Photo credit: Foodimentary.com
I was watching the morning news here in Philadephia, PA, USA this morning. It was FOX 29 and they have what is best described as a roving reporter named Steve Keeley, who saw a ketchup packet at the place where he was reporting from. He mentioned that after seeing what ketchup looked like under a microscope when he was young and after a teacher had passed around a book explaining the pitfalls of ketchup that he would never touch the stuff ever again and never has.
Apparently, there was book written in 1911, I've done a good bit of research and it states that it was never copyrighted according to a government investigator named Judy Jordan, so I feel it is safe to post a snippet of the first page or so here for people to see. Needless to say, this document is over 100 years old and was published by the US Department of Agriculture. A lot has changed since then. I've done my fair share Google image searches and see some mixed results of things like the skin of the tomato still being in ketchup, but that is what I would expect to see. This publication is 26 pages long and I'd be happy to share it somehow in PDF form for its interesting insights of how things were then. I have to believe that things are far better nowadays.
Nonetheless, it is National Ketchup Day, so enjoy it however you see fit. I can't imagine they would have had such a day back in 1911, based on this old text though. It is rather interesting that people in their 50's and 60's remember this book and will not eat ketchup to this day though.
Content credit: B.J. Howard
Note the negative undertones in how it full of bacteria and it just seems like they practically putting the stuff in the category of a poison. It is amazing how far we have come. My research also shows a lot of people not so much concerned about bacteria and things like that any more. The newest concern is the high fructose corn syrup and the concerns about the usage of MSG. Lots of people are raving about making their own ketchup because of it.
I for one, have to have what I consider the gold standard, which is Heinz ketchup. I can tell if it is anything else, even if it is something close like Hunt's. I need the Heinz!