 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsGeneral TopicsCat AnecdotesHealth and BehaviorRescue CatKB.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Cat Forum / Cat Anecdotes / May 2007It's getting really scary now
Contaminated Feed Could Affect Farms Nationwide http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/01/recall.poultry/index.html Exerpt: "The protein products from China that are affected include: wheat gluten, rice gluten, rice protein, rice protein concentrate, corn gluten, corn gluten meal, corn byproducts, soy protein, soy gluten proteins, and mung bean protein, the FDA import alert dated April 27 said." Hugs, CatNipped > Contaminated Feed Could Affect Farms Nationwide > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > CatNipped Frankly, I'm not going to worry about it. I could drive myself crazy if I worried about everything that might be bad for me. I've no desire to drive myself crazy, so screw it :) Jill > Contaminated Feed Could Affect Farms Nationwide > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > CatNipped Netscapes news headlines today included one about the rejected melanine containing pet food having been widely fed to chickens destined for market as broilers and fryers! (Wonder where KFC and other fast-food outlets get theirs?) > Contaminated Feed Could Affect Farms Nationwide Am I being overly paranoid, or are others starting to wonder whether the grain contamination might have been a deliberate attempt to poison our food sources? >>Contaminated Feed Could Affect Farms Nationwide > > Am I being overly paranoid, or are others starting to wonder whether the > grain contamination might have been a deliberate attempt to poison our > food sources? That taking care of animal sources, while the mysterious fungus that seems to be wiping out the world's honey-bees does for vegetable sources? (Our urban civilization does not realize how much of our food supply depends upon pollination - largely by bees!) > That taking care of animal sources, while the mysterious > fungus that seems to be wiping out the world's honey-bees > does for vegetable sources? (Our urban civilization does > not realize how much of our food supply depends upon > pollination - largely by bees!) That'd be cutting off noses to spite faces, though - if the *entire world's* honey bees die off. Hard to believe that one's deliberate. Why aren't we looking at environmental causes? Lord knows we pollute the environment enough. And then there's genetic modification of produce, which could have an effect on fungal growths. Agribusiness has no idea what they've been getting into. Chaos theory, you know? Jeff Goldblum was right. :) Joyce > > Contaminated Feed Could Affect Farms Nationwide > Am I being overly paranoid, or are others starting to wonder whether the > grain contamination might have been a deliberate attempt to poison our > food sources? I've wondered about this almost since the beginning - but then, I do tend toward the paranoid generally, so that's probably not very reassuring, unless you'd rather be paranoid than right. (It's kind of a toss-up in my experience!) Actually, it's now believed that the contamination *was* deliberate. But that doesn't mean it was an act of terrorism. I think it was more like good old-fashioned corporate greed - they adulterated the grain to boost its protein content, and make more money while spending less to produce the stuff. (Although how a chemical that's used to make plastic registers as protein is a mystery to me. Any chemists - Yowie? - care to explain?) Joyce > it's now believed that the contamination *was* deliberate. But that > doesn't mean it was an act of terrorism. I think it was more like good > old-fashioned corporate greed - they adulterated the grain to boost its > protein content, and make more money while spending less to produce the > stuff. (Although how a chemical that's used to make plastic registers as > protein is a mystery to me. Any chemists - Yowie? - care to explain?) It contains nitrogen. The simplest way to measure the protein content of a food is just to burn it and measure the proportion of nitrogen in the gases given off. Since melamine is inert to most living things and chemically stable for most of the processing a foodstuff is likely to get, it makes commercial sense as an adulterant. (Splodge has just jumped on my lap to help me write this. Since he's got coeliac disease, he never eats catfood with added cereals and can say I Told You So. Apparently the way to write that in Cat is a lot of whitespace from holding the spacebar down with your tail). ============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ============== Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760 <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975 stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557 On May 3, 3:19 pm, Jack Campin - bogus address <b...@purr.demon.co.uk> wrote: > It contains nitrogen. The simplest way to measure the protein content > of a food is just to burn it and measure the proportion of nitrogen in > the gases given off. Since melamine is inert to most living things and > chemically stable for most of the processing a foodstuff is likely to > get, it makes commercial sense as an adulterant. Just out of curiosity (as I used to work in biochemistry labs), how do you measure the nitrogen released? Nitrogen is an inert gas, right? Winnie -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- From: Winnie <wwl10@yahoo.ca> >Nitrogen is an inert gas, right? Nope! On May 4, 4:21 am, jXwXeXrXmXoX...@sonic.net wrote: > > On Wed, 02 May 2007 08:02:12 -0500, CatNipped wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Joyce I don't know anything about the chemistry, but I was reading an online article yesterday on the New Scientist web page on this issue. It appears that there are several plausible explanations of how the melamine got into the food, not the least of which is that it may be a breakdown product of a routinely used pesticide. Here is a link to that article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426023.600-melamine-suspected-of-killing -hundreds-of-us-pets.html or http://tinyurl.com/33fs74 I think that the evidence for deliberate poisoning of the food is relatively weak and that it is far more likely to be the usual cause, which is unforseen consequences of the chemicals we (in a global sense) put onto our crops. For what it's worth, the honeybee die-off thing is very serious and the most credible explanation I've heard so far is, once again, side- effects of wide-spread chemical (pesticide) use. Tish > I think that the evidence for deliberate poisoning of the food is > relatively weak I just want to repeat that I don't believe anyone was trying to deliberately *poison* anyone, animal or human. I think they were cutting corners, economically, and they believed that the amount of the chemical was within safe limits. Or possibly, they didn't care, so weren't properly informed. But, reprehensible as that is, it's still quite different from having the primary goal of harming living beings. I'm not willing to go there, unless real evidence for that were to surface. I would rather believe that it was greed - a common enough motive - and not someone trying to stab at the heart of the Western world by killing our pets - ugh! > it is far more likely to be the usual cause, which is unforseen > consequences of the chemicals we (in a global sense) put onto our > crops. That is certainly plausible, too! > For what it's worth, the honeybee die-off thing is very serious > and the most credible explanation I've heard so far is, once > again, side- effects of wide-spread chemical (pesticide) use. I find this whole thing very chilling. It could cause a major worldwide disaster. Joyce > > I think that the evidence for deliberate poisoning of the food is > > relatively weak [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > >Joyce According to a recent article in the _New York Times_, the adulteration of animal feed with melamine in order to raise the measured protein content is a common practice in China. It is against the law, but the law isn't enforced. Apparently, not all the farmers realize that they are being duped. The manufacturers apparently believe that the amount of melamine they are adding is harmless to the animals. It is possible that some species may be able to tolerate it better than do other species. At one time, the Chinese animal-feed manufacturers reportedly used urea as an adulterant in order to raise the measured protein content, but switched to melamine because it was harder to detect. The article states that the Chinese news media (which is government- controlled) has not reported anything about the melamine issue. It is illegal in China to publish anything critical of the government, including statements that the food safety inspectors aren't doing a good job, so Westerners are likely to know more about the problem than do most of the Chinese people.  SignatureJohn F. Eldredge -- john@jfeldredge.com PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria > At one time, the Chinese animal-feed manufacturers reportedly used > urea as an adulterant in order to raise the measured protein content, > but switched to melamine because it was harder to detect. Urea was completely legit and has been added to animal feed all over the world for decades. Some animals can metabolize it as a nitrogen source. Melamine was at best a swindle since *no* farm animal can use it as a nutrient. ============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ============== Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760 <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975 stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557 >Actually, it's now believed that the contamination *was* deliberate. But >that doesn't mean it was an act of terrorism. I think it was more like good >old-fashioned corporate greed - they adulterated the grain to boost its >protein content, and make more money while spending less to produce the >stuff. (Although how a chemical that's used to make plastic registers as >protein is a mystery to me. Any chemists - Yowie? - care to explain?) Remember from biology class how all the sugars and carbs are variations of C-H-O, and all the amino acids are variations of C-H-O-N? On May 3, 2:21 pm, jXwXeXrXmXoX...@sonic.net wrote: > Actually, it's now believed that the contamination *was* deliberate. But > that doesn't mean it was an act of terrorism. I think it was more like good [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Joyce I agree with you Joyce That's exactly why they spiked it, to make a fast buck. I heard similar stories before about putting stuff in food products to make them look better etc, without any regard to safety. Winnie > I agree with you Joyce That's exactly why they spiked it, to make a > fast buck. I heard similar stories before about putting stuff in food > products to make them look better etc, without any regard to safety. Lots of foods get additives to make them look more appealing, or "behave" better (eg, pour out of a bottle more smoothly). Some are considered to be harmful, but most of the time there's no direct proof, so it ends up being controversial. I try to avoid heavily processed foods with a lot of additives because I do believe they can be harmful. I can't take anyone to court about that, but I can always refuse to eat it. With the melamine, it seems like there's some pretty solid evidence that it caused widespread kidney failure in pets. Maybe that's why this is such a big story. Joyce |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.