easoning powers are needed here as in every problem of
life. While some adulterants can be detected only by trained chemists
and by means of tests too difficult and involved for general use, the
average housekeeper may amply protect herself from gross imposition by
simply cultivating her powers of observation and by making use of a
few simple tests well within her grasp and easily applied.

=First--Sight, Taste, and Smell.=--All are of prime importance in
determining the freshness and wholesomeness of foods, especially
meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, and fruits. Avoid all highly colored
bottled or canned fruits or vegetables; pure preserved fruits, jams,
jellies, or relishes may have a good bright color, but never have the
brilliant reds and greens so often shown in the artificially colored
products.[4] The same is true of canned peas, beans, or Brussels
sprouts; here the natural product is a dull, rather dingy green, and
all bright green samples must be suspected. Foreign articles of this
class are the worst offenders.

All food products should have a clean wholesome odor, characteristic
of their particular class. The odor of decomposition can be readily
detected; stale and musty odors are soon recognized.

It should be rarely necessary to use the sense of taste, but any food
with a taste foreign to the known taste of a similar product of known
purity should be discarded or at least suspected.

=Second--Price.=--Remember that the best and purest food, however high
priced, is cheapest in the end. Its value in purity, cleanliness, food
value, and strength gives a greater proportionate return than foods
priced lower than one might legitimately expect from their supposed
character. To cite a few instances: pure Java and Mocha coffee cannot
be retailed at twenty cents per pound; therefore, when the housekeeper
pays that price she must expect to get chicory mixed with the coffee;
if it contains no other adulterant, she may consider herself
fortunate. Cheap vanilla is not made from the vanilla bean. These
beans sell at wholesale for from ten to fifteen dollars a pound, and
the cheap extracts are made from the Tonka bean or from a chemical
product known as vanillin. These substances are not harmful, but they
are not vanilla. Pure virgin olive oil is made from the flesh of
olives after the stones and skin have been removed; cheaper grades are
made from the stones themselves and have little food value, while the
virgin oil