Chinese Contamination Case Catches Two Firms; Another Recall Possible
In addition, fish meal made from the contaminated wheat gluten has made its way into the US farmed-fish supply, and additional pet food recall is possible.
The [Chinese] General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said its investigation found that the two animal feed companies - Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. and Binzou Futian Biology Technology Co. - had intentionally exported food ingredients laced with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer...
Chinese chemical producers said that another chemical that U.S. regulators have identified as a contaminant may have also been intentionally added to pet food ingredients...
[C]hemical producers here say it is common knowledge in the chemical and agriculture industry that for years feed producers in China have quietly and secretly used cyanuric acid to cheat buyers of animal feed. In the United States, cyanuric acid is often used as a disinfectant in swimming pools.
At Tuesday's press conference, FDA reported that some of the contaminated "wheat gluten" was used to process fish meal in Canada. This fish meal was then imported into the US for aquaculture. And like it said after reports of contaminated feed in the poultry and pork food supply, FDA does not think that contaminated fish are a human health risk.
Why have I put "wheat gluten" in quotation marks? Because the product labeled "wheat gluten" is, it seems, really wheat flour that has been spiked with a poison protein. HorsesAss.org reports that:
Wheat flour might typically contain 14-percent protein by weight. Wheat gluten (or more appropriately, “vital wheat gluten flour”) contains a minimum of 75-percent protein by weight. This helps explain the surprisingly high levels of melamine found in some samples.
The Pet Connection Blog reports that another pet food recall may be in the works. Cereal Byproducts sold contaminated rice protein concentrate to three firms, according to FDA. “Cereal Byproducts recalled the rice protein concentrate they sold to three firms. This recall may result in additional pet food being recalled.”
Also, it appears that the RPC was truly mislabeled -- it was contaminated wheat flour.
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