a resemblance to butter. When properly prepared and honestly sold for what it is, no fair grounds for objection exist ”

“ Before our processed and food cheese era some scoundrels in the cheese business over there added animal fats and margarine to skimmed milk to make it pass as whole milk in making cheese. Such adulteration killed the flavor and quality, and no doubt some of the customers. Luckily in America we put down this vicious counterfeiting with pure food laws. But such foreign fats are still stuffed into the skimmed milk of many foreign cheeses. To take the place of the natural butterfat the phony fats are whipped in violently and extra rennet is added to speed up coagulation. ”

“ These acids, in combination severally with glycerine, form stearine, margarine and oleine. They are found in different proportions in the various neutral fats and oils; stearine predominating in some, margarine in others, and oleine in others. When separated from their base (glycerine) they take up an equivalent of water, and are called free fat acids. In this state they are in a condition for being utilized in the arts. The stearic and margaric acids form a whitish, semi-transparent, hard substance, resembling spermaceti, which is manufactured into candles. ”

“ It is, however, interesting to point out that, while complying with the regulations of the governments, margarine manufacturers of the countries named have found an easy way of rendering the regulations quite nugatory: they add methyl-orange, a colouring matter which itself produces a red colour with acid and quite obscures the real colour obtained by the official test for sesame oil.
Cheese may be legitimately made from full-milk, milk that has been enriched by addition of cream, or from milk that has been more or less skimmed. ”

“ The cooled fat is cut into slices about one inch thick, and put into a cloth between hot plates of a press. The portion which runs off is a mixture of margarine and oleine, resembling lard in composition, and of about the taste of fresh butter. It melts in the mouth like butter, and does not stick to the palate like beef fat. The solid residue taken out of the cloth is good stearine, fit for making candles immediately. ”

“ Dr James Bell, in a paper read at the International Health Exhibition, said that butterine and oleo-margarine are, in the opinion of high authorities, legitimate articles of commerce, when honestly sold, and if made in a cleanly manner from sound fats, as they afford the poor a cheap and useful substitute for butter, especially during the winter months, when good butter is both scarce and dear. ”

“ I have nothing to say personally against the use of good carefully made oleomargarine as a substitute for butter, if only it is sold under its own name and at a fair price, but I have the greatest objection to its substitution for butter, which is more valuable and a more digestible diet, and unquestionably more suitable for domestic use. Good oleomargarine is nothing but the very best of beef fat carefully refined and carefully churned with milk, and as such no one can dispute its suitability for use as food ”

“ If a fat be rancid it cannot possibly be reconditioned for edible purposes. No matter how its preparation may be coaxed and nursed it cannot be converted into a foodstuff. The palate would detect rancidity instantly. Consequently, only the highest grades of animal fat are used for the preparation of margarine; the fact that the big-scale production of a food should have been embraced by the soap-maker merely represents one of those inexplicable coincidences of industry. ”

“ There is an altogether different class of butter adulteration which concerns itself with the substitution of other fatty matters for the whole or part of the really valuable portion of the butter-fat. Margarine is the legalized and therefore legitimate butter-surrogate, prepared by churning any suitable fat with milk into a cream, solidifying the latter by injection into cold water and working the lumps together, precisely as is done in the case of the churned cream of milk. ”

“ Oleomargarine or Butterine is made in much the same way. A mixture of beef-fat (the soft part of beef-tallow) and lard and cottonseed oil is churned with sour milk and worked and granulated like renovated butter. For the better grades, some of the finest creamery butter is mixed with it, so that the mixture can hardly be distinguished from real butter. ”

“ Ghee, the East-Indian form of butter, is simply fresh butter clarified by melting, and is used as a dressing for the meal of rice. Butter, though counted as a pure fat, is in reality made up of at least six fatty principles, there being sixty-eight per cent of margarine and thirty per cent of oleine, the remainder being volatile compounds of fatty acids. In the best specimens of butter there is a slight amount of caseine, not over five per cent at most, though in poor there is much more. ”

“ That it exists in no other substance than butter made from milk, and it is introduced to oleomargarine butter by adding to oleomargarine stock some milk, cream, or butter, and churning, and that when this is done it has all the elements of natural butter, but there must always be a smaller percentage of butterine in the manufactured product than in the butter made from milk. The only effect of the butterine is to give flavor to the butter, having nothing to do with its wholesomeness. ”

“ This is a wholesome oil with a fragrant odour and pleasant taste, which is largely used as a salad oil in certain parts of Europe. It is one of the few vegetable oils that can be detected by means of a special colour reaction; for on treating the oil with a particular reagent it gives a bright rose colour, and the test is so sensitive that it will detect the presence of even a small percentage of sesame oil in other fats.
A compulsory addition of a small amount of sesame oil to all margarine, therefore, affords an absolutely certain means of recognising the margarine subsequently. ”

“ After the Armistice supplies tended to return to their pre-war level except in the cases of sugar, eggs, butter and cheese; margarine of an improved quality took the place of butter to a considerable extent. ”

“ But we may rest assured that with a fairly liberal amount of milk and some green vegetables, possibly some beef fat, we need not fear any disastrous consequences from the substitution of some other fat for butter. Where the diet is limited and the entire quantity of fat is not very large, it seems prudent to select oleomargarine made largely from beef oil and, where circumstances permit its use without the sacrifice of any other dietary essential, to use butter in the diet of growing children unless they get a full quart of milk apiece a day. ”

“ With all the ingenuity and resource which manufacturers put into their business, they can scarcely prevent the ordinary eye from seizing on the minute visual characteristics that distinguish margarine from butter. ”

“ When butter is used to flavor cooked vegetables, it is more economical to add it just before they are served rather than while they are cooking. The flavor thus imparted is more pronounced, and, moreover, if the butter is added before cooking, much of it will be lost in the water unless the latter is served with the vegetables. Butter substitutes, such as oleomargarine and nut margarine, should be more largely used for the table, especially for adults. Conserve butter for children, as animal fats contain vitamines necessary for growing tissues. ”

“ A large number of cheese consumers desire a cheese containing a considerable proportion of fatty matter. This fatty matter of course ought to be the butter natural to milk, but butter is far more valuable than oleomargarine, and therefore extensive manufactories have been established for the production of oleomargarine cheese. This cheese is made of skim milk, skimmed by separators, so that the butter is practically all abstracted, the deficiency of fat being replaced by the addition of oleomargarine or lard, in sufficient quantity to make the cheese a tolerably fat one. ”

“ In chemical composition butter-fat is very nearly the same as other 14animal and vegetable fats, but the slight variation may make a lot of difference in digestibility and palatability as well as in nutritive value, and it is a mistake to consider Oleomargarine, Butterine, Nut-Butter and other substitutes for butter “just as good” because a chemical analysis shows them to contain “almost” the same elements or compounds. These products may be good and legitimate if sold for what they are, but should never be allowed to be sold or served for what they are not, genuine butter. ”

“ The quality of butter grown on poor pastures is characterized by greater solidity than on rich feeding pastures. The cows, having to travel over more space, require a greater supply of the elements of respiration, whilst the grasses grown on these poor pastures contain, in all probability, less of these in a digestible form available for respiration. The like result seems probable as from common winter treatment—a produce of butter less in quantity, and containing a greater proportion of margarine, and a less of oleine. ”

“ Products such as respondent's which contain no animal fat were unknown and were not made in substantial quantities until much later. There is nothing in the act, or that has been brought to our attention, to suggest that Congress anticipated the development of the art later to occur. Annotto had long been used to color butter and cheese and was then being used to make oleomargarine resemble butter. It is a coloring material found in association with the oil content of the covering of certain tree seeds. ”