I've Never Been A Coffee Fan
At least now I know why
I know once people get connected to real food, they never change back. — Alice Waters
I am thrilled to announce my YA trilogy is complete and available on Amazon. Book 3 went live recently and is therefore hot off the digital press.
Publishing books is probably a little like what you hear from actors when they are promoting their latest films. It’s usually been months or years since they worked on it. By they time they are making the talk show rounds, they’ve moved on to lots of other things.
While I will need to continue into the marketing phase of this trilogy, I am already editing my next project. Suffice to say it is something of a departure from the YA conspiracy thriller genre. Adult historical fiction, to be exact. I will tell you all about that in upcoming newsletters.
In the process of writing The Centé Conspiracy trilogy, my research ranged far and wide. When I sat down to write this today, I discovered I had neglected to share one of the most fascinating factoids. The story includes a group of antagonists known as the Poison Squad. They are a bunch of hired goons. Think of them as private security in black suits with ‘roid rage.
The name ‘Poison Squad’ was inspired by the real-life Poison Squad from the early 1900s. The original Poison Squad guys weren’t overly aggressive no-neck sadists. At least, not that we know of. They were a group of young men hired as human subjects in food testing clinical trials. Back in the day, human trials were sometimes the first stage of scientific inquiry rather than the last.
Shocking, I know. Equally shocking is the circumstance that inspired the formation of human food trials. There was no food industry regulation at that time. Why would there be? Most folks grew their own food and ate it fairly quickly after it was picked or slaughtered. But with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, many relocated to urban areas. They gave up farm life for factory life. And that meant they had neither time nor the means to provide their own food. Someone else would have to do that for them.
The food industry quickly saw an opportunity. They got busy figuring out how to package and transport enough food to feed those hungry factory workers so they could cash in. And they didn’t much care how they did it.
In the days before food labeling and government regulation, they could put anything in a can, slap a label on it, and call it done. Big Food had absolutely no clue how these ingredients might affect the consumer. One might argue they didn’t care.
Ingredients like borax and arsenic and formaldehyde were often used as preservatives or to add color. You would not believe the stuff they used as filler, just to pad their bottom line. Gypsum in flour. Brick dust in cinnamon. Charred bone, sawdust, even plain old dirt in coffee. There’s a reason some people call it ‘mud’.
Enter Dr. Harvey Wiley. Our boy Wiley was an Indiana chemistry professor and one of the founding faculty at Purdue. He convinced President Roosevelt (Teddy, not FDR) and others that it might be important to look over the shoulders of the corrupt food industrialists and keep an eye on what they were up to.
Wiley established a research construct he christened the Hygienic Table Trials. It wasn’t long before it became known as the Poison Squad. Probably because no one could spell ‘hygienic’, and they didn’t have autocorrect back then. Plus, way better PR traction.
The Poison Squad consisted of about a dozen underpaid government workers. Wiley lured them with the promise of free food and $5 a day. So, basically a side hustle. The idea was to have them eat a variety of ingredients under controlled conditions, and just wait and see if it made them sick.
You gotta admire the simplicity. Also the irony that the only reason he could get away with this was the lack of government regulation at the time.
Salicylic acid was found to cause bleeding in the lining of the stomach. Formaldehyde was fine, as long as the person using it was a corpse. If consumed by a live human being, not so much. Once Wiley’s test results got on the radar of the general public, momentum for change grew.
This was not a great look for the food industry. They had invested a lot in lobbying Congress to maintain the status quo. The last thing they wanted was government oversight into their factories; especially if it negatively impacted their bottom line. (Some things never change.) It was tough sledding trying to get the politicians on board. They were too busy counting the money Big Food shoveled their way.
But over time, Dr. Wiley and his Poison Squad strategy made progress. Societal pressures from women’s groups, the popularity of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book The Jungle, and the occasional corporation stepping forward to do the right thing eventually applied enough societal pressure on Congress to outweigh the sweetheart deals from the food industry. The Food and Drug Act passed in 1906.
It took a little longer to get Coca-Cola to stop putting cocaine in its soft drinks. But that’s another story.
I will leave you with three things:
I went to see Barbie with a group of friends recently (yes, we wore pink). You’ve probably seen a bunch of quotes from the movie. This one isn’t getting as much attention as some of the others, but I think it was my favorite. Ken: You guys aren't doing patriarchy very well. Mattel Bro: We’re still doing it; we just hide it better now.
Our local library book club is reading All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby. Thoroughly enjoyed. It’s an ethnically diverse Jack Reacher meets Silence of the Lambs.
It looks like the hummingbirds are heading south for the season. A neighbor reported a recent scrum at their feeder. I saw one today taking a rest on the blade of our ceiling fan on the back porch. I just read here that contrary to popular belief, it’s okay to keep your feeders out. It won’t delay them, and it might help them fuel up on their journey south. Especially in these horribly hot drought conditions.
When an investigation of illegal match fixing by the Russian mob brings the FBI to her tennis club in the person of hunky agent Wilson DuBois, Veronica Burk vows to help him solve the case quickly before her own very successful gambling habit falls under suspicion.
Ventured is available now on Amazon.
When she takes a chance on making a new life for herself, French orphan and cutpurse extraordinaire Belle must find a way to survive in the New World—or she may not live long enough to enjoy it.
My YA trilogy is also still available if historical fiction isn’t your thing.
Brody Morgan grew up starring in commercials for his dad's mega food corporation. What will Brody do when he discovers what he's really been selling?
Congratulations on completing your trilogy Lissa. Such a huge accomplishment. All your research behind it sounds fascinating and might even compel your YA readers to read their food labels more closely.