Review: The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Deborah Blum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If COVID-19 is leading you to gain the "quarantine 15," you may want to check this book out. It will definitely help curb your appetite!

Dating back to the mid-1800's, this book follows the career of Dr. Harvey Wiley, the chemist whose crusade for safer food ultimately led to the creation of the FDA. Though I did find my mind drifting off at times while listening to it, the book was a fascinating look at the additives, such as borax and formaldehyde, which were once considered to be acceptable in our food and how sometimes common spices, such as pepper, contained very little - if any - pepper at all.

I did feel there was a bit of repetition throughout the book - ketchup was mentioned frequently before the section devoted just to it, for example. I was fascinated at times by the logic of those opposed to stricter food labeling and amazed to learn how long big business has had it's hand in this aspect of the government. I didn't realize Monsanto has been around for as long as they have, for example. (Or that Nabisco was once called the National Biscuit Company - fun bit of trivia!). As someone who is allergic to sulfites, I found the part of the book addressing its use in foods to be very interesting. Whiskey has quite a history as to what can and cannot be called whiskey!

Though this book primarily centers around the late 1800's and early 1900's, it still made me wonder what is lurking in our food and considered acceptable - are there still pumpkin rinds in my ketchup or nut shells in my ground pepper? What exactly are "natural flavors?" Given that it's mentioned in the epilogue, what is the current administration doing to our food we don't know about?

Wiley's legacy is quite the story of mostly uphill battles and triumph, but he also faced plenty of defeat as well in his quest to make our food safer and get us to where we are today.

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