CHEMISTS SPIKING LIFE'S STAFF, DAIRYMEN TRY TO BUTTER IT

...Millions are at stake, and no holds are barred...

...Darby...

...You do not see street Arabs, and the Minister of Interior, Maria Scelba...

...No more tedious circus has been staged in Washington in the .history of the Food and Drug Administration...

...No one really knows, furthermore, just how rich the rich are, because no Mediterranean peoples — neither the Italians, the Greeks, the French nor- the Spaniards — ever properly report for income taxes...

...could lead to the ingestion in considerable quantities of these materials . . . Unless the complete harmlessness of these agents can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt they should not...

...is immeasurably more as it was before the war than as it was in 1945 and 194b...

...In fact, the land problem it the most pressing of all Italian problems, and the most discussed on all sides...

...Particularly is evidence lacking as to chronic toxicity...

...You „would observe shop windows filled with familiar Italian wares — beautiful leather goods, silks, lingerie, ceramics —and that the people in the streets were, on the whole, well-dressed, well-nourished, and obviously possessed of vitality...

...IF YOU HAD BEEN ACCUSTOMED to move in that kind of society and set out to call on your friends, you might find them, at before, in Roman palaces where, ever shining floors of parti-colored tile, from behind marble pillars and under lofty frescoed ceilings, uniformed flunkies moved, serving cocktails and variegated hors d'oeuvres from vast silver trays...

...oranges golden in their nests of shining leaves...

...Such an inquiry would go faster at least...

...the one-tenth of the "haves" by contrast appear richer, no doubt, than they actually are...

...And the Communist party, though it has received a severe setback, is by no means dead...

...Or, if you dropped into one of your favorite restaurants — a modest one...

...The great mass of people pay most of the taxes on moving goods, which ia entirely unjust, and generally accepted...

...William J. Darby, of Vanderbilt University, testifying in behalf of the Council on Foods and Nutrition of the American Medical Association, "allows the production of a smooth-textured product, often of superior sales appeal, which contains less fat than one made without the extender...

...r i James Rorty, author of "His Master's Voice," is a well-known writer on consumer problems and a frequent contributor to The \>k> Leader...

...Only later — as you gradually awakened — would you learn that things are not quite as their brilliant surfaces seem...

...REPRESENTATIVE KEEFE...

...perhaps where one ate out-of-doors on some f ountained piazza — you * would find great trays of the famous prosciutto, the world's best ham...

...The distribution of income, according to studies made outside the Government, and allowing for these facts,- is almost exactly what it is in the United States...

...And Representative J. Caleb Boggs, who doesn't want an investigation, is by an equal coincidence from Delaware, seat of the Dupont empire and of the Atlas Powder Company...

...The land problem plagues modern Italy as it plagued the Italy of the Caesars, and in considering a land program the present government discovered plans dating from 300 years ago...

...When these agents are used as.extenders, particularly in making bread, cakes and pastries, the nutritive quality of the product is usually diluted...

...And sipping your wine, sharp or soft, full or light according to your taste and pocketbook, you would ruminate on the delight of living in the most beautiful city in the world...

...Now do you understand why the milk industry has been fighting the chemical industry at the bread hearings...

...The so-called "baking technologists" give a high score to the fluffy, tasteless "white bread of commerce, on which laboratory rats pine and get thin, and a low score to the whole wheat and stone chemical-free loaves that co-ops and some commercial firms make and sell successfully at premium prices...

...The caloric value of the extender itself is not completely defined, but is considerably less than the shortening which ,it may replace...

...Available knowledge of the possible toxicity of these substances is fragmentary," continues Dr...

...this climactic miracle of the baking technologist is achieved by toe addition of chemical to the mix, known as "shortening extenders...

...Darby's testimony is quoted in a speech made by Representative Frank B. Keefe and printed in the Congressional Record...

...Finally, it stays soft fur days on end f o that you can't tell whether the grocer has sold you stale loaves for fresh or not...

...a * • THE PROBLEMS WHICH HAVE PERENNIALLY BEMST Italy thus perplex the Government of the Italian Republic...

...Where, for instance, are tho wild youth depicted in the Italian moving pictures we saw in America, such as "Shoe Shine...

...Lawyers, chemists, and baking technologists have been heard from at length...

...Summer in Rome Dorothy Thompson's column, "On the Record," Ho* appeared in hundreds of newspapers...

...as you might guess, is from Wisconsin, a dairy state...

...Well, it's quite a situation...

...This dilution results from the decrease in amounts of fat, milk solids, and in some cases ctjfis required to produce an 'acceptable' product...

...artichokes, stem and all, marinated in olive oil...

...a * * THE TESTIMONY INTRODUCED at the hearings has proved that on the whole the so-called staff of life has been geting worse and worse...

...But even then you would know that Italy, in 194...

...Chemists Spiking Life's Staff, Dairymen Try to Butter It By James Barty FOR the past eight months the Food and Drug Administration has been holding hearings in Washington, preparatory to promulgating a new "standard of identity" for white bread...

...The fight is about who'gets what included in the bread formula...

...By Dorothy Thompson IF YOU HAD GONE TO SLEEP in Rome in J93fl and should awaken in this summer of MJ49, and if you had not observed from your mirror the passage of time, you would surely not guess, as you walked the streets, that » tbatteriiig war bad come and gone in which Italy was the loser...

...crisp, wheaty bread...

...Any reduction in content of milk and eggs in products would obviously reduce the quantity of a number of important nutrients in food...

...pasta rich with butter, dissolving in parmesan...

...She is now traveling abroad for the Bell Syndicate...

...The employment of these agents in the processing of such basic foods as bread and bakery goods, as well as other foods (such as ice cream, candy, peanut butter, etc...

...Such dilution is not desirable from a nutritional standpoint...

...It contains less and less nourishment, so that laboratory rats can't grow unaided on the average commercial white loaf, whether it is "enriched" or not...

...It gets fluffier and fluffier, meaning that it crowds and sometimes exceeds the legal maximum of air and water...

...And it might conceivably get down to the cause of the mess which Is that we have permitted a wooden-headed, musclebound food indusry to buHy government health and regulatory agencies aod practically write its own ticket of legalised adulteration, until the industry is on the verge of knocking itself out, not to mention you and your family...

...tells you that they are now in homes, and no longer Much of a problem...

...in the Council's opinion, be employed in basic foods...

...Their use," said Dr...

...In some instances the addition of the agent also permits the lowering of the proportions of other important food ingredients in the product — for example, their use in bread imparts 'freshness' as^ does the use of non-fat milk solids...

...But there is poverty in Italy, as there always has been poverty in Italy, much worse in some regions than in others...

...It would indeed be a good idea to kick the whole business upstairs into a Congressional investigation...

...Testimony to this effect was given at the hearings by Professor Clive M. McCay of Cornell...

...What it has lost in the cities, during a period of high employment and fair prosperity, under an insulin injection of American aid, it might quickly recoup under other condition* and, in the impoverished south of the kttfundian estates and wretched land labor, it is making sufficient headway to push the Government toward more radical meatuses...

...It contains more anfl more chemicals, some of which are suspected of being damaging to your health, and very few of which have been proved harmless beyond question...

...Everybody is fed up with the bread hearings circus...

...Keefe has introduced a resolution, now in the House Rules Committee, calling for a seven-man investigation' of chemicals in foods...

...worst of all in the south...

...Reform lags, and back of the lag is the half-resigned knowledge that not all the reform in the world can solve the problem of too many people in too little space with too little soil and too few resources...

...The rich are too rich, and the poor are too poor...

...You would Me the main streets of the Sternal City jammed with, motorcycles and motor cars — many of the latter large, high-powered, expensive of gas consumption, and of American make — and perhapg you would notice that their horns were louder than usual and wonder what had relaxed Mussolini's anti-noise decrees...

...During the late Thirties, her forthright exposes of HMerirm and of the German-American Bund helped alert Amerieeme to the dangers of Nazism, foreign and domestic...

...But since the total national income is very much smaller per capita, the somewhat leas than two-thirds which* goes to the 00 per cent is immensely thinner...

...The principal performers are the chemical interests, led by the Atlas Powder Company, the dairy interests, and the processors of animal and vegetable fats...

...You would see familiar camera-toting American tourists thronging in and out of the expensive Pincio hotels...