I bet you half the US has already eaten contaminated food from this incident.
Six weeks later, we now learn that non-recalled product is also contaminated which completely invalidates any real accuracy as to what ingredients went into what finished product.
IMHO, much of the pet food industry is a complete scam. They built a house of cards, and it is all falling down now.
“I bet you half the US has already eaten contaminated food from this incident.”
That seems more likely with each passing day now.
My wife and I are convinced we would have lost our black lab if she (my wife) hadn’t changed ‘lucy’s’ diet last December away from one of the first dog foods recalled.
Wheat gluten is a by-product of wheat milling for refined flour. As such, it is packaged and sold as a high-protein animal feed ingredient.
High-protein feed ingredients are sold on the basis of ‘crude protein’, which is a measure of nitrogenous compounds in the formulation. But there are a number of non-protein sources of nitrogen content, among which are the additives urea and melamine. Alone, or in combination, they can raise the apparent ‘crude protein’ content of the feed ingredient.
In very small concentrations, both melamine and urea have little effect on most animals (and humans). They are filtered out by the kidneys and are passed out through the urine. The problem comes for creatures with a single-stomach digestive system, in higher concentration or if the animal is relatively small. The excess non-protein nitrogenous materials become biological toxins, destroying the various organs of the body, starting with the overloaded kidneys.
Now some species of animals are able to consume melamine or urea, and through a complexity of their digestive system, as in ruminants, which have multiple “stomachs” to digest what what would otherwise be unpalatable organic material.
The bacteria in the second stomach of a ruminant converts cellulose and melamine or urea into amino acids, which are then used for building blocks for protein, thus solving the problem (for the cow) of how to metabolize the melamine or urea, by turning it into a useful source of nourishment. Cats and dogs lack this particular modification of the digestive system, and are unable to assimilate the melamine or urea. For that matter, chickens, pigs, horses and human beings also lack this ability, causing them great grief when consuming melamine-urea.
Because an animal has consumed melamine-urea, does not mean that its flesh is unsuitable for eating, or that the milk or eggs produced are in any way affected. Nobody is going to pick up a dead chicken, for example, butcher it and eat it. Likewise with a pig. Cattle, sheep and other ruminants, on the other hand, have already effectively modified and assimilated the nitrogenous compounds, and nowhere in the meat or milk may the compounds be detected.
And that, dear children, is today’s lesson in biodiversity.
I had a Domino’s Brooklyn style pizza and both I and my nephew became ill. I threw up and that’s something I rarely do. Could Domino’s be one of the customers for chinese gluten?
Fortunately, I stopped eating dog and cat foods months ago.