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Melamine in food
May. 2nd, 2007 10:20 amI know parents of picky eaters. Many children go through phases where they will eat one or two foods to the exclusion of all else. One of my friends complains that the only thing her child would eat is chicken nuggets.
So when I read this Washington Post article about melamine in chicken feed, I got a chill from the following paragraph:
"That small fraction, and the fact that people, unlike pets, do not eat the same thing day after day, suggests that consumers who ate contaminated pork or chicken would probably have ingested extremely small doses of melamine, well below the threshold for causing health effects, officials said. Experts conceded, however, that they know little about how the toxin interacts with other compounds in food."
Have "officials" taken into consideration that children do eat one food to the exclusion of all else, and that their bodies are small -- like dogs?
My other concern is that melamine is commonly added to pet food in China. How do we know that this has not happened before, or been happening for years, and we are now seeing it because the level of adulteration has increased to toxic levels?
All of this makes me very glad I am vegetarian, and that before becoming vegetarian, I purchased chicken from family farms. I still wonder about eggs, though. I have been buying free-range, vegetarian fed eggs only for some time now. Pet food contains meat, so I doubt my eggs are contaminated.
Eat local.
So when I read this Washington Post article about melamine in chicken feed, I got a chill from the following paragraph:
"That small fraction, and the fact that people, unlike pets, do not eat the same thing day after day, suggests that consumers who ate contaminated pork or chicken would probably have ingested extremely small doses of melamine, well below the threshold for causing health effects, officials said. Experts conceded, however, that they know little about how the toxin interacts with other compounds in food."
Have "officials" taken into consideration that children do eat one food to the exclusion of all else, and that their bodies are small -- like dogs?
My other concern is that melamine is commonly added to pet food in China. How do we know that this has not happened before, or been happening for years, and we are now seeing it because the level of adulteration has increased to toxic levels?
All of this makes me very glad I am vegetarian, and that before becoming vegetarian, I purchased chicken from family farms. I still wonder about eggs, though. I have been buying free-range, vegetarian fed eggs only for some time now. Pet food contains meat, so I doubt my eggs are contaminated.
Eat local.
