It's not just Chinese food that's poisoned anymore

[asterroc]

In case you missed this news of the past few years, the melamine-poisoned milk from China that surfaced in Sept 2008 was prefaced a year and a half earlier in April 2007 by a massive recall of pet foods made by company Menu Foods due to melamine poisoning. Melamine is a chemical usually found in plastics that causes complete kidney shutdown in humans and cats, and significant kidney damage in dogs. The reason the melamine was added in the first place was a scam - regulations in China require a certain amount of protein in both milk powder (which was part of the final milk product) and wheat gluten (which was part of the final petfood products). The simple tests used in China cannot distinguish between protein (expensive) and melamine (cheap), so the outcome was inevitable.

And now pet foods produced in the US are turning up tainted with salmonella (PetSmart brand dog treats that include peanuts from one factory). There's already been an outbreak in humans handling their pets' treats, but I predict that in a year and a half this will make it into the human food supply. Avoid peanuts Summer 2010.

Edit: turns out it wasn't just petfood peanuts that were contaminated, but lots of others, so it's already hitting the humans. So much for petfood being a litmus test.

Comments

[demigoth.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I'd be as worried about peanuts, since it's a different problem (i.e. nobody is purposely adding salmonella to peanut butter, probably). I haven't heard about pet foods yet (so thanks for the heads-up) but it's been in the news the past week or so about industrial-grade peanut butter being contaminated. The tubs of Jiffy, etc. are fine, but stay away from those Lance-brand crackers, and any other processed food which may contain peanut butter, if you want to be safe. Um, based on the info I have so far.

Still, I'm at least a little worried about it until they come up with a plausible origin of contamination.

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

Ummm.....what are you talking about... Peanut butter is being recalled like crazy! Especially peanut butter snacks like crackers & cookies.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

People's replies to this are the first I'd heard of PB recalls.

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair your post was the first I'd heard of the pet food....

http://www.fda.gov/opacom/7alerts.html

LOTS of PB things being recalled, might care to check it out to be safe.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

And this time the Peanut butter came from a US factory. Here in Georgia.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The pattern that started with pet foods in China exported to the US is now *originating* in the US.

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

Well at least this time is is a bacteria that has been an issue in our food supply since like 2005, and not chemicals meant to con people by producing false protein content.