Oleomargarine, colorants, 19.

Oleomargarine is a product made in imitation of butter, wbicb it resembles very closely in color, taste, odor, and general appearance. Under tlie original patent, it is made from beef-fat, which is bashed, steamed, and subjected to pressure at a carefully regulated temperature. Under this treatment it is separated into two fatty products, one a white solid etearine, the other a faintly yellow oil, "oleo-oiL This oil is then mixed with milk, the mixture colored and churned. The subsequent treatment of the promutton tallow, lard, and cotton-seed oil. 

Butter is frequently, and oleomargarine is always, colored with some foreign pigment, "butter color, which is usually a prepararion of annoto. 

Tallow-oil—obtained by expression with a gentle heat from the fat of the ox and sheep. Sp. gr. 0.9003 light yellow in color. Colored brown by HjSOi. Formerly this oil, under the trade name of " oleic acid, was simply a by-product in the manufacture of stearin candles of late years, however, it is specially prepared for the manufacture of oleomargarine. 

Oleomargarine and other butter-substitutes are made from mixtures of animal and vegetable oils. The olein from tallow, lard, or cottonseed oil is frequently used. These are colored and mixed with a small proportion of butter, or churned with milk in order to give the product the appearance and taste of butter. Oleomargarine can be distinguished from butter by the determination of the Reichert-Meissl number of each. That of the former is seldom more than 1, while that of butter is from 22 to 30. 

Uses Colorant in foods (sausage casings, oleomargarine, shortening), food-marking inks, cosmetics, textiles, pharmaceuticals... 

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