Food Safety? What Food Safety?

Many thanks to "Anonymous" for the link to a recent Sacramento Union piece on tainted food. Some excellent points in this article. First, as Anonymous points out, the contamination was intentional. That's right -- the melamine was added to the wheat gluten (and very likely other ingredients, as well) on purpose. Why? To make it appear to have a higher protein content so the manufacturers could charge more.

Second, finding out whether or not foods you or your family eat contain any of these tainted ingredients is going to be difficult, if not impossible, as the columnist who wrote this piece found. His quest for straight answers produced results that would be hilarious under other circumstances.

Third, here's how Menu Foods, the company that produced the pet foods -- and which, by the way, is based in Canada, reportedly to avoid paying corporate income taxes -- responded to reports of sickened and dead pets.

"... Menu Foods told the FDA that they began receiving reports of dogs and cats being sickened and dying on Feb. 20. They claim to have started testing their products a week later on Feb. 27. Menu fed suspect food to “40-50” dogs and cats. 7 of the animals died. In what he calls a “horrible coincidence” Menu Foods Chief Financial Officer, Mark Weins, sold 45 percent of his stock in the company on Feb. 26 and 27. The first public announcement and initial recall was made on March 16."

How shabby is that?? First, they wait a FULL WEEK to even begin testing the food. Then they test it on "40 to 50" animals, with seven dying, and still don't tell the public until March 16?? Plus, the "horrible coincidence" of the company's CFO dumping nearly half of his stock in the company -- does he seriously think anyone is going to believe that was a coincidence? Please.

This is nothing short of an atrocity. But it's the last few paragraphs that should make everyone's hair stand on end.

"A Final Footnote

On April 12, the FDA highlighted the largely honor-system style enforcement of U.S. food safety by announcing that contaminated pet food still appeared on hundreds of store shelves.

Two of Menu Foods’ largest customers are household names and manufacture hundreds of products including, probably, a large percentage of the items in your grocery cart. They are Proctor & Gamble and Swiss-based international conglomerate Nestle.

Nestle announced on April 12, 2007 the acquisition of Gerber Products. Gerber represents 79 percent of the US baby food market."