# Formaldehyde in milk? (historic)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formaldehyde-in-milk-historic/391657>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 10, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formaldehyde-in-milk-historic/391657 "2007-02-10T21:23:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formaldehyde-in-milk-historic/391657/1 "2007-02-10T21:23:32Z")

</div>

From Upton Sinclair’s _The Jungle_, the 1906 exposé of the meat-packing industry in Chicago, outcry over which led Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act later that same year:

> [@Upton Sinclair](#):
>
> There were many dangers, in which the odds were all against them. The children were not as well as they had been at home; but how could they know that there was no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen years was in a cesspool underneath it? How could they know that the pale-blue milk that they bought around the corner was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde, besides?

An unscrupulous shopkeeper watering down milk I can understand, but what’s up with the formaldehyde?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/formaldehyde-in-milk-historic/391657/2 "2007-02-10T21:27:11Z")

</div>

Probably a preservative.