The Poison Eaters

The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in Our Food and Drugs
By Gail Jarrow
Calkins Cree, an imprint of Boyds Mills & Kane, 2019. 157 p.

Once upon a time people put things like formaldehyde and borax in foods that were sold—and most people that ate the food had no idea that those dangerous chemicals were even in there. Poison Eaters tells the story of how the FDA came about to force people to label what is in the food that was being purchased. In order to accomplish this people like Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley had to do experiments—his most famous one involved feeding poisonous foods to willing test subjects—to show the world that they should want to know what is in their food (and later drugs and cosmetics). At times gory and gruesome, at times down right gross Jarrow explains all the ins and outs of what happened to make regulations to keep food, drugs, and cosmetics safe.

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