Before Food Laws

[My Good Babushka]

Manufacturers padded out products with "daft". Sugar and flour were filled with dirt, sand, plaster of Paris, and gypsum.
Tea was a product very commonly adulterated before food laws. One Victorian era shipment of tea was found to be half composed of dirt and sand.

[Brigid]

1. Thank you, TR.

[HeiressofBickworth]

2. And the right wing thinks

that we don't need all those laws. Just think what things would revert to if the laws didn't exist.

What they can't get into their little pea-brains is that the laws are in response to a problem. Take away the laws and the problems return. As we see from junk coming from China, one way to increase profits is by using cheaper materials and you can't get any cheaper than dirt.

[hunter]

3. You can't get cheaper than dirt, but there are things people will pay you to get rid of.

Turning waste materials into useful materials is a good idea environmentally, but without very strict regulations the consequences are sometimes catastrophic.

The first thing I think of is various counterfeit cooking oil disasters.

Diseased animals diverted back into the food stream would be another. (You've got to wonder how many cases of human dementia or killer pet foods can be traced back to that...)