When the landmark 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act was finally passed, it was known across the land as “Dr. Heinz, one of the few food producers who actively advocated for pure food, Dr. Together with a gallant cast, including the muckraking report Upton Sinclair, whose fiction revealed the horrific truth about the Chicago stockyards Fannie Farmer, then the most famous cookbook author in the country and Henry J. Wiley campaigning tirelessly for food safety and consumer protection. Over the next 30 years, a titanic struggle took place, with the courageous and fascinating Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Purdue University, was named chief chemist of the United States Department of Agriculture, and the agency began investigating food and drink fraud, even conducting shocking tests on groups of young men who came to be known as, “The Poison Squad.” Food manufacturers had rushed to embrace the rise of industrial chemistry and were knowingly selling harmful products, putting profit before the health of their customers.

Milk and meat were routinely preserved with formaldehyde beer and wine were preserved with salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical canned vegetables were greened-up by copper sulphate, a toxic metallic salt rancid butter was made edible with borax, best known as a cleaning product. Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Deborah Blum presents her new book The Poison Squad, which tells the dramatic true story of how food was made safe in the United States and the heroes who fought for change.īy the end of the 19th century, food in America was increasingly dangerous – lethal even.

Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum