The Shotgun Blog
« Crackdown On Women | Main | Sneak preview »
Monday, April 23, 2007
Poisoned food from Communist China enters human food chain
Kudos to Steve Janke for staying on top of this already huge yet still growing scandal, which is now looking like a deliberate move by food processors in Communist China to risk loss of life to make grain exports look more nutritious (and more valuable) than they really were.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on April 23, 2007 in International Affairs, Weblogs | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200d8345554fe69e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Poisoned food from Communist China enters human food chain:
Comments
Jim sells cheap sandwiches.
Roy thinks Jim is an ass, but Roy would rather spend his time playing Nintendo, so Roy buys a sandwich off of Jim.
Roy gets sick from something. Maybe the sandwich. Maybe all the Nintendo and chips and beer and smoking.
Sue sees the whole affair unfold and labels Roy an evil monster and Jim a sympathetic victim/hero.
Posted by: Observer | 2007-04-23 3:20:12 PM
Just testing - to see how simple it would be to poison the food supply. Step one demonstrates how quick and simple it would be. Step two takes place as Chinese forces invade Taiwan.
Posted by: obc | 2007-04-23 3:30:43 PM
Observer
I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you. I thought you would be the first person in line to condemn what will, no doubt, soon be the world's largest CORPORATION for padding their profit margin at the expense of human safety.
I guess I had you pegged all wrong.
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2007-04-23 5:39:51 PM
I'm full of surprises. Frankly I'm shocked that we stuff our cats, our dogs, and ourselves with food products bought from people we in turn call our enemies. Tell me that's not naive.
Posted by: Observer | 2007-04-23 6:27:12 PM
Observer,
Who is this "we" of whom you speak?
Additionally, by calling those people "naive", this indicates an admission on your part that there is some reason to FEAR otherwise, why would they be naive?
Are you now suggesting there is a reason to FEAR China?
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2007-04-23 6:31:00 PM
Observer,
"Frankly I'm shocked that we stuff our cats, our dogs, and ourselves with food products bought from people we in turn call our enemies. Tell me that's not naive."
Further to my previous post, most I'm sure you'll be the first to say that most Canadians are not like us WS posters. Hence, they don't call China their enemy. So why do you call them naive for trusting a "friend" not to poison them or their beloved pets?
Now who is being naive?
Posted by: h2o273kk9 | 2007-04-23 6:45:04 PM
I bought and read this book in 1997, when it was first published, and have fed my two American Water Spaniels fresh cooked chicken, carrots, broccoli, yams, and brown rice for their evening meal ever since. They get chichen flakes and a little cheddar for breakfast.
From the book, "Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food." By Ann N. Martin. NewSage Press (1997).
"As discussed in Chapter Two, companion animals from clinics, pounds, and shelters can and are being rendered and used as sources of protein in pet food. Dead-stock removal operations play a major role in the pet food industry. Dead animals, road kill that cannot be buried at roadside, and in some cases, zoo animals, are picked up by these dead stock operations. When an animal dies in the field or is killed due to illness or disability, the dead stock operators pick them up and truck them to the receiving plant. There the dead animal is salvaged for meat or, depending on the state of decomposition, delivered to a rendering plant. At the receiving plants, the animals of value are skinned and viscera removed. Hides of cattle and calves are sold for tanning. The usable meat is removed from the carcass, and covered in charcoal to prevent it from being used for human consumption. Then the meat is frozen, and sold as animal food, which includes pet food."
[SNIP]
The packages of this frozen meat must be clearly marked as "unfit for human consumption." The rest of the carcass and poorer quality products including viscera, fat, etcetera, are sent to the rendering facilities. Rendering plants are melting pots for all types of refuse. Restaurant grease and garbage; meats and baked goods long past the expiration dates from supermarkets (Styrofoam trays and shrink-wrap included); the entrails from dead stock removal operations, and the condemned and contaminated material from slaughterhouses. All of these are rendered.
"In 1995 one large pet food company, located in California, recalled $20 million worth of its dog food. This food was found to contain vomitoxin. Vomitoxin is formed when grains become wet and moldy. This toxin was found in "wheat screenings" used in the pet food. The FDA did investigate but not out of concern for the more than 250 dogs that became ill after ingesting this food. It investigated because of concerns for human health. The contaminated wheat screenings were the end product of wheat flour that would be used in the making of pasta. Wheat for baking flour requires a higher quality of wheat. Wheat screenings, which are not used for human consumption, can include broken grains, crop and weed seeds, hulls, chaff, joints, straw, elevator or mill dust, sand, and dirt."
[SNIP]
"One commercial food that most cats and dogs seem to love are the semi-moist foods. These kibble and burger-shaped concoctions are made to resemble real hamburger. However, according to Wendell O. Belfield and Martin Zucker in their book, How to Have a Healthier Dog, these are one of the most dangerous of all commercial pet foods. They are high in sugar, laced with dyes, additives, and preservatives, and have a shelf life that spans eternity. One pet owner wrote to me explaining that she had fed her cat some of these semi-moist tidbits. The cat became ill shortly after eating them, and even professional carpet cleaners could not remove the red dye from the carpet where her cat had been ill. In his book, Pet Allergies: Remedies for an Epidemic, Alfred Plechner, DVM., writes, "In my opinion, semi-moist foods should be placed in a time capsule to serve as a record of modern technology gone mad."
I kept explaining to people that the pet food industry was entirely unregulated but them couldn't seem to grasp what unregulated meant.
Posted by: Speller | 2007-04-23 10:55:53 PM
To me, it is about numbers.
They have Billions of people, and so many mouths to feed.
When they have an excess of food, or whatever, they have to get rid of it.
So, where is the most openly available market?
If they get caught (which they have) the ramifications are, they cannot sell what they have left over. We know they won't eat it themselves. And yet, they managed to sell some of their problem, so it is not a total loss for them. And that some of their poisoned grain gets into our food chain, well, that too does not matter to them.
Why should it?
They don't value the individual, so what is a dog? What is a homeless person?
They have to deal with their left-overs, and we are part of their market -- yet not their polity.
Maybe we are like lower than the scraps of meat that they feed their cats?
So, not their problem. At least not their problem that they have to solve, for their people -- their polity and their own scraps.
And, what really happens to us if we really do not agree with what they have done?
What it the worst that can happen?
To them that is?
How many people can they send over the hills, oceans and waters?
We are out numbered, 40:1
Are we Spartans?
Yet, does put a new spin on home grown holistic foods.
Now, Speller says that he will not feed his pets anything but fresh dog food.
That is a good idea.
Good practice too.
And, we have enough extra foods here in Canada, so we do not need to spend money, on unsafe foods, no matter how cheap they are.
Posted by: Lady | 2007-04-24 11:31:18 AM
Observer,
You actually made a valid point.
Well,you would have made it had you resisted the urge to form it in an antagonistic manner.
Indeed,many of us are hypocrites for turning a blind eye to China's murderous regime while shovelling billions into their system for nothing more than a steady supply of affordable crap.North Americans' perceived RIGHT to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle has trumped any concerns over what evil that lifestyle feeds.
Child laboor?...F*ck'em
We gotta have affordable Reeboks man!
Posted by: Canadian Observer | 2007-04-24 12:37:48 PM
I only shop at Walmart - but even there I look at each and every label.
]MADE in CHINA? I pass and always will.
Posted by: obc | 2007-04-24 1:03:49 PM
If only there was a kosher section in every Walmart....
Posted by: Lady | 2007-04-24 1:27:41 PM
soylent green
mr. heston had it right
the fu lon gong were poisened and then fed to us
Posted by: brian | 2007-04-24 6:20:23 PM
Pet food is entering the human food chain:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/04/25/4130410-ap.html
Go figure, where else were they going to dump all that recalled pet food?
--------------
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has said fewer than 10 hog farms in six states received contaminated feed. The feed came from a Diamond Pet plant in Gaston, S.C., and contained a rice concentrate that has been recalled by its manufacturer in California.
Investigators found melamine in at least two imported Chinese vegetable proteins used to make pet foods. Pet food companies have recalled more than 100 brands of food since the first reports of animal deaths a little over a month ago.
Officials were trying to determine whether hogs in New York state, South Carolina, Utah and Ohio also may have eaten the tainted food.
Posted by: tomax7 | 2007-04-26 8:14:31 AM
Brian, Soylent Green is closer than we think...
Posted by: tomax7 | 2007-04-26 8:21:23 AM
All I want to know is where is the FDA in all of this? Why are they not doing their job, and what is being done about it? Seems like it has gone too far to be stopped. Why does China want to do this to us? No wonder they have become so rich, and why do we trade with them as they are a communist country?
Thank You,
Patricia
Posted by: Patricia Hillis | 2007-05-13 8:16:41 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.