Eeny, mela-miney mo — who is minding our food sto’?: The New York Times reports that China isn’t the only country using melamine in animal feed. A Ohio manufacturing plant was using melamine as a binding agent for feed for farmed fish, shrimp, and livestock. Discovered in independent testing, the melamine came from Tembec BTLSR, a Canadian forest products company that makes resins and certain chemicals for industrial uses; Tembec surely should have known to stop using it after the contaminated Chinese gluten scandal hit the front pages. The Brownfield Network quotes new FDA food-safety czar David Acheson as saying, “You know, if I was a CEO of a company, I would be asking the question, ‘Do I know who I’m getting my supplies from and do I know exactly what’s in it?’” We think eaters should be asking themselves exactly the same thing. Full transcript of yesterday’s FDA-reporter conference call here.
The protein wars: The specter of mad-cow disease haunts EU plans to feed chickens to pigs and vice versa. An EU body says use of meat meal from non-ruminants poses no danger to human health, and it’s true that chickens and pigs are both omnivores (unlike cattle, which are ruminants). The problem is whether, given the labyrinthine food supply, the proteins can be kept separate enough so as to avoid species cannibalism that could give rise to more prion diseases. (Times UK)
PETA 2, BevCo 0: Under pressure from PETA, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have agreed to stop financing research that uses animals to test or develop their products. PETA already got Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice to cease tests on rabbits for … possible erectile dysfunction relief? (New York Times)
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