1 post tagged “pet food recall”
Filler in animal feed is open secret in China
ZHANGQIU, China: As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.
For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed with the substance, called melamine, a cheap additive that looks like protein in tests, even though it does not provide any nutritional benefits, according to melamine scrap traders and agricultural workers here.
"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish feed," said Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui Chemical Company, which sells melamine. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it. Probably not. No law or regulation says 'don't do it,' so everyone's doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no accident, there won't be any regulation."
[...]
He said he was not currently using melamine. But he then pulled out a plastic bag containing what he said was melamine powder and said he could dye it any color to match the right feed stock.
He said that melamine used in pet food would probably not be harmful. "Pets are not like pigs or chickens," he said casually, explaining that they can afford to eat less protein. "They don't need to grow fast."
The resulting melamine-tainted feed would be weak in protein, he acknowledged, which means the feed is less nutritious.
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Do you know where YOUR food comes from?
Pets don't need as much protein because they don't need to grow fast... okay. Those of us with diabetic pets who must eat high protein diets (not to mention cats for example are made to eat protein and fat, not carbs) probably do not find this very comforting.
To keep up to date on the pet food recall that now is spanning the globe, visit Itchmo.Neighborhood
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