A report from the Medical Officer of Health for London in the late 19th century described a bread sample containing a small dark brown foreign body composed of a mixture of grease, flour, sawdust, rust, and poppy seeds. This finding illustrates the grotesque range of contaminants that could be found in everyday food. The report was one of many that documented the failure of existing food safety laws.

The image of a foreign body containing rust and grease in bread became a symbol of the grotesque realities of industrial food production. Writers of the naturalist school, such as Émile Zola and Frank Norris, used such details to create vivid, unflinching portraits of urban life. The theme of contaminated food also appears in the works of later modernists, who were interested in the alienation and degradation of modern existence.