Thursday, April 19, 2007

Food Foibles

Friends,

There are few things as important to me as food. Having been deprived of it for certain periods in my youth, I’m serious about what I eat, when I eat, and how much I eat. I like dry cat kibble augmented by the strategic and surreptitious enjoyment of my people’s food. Why, only today I was licking some lovely egg salad on fresh French bread in the temporary absence of my person! I also very much enjoy accenting various foods with a deep whiff of a good Bordeaux or, lately, a nice Long Island Cabernet.

It has come to my attention that Pounce Treats are one of the companion animal food items recently recalled because of contamination by melamine found in wheat gluten – one of the ingredients. I mentioned Pounce in a prior post and just want all of you to check the Food and Drug Administration’s web site before you share it, or any other processed animal food, with any cats.

Today, an even wider recall is being belatedly announced. Wilber Ellis, a large company that among a myriad of other things, supplies rice protein concentrate to several big American cat and dog food companies, found melamine in a supply shipment from China. Neither rice protein concentrate, nor wheat gluten, sound very tasty to me, and I’d prefer not having it in my food. I doubt that even dogs like the sound of this stuff.

Straight from the FDA web site: “melamine is a small, nitrogen-containing molecule that has a number of industrial uses, including as an industrial binding agent, flame retardant and as part of a polymer in the manufacture of cooking utensils and plates. Melamine has additionally been used as a fertilizer in some parts of the world. It is not registered for use as a fertilizer in the United States.” Mrooooow!

This is not the first time that lethal chemicals have gotten mixed up in food production chains. Unfortunately, many manufacturing or processing plants handle many different kinds of products. Mishandling and mix-ups are inevitable. Then again, a Reuter’s story suggests that the addition of melamine might have been a means to boosting the protein measurements (and dollar value) of the wheat and rice products. If this is true, it is an outrage. Animals in the care of humans should not die because they eat the food they are fed.

Alex and I hope that all people who care for animals in their homes are keeping an eye on the FDA page, The Humane Society web site, checking out a blog called Itchmo, or talking to your vet. We’ve just started eating a new food ourselves (trying to get off the corn fillers in our old food) and, frankly, our people can’t help but be nervous.

Random testing of relevant product facilities and stricter legal controls for how and where animal food (from cats to cattle) is processed would be a good idea. Laws could be tightened regarding ingredient labels. If a company changes the formulation of their product, they should have to change the bag label prior to its distribution and sale – I’ve heard this doesn’t always happen. These are partial solutions, but perhaps good steps toward a safer food supply for people and cats. Another good step would be investigative reporting of this situation by the press. We’d be interested to hear about other good steps.

Our people thoroughly research our food, what’s in it, consider the company that makes it, and yowl at appropriate responsible parties when bad things happen. As to the current dilemma, Alex and I have discussed the idea of our people cooking for us – some cats actually enjoy that – but I can’t imagine what the point is. Human food is only good when combined with the excitement of the clandestine lick or the purloined fragment.