Article ID: CBB479664066

Pure White Bread? Bleached Flour, Contestations, and Regulation in Great Britain, 1900–50 (2023)

unapi

Why was bleaching—despite early concerns about this new food technology—left unregulated for over half a century? This article focuses on the processes developed to artificially whiten flour in the first half of the twentieth century. It shows how, instead of circumscribing adulteration to practices that they could identify precisely, most scientists in fact foregrounded the limits of their expertise and called for a precautionary approach when dealing with new food technologies and the attendant risks. Setting the British case within a more international context provides a window into the difficulties that regulatory regimes faced, narrowing their definition of adulteration to demonstrably harmful practices. This type of regime led to legitimizing the use of new, potentially dangerous products and processes and made further regulation much more complicated once these technologies became widespread.

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Authors & Contributors
Allgaier, Joachim
Berneking, Carolyn Bailey
Berridge, Virginia
Blum, Deborah L.
Blume, Stuart S.
Gentilcore, David
Journals
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Archives of Natural History
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Journal of the History of Biology
Public Understanding of Science
Publishers
MIT Press
University of California, Santa Cruz
Edizioni Polistampa
Frank Cass
Franz Steiner Verlag
Johns Hopkins University Press
Concepts
Public health
Controversies and disputes
Food science; food technology
Food industry and trade
Safety regulations
Food and foods
People
Bailey, Edgar Henry Summerfield
Feingold, Ben F.
Manetti, Saverio
Rüdin, Ernst
Sinclair, Upton Beall
Wiley, Harvey Washington
Time Periods
20th century, early
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
19th century
18th century
Places
Great Britain
United States
Germany
Vietnam
China
Europe
Institutions
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
United States. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)
Monsanto Corporation
International Agency for Research on Cancer
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