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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 05/17/2007 : 14:58:29
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18721356/
Is it just me, or have there been more than the usual number of problems with our food supply of late?
E. coli in spinach, peanutbutter, now beef? Melamine killing pets and entering the human food supply?
Seems like there is more of this than the norm the last couple of years.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 19:19:18 [Permalink]
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The theory I heard about the melamine problem was that the substance may have been added by the Chinese wheat gluten manufacturer to raise their product's apparent protein content. Not that melamine is a protein, but it contains a high level of nitrogen, which would make it appear (in rough analysis) to be higher in protein. So a simple scam to get more for the wheat gluten may have resulted in the deaths of many pets, and perhaps some humans as well. As well as a disaster for part of the American animal food processing industry, and doom for the Chinese company.
But greed often works out to be short-sighted like that.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/17/2007 19:54:05 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2007 : 23:03:51 [Permalink]
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I know the FDA doesn't inspect much (that has always been the case though), and I read about the reasons why melamine may have been added by the Chinese supplier.
What I'm getting at, I guess, is that there seems to be less voluntary quality control by producers. I mean, how the hell does peanut butter get contaminated by E. coli outside of very poor internal QC at the production facility?
How much would it cost those pet food makers to run an actual content analysis on their imported gluten, before they paid to have it shipped?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular
Canada
510 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 04:35:57 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
I know the FDA doesn't inspect much (that has always been the case though), and I read about the reasons why melamine may have been added by the Chinese supplier.
What I'm getting at, I guess, is that there seems to be less voluntary quality control by producers. I mean, how the hell does peanut butter get contaminated by E. coli outside of very poor internal QC at the production facility?
How much would it cost those pet food makers to run an actual content analysis on their imported gluten, before they paid to have it shipped?
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If the pet food makers were concerned about anything other than reducing costs they wouldn't have imported gluten from the People's Republic of Crap in the first place. |
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King
History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler
"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2007 : 04:44:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
I know the FDA doesn't inspect much (that has always been the case though), and I read about the reasons why melamine may have been added by the Chinese supplier.
What I'm getting at, I guess, is that there seems to be less voluntary quality control by producers. I mean, how the hell does peanut butter get contaminated by E. coli outside of very poor internal QC at the production facility?
How much would it cost those pet food makers to run an actual content analysis on their imported gluten, before they paid to have it shipped?
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Good question. Someone's saving a few bucks on proper analysis, and ends up putting an entire business at jeopardy. You can bet that whoever was the asshole who ordered the melamine added was there to watch the cheapo way the buyer did his testing.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/18/2007 04:46:51 |
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Out of hand
