Tannat

The range of substances that were added to food during this period was astonishing, as was the near-complacency of both the authorities and the public. It was discovered that chalk and the mineral alum were almost ubiquitously present in flour and bread. Chalk was also added to milk as a whitener if it was too watery; cider and wine were sweetened with lead; and brick dust was often used to thicken cocoa. Tea leaves often contained nominal or no actual tea leaves but rather the dried leaves of a variety of hedgerow plants dyed with red lead.

 

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The most adulterated foods were naturally the cheapest, with bread, flour and tea suffering the largest substitution of non-edible adulterants. The poorest families, already short of nutrients, were further starved by the chalk, pipe clay and alum that replaced a portion of their bread and flour. Most knew it, too, but there was nothing they could do.

That's an awful sense of desperation...