The tainted pet-food recall is six weeks old, and only now is the FDA stirring its lazy self to take a look into the problem.It should be obvious to anybody who eats: If the food targeted for pets was tainted (deliberately, it seems, with melamine to increase the protein analysis — and therefore the presumed value — of the corn, wheat and rice products), then it's entirely likely that food intended for the human market could be similarly poisoned.
Oh, wait! It already is. Pigs are being fed "salvaged" pet food. Humans eat pork.
The FDA seems to have known about this since last year.
I am sickened.
It pays to know where your food is coming from.
Mcjoan at Daily Kos has a good post on the situation.
The photo is of a happy, presumably healthy pig raised at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, CA. Cranky and I love that farm so much we went up there for a field trip not long ago. I don't think miss piggy eats salvaged pet food.
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It is maddening. And precisely why "know your food" is my mantra. To paraphrase Shrub: "I trust the farmers, I don't trust the federal government".
And I'm beyond delighted to hear of your new digs. Hooray for earth to plant in! :)
*sigh* Let's bring back the family farms. On my grandfather's farm the pigs were fed ground corn. I know this because I had to help grind the feed as a child. This is a memory that one will never forget. Because the corn grinding process? Well, you end up with a lot of dust in the air that can only be removed from one's self by bathing. I kept my hair tied up in a scarf but it was Alabama in the summer. It invariably landed on my arms and legs. So at the end of the day, we all lined up for a long soak in the single clawfoot tub.
What new digs?
Yuk, that's enough to put me off pork.
beccy are you sure it will put you off bacon!!
Babe! You found him! How cute!
This whole tainted food scandal has left me so angry I can barely see straight. Such cynical, callous disregard for life. What's maybe the worst part is that I don't think anything's really going to change as a result of this happening.
As you know, we've started home-cooking for our dogs. (We should have done it years ago--we're not naive about what goes into processed foods, especially the ones that don't make the cut for "human-grade"--but sometimes it takes a catalyst like this to give us a shove in the right direction.) And we're very, very grateful that we know the woman who raises our pork.
A point on the melamine problem. It’s probably not melamine. Melamine has really low toxicity. It’s probably something that co-locates with melamine (like an impurity of melamine manufacture). Frankly I think this is worse because it goes to show that you can’t test for what you don’t know you’re looking for. We need general standards for food production that have to be followed wherever the food came from, spot inspections to make sure it’s being followed, and rewards for whistle-blowers on major issues.
See ‘Grading the News’ reports on melamine at angrytoxicologist.com if you’re interested in more.
WTF is up with this country and it's bottom-line eating habits??!! we will buy water in a bottle, but could care less where those $1.99 a pound pork chops came from. time to really focus on eating off the grid...
Liz: He *is* the federal government! Heckuva job, Bushie. Remember Homeland Security? We don't even inspect our own incoming food.
Dagny: I love your story. I didn't know the corn fed to pigs was ground. You little dusty thing. So cute.
SFMike: Bailing on Santa Venetia and scooting over to Terra Linda. About a mile and a half. No biggie, but some room to plant. :-)
Beccy: I hear it's in factory-farm raised chickens, too. Jeez.
ChrisB: Even vegetarians eat bacon. It's unavoidable.
KathyF: I inch ever closer to vegetarianism.
Jamie: I know the food supply we currently have for our pooch is safe, but when it runs out, I think I'll be making homemade dogfood. Luckily our human-grade food sources around here are reliable, if we shop right.
AngryToxicologist: I will pay a visit to your site. Thanks for your interpretation of the facts. I did read in the NYTimes today that food producers in China freely admit to adding melamine. Don't know if that's the poison that killed 4,000 pets, though (the FDA finally blurted some numbers).
Stacie: And the plastic in the water bottle is bad for you. Ick. Wahhh!
Bin Laden is taking copious notes.
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