Food Fraud : The Swill Milk Scandal
“It is not of swindlers and liars that we have need
to lie in fear, but of the fact that swindling and
lying are gradually becoming not abhorrent to our minds”
- Anthony Trollope, The New Zealander (1856)1
Food fraud i.e. the adulteration of food, is the act of intentionally debasing the quality of food to maximise profit. Ignorance, negligence and the lack of proper facilities has led to incidental adulteration, but it is contamination of the intentional, economically motivated, kind that has proven much more sinister.
Food fraud is not a recent phenomenon. In mid nineteenth century New York City, milk was in high demand and women were under pressure to wean sooner, especially amongst the poorer communities where a quick return to work was crucial. New York whiskey distillers and milk vendors found an inventive way of turning waste into profit. This led to the Swill Milk Scandal, where milk from diseased and dying dairy cattle was intentionally misbranded as ‘Pure Country Milk’ and thousands of children died.
Fast-growing economies, together with governmental subterfuge, lack of regulation and the lure of easy profit has exacerbated the temptation to contaminate food. Financial gain continues to eclipse the health and safety of the people. As an example - In 2015, the Ukraine exported 19,000 tonnes of berries contaminated with radiation (as a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster). In 2018 five were jailed in Vietnam for adding a battery-dyed compound of gravel and coffee bean skins to black pepper. In India, food safety official seized 34,000kg of tea adulterated with synthetic colours. In 2019, Texan meat plant executives pleaded guilty to supplying prisons with adulterated beef. In Pakistan, milk was adulterated with detergents, shampoo, urea, washing powder and formaldehyde.
In 1840s New York, Robert Hartley, advocate for social reform, attempted to expose the truth behind the rise in the city’s infant mortality and its link to swill milk production. Hartley declared the milk unfit for consumption, but public skepticism and lack of regulation left wealthy distillers and farmers free to continue turning their filthy trade.
Although hundreds of cattle were kept in shacks adjacent to New York distilleries, the majority of swill milk was transported into the city from county dairies. One of the most notable suppliers was located in Blissville, Long Island. Stabled in appalling conditions, the cattle were fed residual grain mash, waste from whiskey production, the nauseating stench of which could be smelled for miles. The animals refused to consume the hot, foul substance, until their hunger became unbearable. Sick cows were milked until they dropped and those unable to provide milk were slaughtered, the diseased meat smuggled to New York City for sale as food.
The tainted swill milk, full of the impurities of disease, was whitened with plaster of Paris, rotten eggs, burnt sugar and flour. It was consumed throughout the city and the poison acted quickly, most notably on the young. Swill milk was responsible for thousands of infant deaths, predominantly from dysentery and cholera infantum.
In 1858, The New York Times raised questions concerning the seeming reluctance of the Board of Health in regard to abating the swill milk trade. The newspaper highlighted the great efforts made by city leaders to eradicate diseases such as cholera in 1854 (322 deaths recorded) and yellow fever in 1856 (58 deaths).2 The Board were asked to promptly ‘ - not like spasmodically-virtuous office-holders in the last quarter before election, but intelligently a men to whom the health and lives of our infant population are trusted - abate the nuisance, or summarily punish the offenders.’2
A Committee of Enquiry was set up, but corrupt officials had for years shielded the worst operators. Of all, Michael Tuomey was the most notorious. Alderman and Chairman of the Committee, Tuomey proved himself a partisan of the swill milk producers and enabled the peddling of diseased milk and meat. His behaviour, unscrupulous and blatantly corrupt, was not uncommon practice at the time. Dairies were pre-warned of official visits (giving them opportunity to dispose of evidence), witnesses were bullied and independent inspections were met with heated opposition. Reporters were unwelcome and visitors threatened. Unsurprisingly, the Committee declared swill milk to be not detrimental to the health of infants or adults.
In 1848, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News labelled Tuomey as dishonest. A man who protected his friends and patrons, the distillery owners and swill-milk vendors from the scrutiny of an honest enquiry. An illustration showed Tuomey and fellow officials whitewashing the swill milk trade. Leslie had the putrid milk analysed. He hired illustrators to document scenes of ulcerated cattle and obtained reports from eminent physicians asserting that swill milk was the cause of infant mortality. Leslie’s courageous, rebellious determination, amidst personal threat, was exceptional. Michael Tuomey filed a lawsuit but Leslie’s continued activism led to public outrage and ultimately policy and societal change.
The end of the swill milk trade did not however stop certain farmers using distillery waste as feed. A visit to a Blissville stock farm in 1887 by the Star Dairy Commission found animals confined and diseased. A brewer was asked about the stench, to which he replied.
‘Now don’t turn your nose up at the smell… If you were in the trade you’d think it a real sweet perfume.’ 3.
Fundamentally, food adulteration is a manifestation of human greed, as is the ecological crisis and climate breakdown. When did greed become acceptable? The ‘desire for profit that knows no limit.’3. It hasn’t always been that way. ‘We sometimes forget that the pursuit of commercial self-interest was largely reviled until just a few centuries ago.’4.
It will take a significant shift in the dominant paradigmatic perspective if the planet is to recover and its life forms, including human beings, are to survive. To quote environmental campaigner James Gustave Speth, ‘The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy… And to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.’4.
‘Swindled. From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee -- The Dark History of the Food Cheats’ Wilson. B. John Murray 2008.
‘Swill Milk and Infant Mortality’ The New York Times. May 22, 1858. P.4.
‘Brewery Stock Farms’. The New York Times. Oct 25, 1884. P.2
‘Greed is Good: A 300-year History of a Dangerous Idea. Rollert J.P. The Atlantic. April 7, 2014
‘Sustainability and the Humanities’ Filho W.L. (editor) & McCrea A.C. (editor). Springer 2018 p.p.360
The New York Times ‘Timesmachine’ Archive.
Atlas Obscura - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/swill-milk-scandal-new-york-city
EVERSTINE, K., SPINK, J., & KENNEDY, S. (2013). Economically Motivated Adulteration (EMA) of Food: Common Characteristics of EMA Incidents. Journal of Food Protection. (via Sci-hub)