A Rainbow Palate
How Chemical Dyes Changed the West’s Relationship with Food
288 pages
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4 halftones, 3 tables
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6 x 9
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© 2020
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Food adulteration and the rise of the food chemist
2 The wonder of coal tar dyes
3 From dye manufacturer to food manufacturer
4 The struggle to devise tests to detect dyes and assess their toxicity
5 The appointment of public food analysts in Britain
6 How British food chemists responded to the use of coal tar dyes
7 French and German chemists seek to arbitrate the use of synthetic chemicals in food
8 The US government acts against chemical dyes in food
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Review Quotes
Hasok Chang, University of Cambridge
"If you thought food coloring was not a serious subject in the history of science, this engaging and accessible book will show you very quickly just how wrong you were. Cobbold tells a wonderful story of complex and fascinating mutual interactions of science, commerce, industry, government, journalism, and law, about how powerful interests jostled around the use and regulation of potentially hazardous synthetic chemical dyes in food. This is a neglected aspect of the celebrated developments in organic chemistry and the dyestuffs industry in the late nineteenth century. In Cobbold’s detailed account, reaching across several countries, we witness how political and legal systems were at a loss to know how to manage and regulate the impact of a formidable and fast-moving field of science, while scientific experts found themselves unable to control the use of their creations or the narratives told about them. A Rainbow Palate is an illuminating cautionary tale of how an important unintended consequence of cutting-edge science can work itself into the very fabric of our daily lives without a clear plan on anyone’s part."
Simon Werrett, author of Thrifty Science
"In this timely book, Cobbold tells the remarkable story of how the first industrially produced chemical food dyes were created and adjudicated as legitimate additives to food. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century chemists, manufacturers, legislators, and the public all wrestled with questions around food additives still highly relevant today, concerning risk, health, public safety, regulation, testing, and the environment. Were food colorings brilliant instances of scientific and industrial progress or toxic and unnatural artifices? How could dangers be detected and who could keep the public safe? Faced with uncertainty, how should people trust what they ate? Lively and significant, A Rainbow Palate will be indispensable for anyone interested in the difficult process by which societies manage, and fail to manage, radical new technoscientific entities."
BBC Science Focus
“10 of the best science books coming out this month—September 2020”
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History: Environmental History | History of Technology
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