UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY.-Circular No. 19.

STANDARDS OF PURITY FOR FOOD PRODUCTS.

Superseding Circulars Nos. 13 and 17.

Supplemental Proclamation.

Referring to Circular No. 13 of this Office, dated December 20, 1904, and to Circular No. 17 of this Office, dated March 8, 1906, the following food standards are hereby established as superseding and supplemental to those proclaimed on the dates above named.

JAMES WILSON, Secretary of Agriculture.

Washington, D. C., June 26, 1906.

LETTER OF SUBMITTAL.

The Honorable the SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE.

Sir: The undersigned, representing the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists of the United States and the Interstate Food Commission, and commissioned by you, under authority given by the act of Congress approved March 3, 1903, to collaborate with you "to establish standards of purity for food products and to determine what are regarded as adulterations therein," respectfully report that they have carefully reviewed, in the light of recent investigations and correspondence, the standards earlier recommended by them and have prepared a set of amended schedules, in which certain changes have been introduced for the purpose of securing increased accuracy of expression and a more perfect correspondence of the chemical limits to the normal materials designated, and from which standards previously proclaimed for several manufactured articles have been omitted because of the unsatisfactory condition of trade nomenclature as applied thereto; and also additional schedules of standards for ice creams, vegetables and vegetable products, tea and coffee. They respectfully recommend that the standards herewith submitted be

approved and proclaimed as the established standards, superseding and supplementing those established on December 20, 1904, and March 8, 1906.

The principles that have guided us in the formulation of these standards are appended hereto.

The several schedules of additional standards recommended have been submitted, in a tentative form, to the manufacturing firms and the trade immediately interested, and also to the State food-control officials for criticism. Respectfully,

WILLIAM FREAR,

EDWARD H. JENKINS,

M. A. SCOVELL,

H. A. WEBER,

H. W. WILEY,

Committee on Food Standards,

Association of Official Agricultural Chemists.

RICHARD FISCHER,

Representing the Interstate Food Commission.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 26, 1906.

PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE STANDARDS ARE BASED.

The general considerations which have guided the committee in preparing the standards for food products are the following:

1. The standards are expressed in the form of definitions, with or without accompanying specifications of limit in composition.

2. The main classes of food articles are defined before the subordinate classes are considered.

3. The definitions are so framed as to exclude from the articles defined substances not included in the definitions.

4. The definitions include, where possible, those qualities which make the articles described wholesome for human food.

5. A term defined in any of the several schedules has the same meaning wherever else it is used in this report.

6. The names of food products herein defined usually agree with existing American trade or manufacturing usage; but where such usage is not clearly established or where trade names confuse two or more articles for which specific designations are desirable, preference is given to one of the several trade names applied.

7. Standards are based upon data representing materials produced under American conditions and manufactured by American processes or representing such varieties of foreign articles as are chiefly imported for American use.

8. The standards fixed are such that a departure of the articles to which they apply, above the maximum or below the minimum limit prescribed, is evidence that such articles are of inferior or abnormal quality.

9. The limits fixed as standard are not necessarily the extremes authentically recorded for the article in question, because such extremes are commonly due to abnormal conditions of production and are usually accompanied by marks of inferiority or abnormality readily perceived by the producer or manufacturer.

1. Meat, flesh, is any clean, sound, dressed, and properly prepared edible part of animals in good health at the time of slaughter, and if it bears a name descriptive of its kind, composition, or origin, it corresponds thereto. The term "animals,” as herein used, includes not only mammals, but fish, fowl, crustaceans, mollusks, and all other animals used as food.

2. Fresh meat is meat from animals recently slaughtered and properly cooled until delivered to the consumer.

3. Cold storage meat is meat from animals recently slaughtered and preserved by refrigeration until delivered to the consumer.

4. Salted, pickled, and smoked meats are unmixed meats preserved by salt, sugar, vinegar, spices, or smoke, singly or in combination, whether in bulk or in suitable containers.

b. MANUFACTURED MEATS.

1

1. Manufactured meats are meats not included in paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, whether simple or mixed, whole or comminuted, in bulk or in suitable containers, with or without the addition of salt, sugar, vinegar, spices, smoke, oils, or rendered fat. If they bear names descriptive of kind, composition, or origin, they correspond thereto and when bearing such descriptive names, if force or flavoring meats are used, the kind and quantity thereof are made known.

C. MEAT EXTRACTS, MEAT PEPTONES, ETC.

(Schedule in preparation.)

d. LARD.

1. Lard is the rendered fresh fat from hogs in good health at the time of slaughter, is clean, free from rancidity, and contains, necessarily incorporated in the process of rendering, not more than one (1) per cent of substances, other than faty acids and fat.

2. Leaf lard is lard rendered at moderately high temperatures from the internal fat of the abdomen of the hog, excluding that adherent to the intestines, and has an iodin number not greater than sixty (60). 3. Neutral lard is lard rendered at low temperatures.

B. MILK AND ITS PRODUCTS.

a. MILKS.

1. Milk is the fresh, clean, lacteal secretion obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows, properly fed and kept, excluding that obtained within fifteen days before and ten days after calving, and contains not less than eight and one-half (8.5) per cent of soilds not fat, and not less than three and one-quarter (3.25) per cent of milk fat.

2. Blended milk is milk modified in its composition so as to have a definite and stated percentage of one or more of its constituents.

3. Skim milk is milk from which a part or all of the cream has been

removed and contains not less than nine and one-quarter (9.25) per cent of milk solids.

4. Pasteurized milk is milk that has been heated below boiling but sufficiently to kill most of the active organisms present and immediately cooled to 50° Fahr. or lower.

5. Sterilized milk is milk that has been heated at the temperature of boiling water or higher for a length of time sufficient to kill all organisms present.

6. Condensed milk, evaporated milk, is milk from which a considerable portion of water has been evaporated and contains not less than twenty-eight (28) per cent of milk solids of which not less than twentyseven and five-tenths (27.5) per cent is milk fat.

7. Sweetened condensed milk is milk from which a considerable portion of water has been evaporated and to which sugar (sucrose) has been added, and contains not less than twenty-eight (28) per cent of milk solids, of which not less than twenty-seven and five-tenths (27.5) per cent is milk fat.

8. Condensed skim milk is skim milk from which a considerable portion of water has been evaporated.

9. Buttermilk is the product that remains when butter is removed from milk or cream in the process of churning.

10. Goat's milk, ewe's milk, et cetera, are the fresh, clean lacteal secretions, free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of healthy animals other than cows, properly fed and kept, and conform in name to the species of animal from which they are obtained.

b. CREAM.

1. Cream is that portion of milk, rich in milk fat, which rises to the surface of milk on standing, or is separated from it by centrifugal force, is fresh and clean and contains not less than eighteen (18) per cent of milk fat.

2. Evaporated cream, clotted cream, is cream from which a considerable portion of water has been evaporated.

C. MILK FAT OR BUTTER FAT.

1. Milk fat, butter fat, is the fat of milk and has a Reichert-Meissl number not less than twenty-four (24) and a specific gravity not less than 0.905 40° C.

d. BUTTER.

1. Butter is the clean, non-rancid product made by gathering in any manner the fat of fresh or ripened milk or cream into a mass, which also contains a small portion of the other milk constituents, with or without salt, and contains not less than eighty-two and five-tenths (82.5) per cent of milk fat. By acts of Congress approved August 2, 1886, and May 9, 1902, butter may also contain added coloring matter. 2. Renovated butter, process butter, is the product made by melting butter and reworking, without the addition or use of chemicals or any substances except milk, cream, or salt, and contains not more than sixteen (16) per cent of water and at least eighty-two and five-tenths (82.5) per cent of milk fat.

e. CHEESE.

1. Cheese is the sound, solid, and ripened product made from milk or cream by coagulating the casein thereof with rennet or lactic acid,

Vegetable Products.

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with or without the addition of ripening ferments and seasoning, and contains, in the water-free substance, not less than fifty (50) per cent of milk fat. By act of Congress, approved June 6, 1896, cheese may also contain added coloring matter.

2. Skim milk cheese is the sound, solid, and ripened product, made from skim milk by coagulating the casein thereof with rennet or lactic acid, with or without the addition of ripening ferments and seasoning. 3. Goat's milk cheese, ewe's milk cheese, et cetera, are the sound, ripened products made from the milks of the animals specified, by coagulating the casein thereof with rennet or lactic acid, with or without the addition of ripening ferments and seasoning.

f. ICE CREAM.

1. Ice cream is a frozen product made from cream and sugar, with or without a natural flavoring, and contains not less than fourteen (14) per cent of milk fat.

2. Fruit ice cream is a frozen product made from cream, sugar, and sound, clean, mature fruits, and contains not less than twelve (12) per cent of milk fat.

3. Nut ice cream is a frozen product made from cream, sugar, and sound, non-rancid nuts, and contains not less than twelve (12) per cent of milk fat.

g. MISCELLANEOUS MILK PRODUCTS.

1. Whey is the product remaining after the removal of fat and casein from milk in the process of cheese-making.

2. Kumiss is the product made by the alcoholic fermentation of mare's or cow's milk.

II. VEGETABLE PRODUCTS.

A. GRAIN PRODUCTS.

a. GRAINS AND MEALS.

1. Grain is the fully matured, clean, sound, air-dry seed of wheat, maize, rice, oats, rye, buckwheat, barley, sorghum, millet, or spelt. 2. Meal is the clean, sound product made by grinding grain.

3. Flour is the fine, clean, sound product made by bolting wheat meal and contains not more than thirteen and one-half (13.5) per cent of moisture, not less than one and twenty-five hundredths (1.25) per cent of nitrogen, not more than one (1) per cent of ash, and not more than fifty hundredths (0.50) per cent of fiber.

4. Graham flour is unbolted wheat meal.

5. Gluten flour is the clean, sound product made from flour by the removal of starch and contains not less than five and six-tenths (5.6) per cent of nitrogen and not more than ten (10) per cent of moisture. 6. Maize meal, corn meal, Indian corn meal, is meal made from sound maize grain and contains not more than fourteen (14) per cent of moisture, not less than one and twelve hundredths (1.12) per cent of nitrogen, and not more than one and six-tenths (1.6) per cent of ash. 7. Rice is the hulled, or hulled and polished grain of Oryza sativa. 8. Oatmeal is meal made from hulled oats and contains not more than twelve (12) per cent of moisture, not more than one and fiverenths (1.5) per cent of crude fiber, not less than two and twenty-four hundredths (2.24) per cent of nitrogen, and not more than two and two-tenths (2.2) per cent of ash.