ABSTRACT

Food laws were among the earliest of enactments known to man. Governments over many centuries have endeavoured to provide for the safety and wholesomeness of man’s food by legal provisions and appropriate punitive action when necessary. Over the years also, crude forms of fraud, such as adding worthless substances to food or extracting valuable constituents from it, have been followed by sophisticated methods of adulteration more difficult to detect. The birth of modern chemistry in the early nineteenth century made possible the production of materials possessing properties similar to normal foods which, when fraudulently used, did not readily attract the attention of the unsuspecting purchaser. Later, better analytical methods were used in food control work to detect these adulterants. When scientists demonstrated that some were dangerous to health, an aroused public demanded laws which would both protect their health and prevent fraud.