melamine

Meal time with your kids can be frustrating so put some fun into this important family time with adorable dish sets for babies and kids. These ceramic and melamine dish sets offer easy cleaning and durability. The kids ceramic dinnerware sets are keepsake quality! These dish sets make great baby shower and toddler gifts.These adorable dishes are the perfect feeding set for you baby and child! Choo

Pure melamine is a kind of plastic composed of alfa cellulose melamine crystal, and formaldehyde solvent. Normally, melamine is in powder form and is absolutely harmless to health. It was used to produce kitchen utensils and tableware such as plates, bowls, cups, spoons and the likes.

For her science fair project, a seventeen year old high school student from Mississippi developed a faster, less expensive way to detect chemicals such as melamine & cyanuric acid in pet (and other) food. Natalie Saranga Omattage won a $50,000 scholarship for her efforts. Last year, when cats and dogs in the United States started dying [...]

Yet more news about the “silent” pull of dog treats from Wal-Mart shelves. It turns out the jerkyy treats were indeed tainted with melamine. (emphasis is mine) Tests of two Chinese brands of dog treats sold at Wal-Mart stores found traces of melamine, a chemical agent that led to another massive pet food recall in March, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. quietly stopped selling Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading in July, after customers said the products sickened their pets. No recall was announced at that time, but Wal-Mart said in a statement Tuesday that customers who bought one of the products should return it to the nearest store for a refund. Company spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said 17 sets of tests done on the products found melamine, a contaminant that’s a byproduct of several pesticides. “There were very small amounts of melamine found,” Galberth told The Associat

An overview of the European Commission shows that in the last week of July, multiple alerts of melamine contaminated feed have been reported. The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) found contaminated rice protein in France, Greece, Spain and the UK - all imported from China. The Commission publishes a weekly overview of alert [...]

I picked up a copy of this month’s Animal Wellness Magazine to read an article that will completely shock you. “Neither melamine nor aminopterin are likely to be the real cause of the illness – the symptoms of toxicity don’t match either one,” says Dr. Jean Hofve, a nutritional expert and former advisor to the American Animal Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). “Toxicology data on melamine suggests that it can cause kidney stones and other chronic effects, but acute renal failure does not really accord with that. Some are calling

In today’s hard-to-find news, The University of Guelph in Canada believes they have the answer. It was a combination of cyanuric acid (one of the other contaminants found in tainted pet foods) and melamine. The combination of these two chemicals which SHOULD NOT BE in food products, anyway, creates crystals which block kidney function. Last week, a chemist at the Agriculture and Food Laboratory in Guelph decided to test the reaction between the two compounds in a setting similar to that of an animal’s kidney. “Our research had taken a number of turns, and so we decided to take a look at the two substances implicated by the FDA,” said Melichercik. The experiment resulted in the formation of a precipitate in a crystal-like form. Analysis of the crystal determined that it had a chemical fingerprint matching that of crystals found in the urine and tissues of animals that died of renal failure. “We overlayed the two scans, and they were a very good match,&rdq

“If you don’t believe that dogs and cats are primarily meat eaters, you might as well click away now because you certainly won’t believe what follows.” — PetCenter.com, an Internet Animal Hospital Questions have come in to me about protein in dog and cat food. People are just now seeing the importance of reading their pet food labels and are questioning the use of corn and wheat in the first five ingredients. They are also trying to understand those protein percentages. I am not a veterinarian so I cannot advise but I can certainly share with you some great information. FIRST, let me say, if you have an animal with special medical needs, you MUST run your food choices by your veterinarian. MOST of those special needs pets cannot eat regular pet foods, not even the holistic pet foods. I’m sorry, they simply cannot. The protein, phosphorus, and even the fat content for many is way too high. This includes kidney problems, pancreatitis, and someti

One Chinese animal feed company told the Associated Press, “”We’ve been running the melamine feed business for about 15 years and receiving positive responses from our customers.” — CNN, 4/30/07 To which one can only ask:  Why? It adds no food value.  It is intentionally deceptive.  Why are you getting positive reponses from your customers?  Do they KNOW you are cheating them?  Or are they just thrilled to be getting what looks like a high protein content and you’re actually undernourishing their livestock? Don’t tell us your animals aren’t dying.  Even in the U.S., the actual death rate is very low.  Banfield estimated that it was only 3 in 1,000. It’s just that you’re not paying attention. The Safe Pet Food Blog IsYourPetFoodSafe.com

I didn’t think it was new. Ten years ago, one of my kitties went into sudden, acute kidney failure after eating a new food. I never thought it was one field, one farmer, one gluten producer, one time. I never even thought it was just animal feed. And frankly, I don’t think it’s just China. I was hugely disappointed to learn last week that the first adulteration of grains [with UREA, not melamine] happened with two guys right here in the U.S. 30 years ago. Just as with this current contamination, adulteration wasn’t done to IMPROVE protein content. It was done to make it LOOK like protein was better, to cut costs and make more MONEY. The New York Times and International Herald are reporting very big news this morning. ZHANGQIU, China: As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city openly adm

FDA: Tainted Pet Food May Be Deliberate By Staff Apr 20, 2007The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said pet food protein imported from China could have had the toxin melamine deliberately added to boost protein levels.Dr. Stephen Sundlof, FDA chief veterinarian, told reporters melamine had been found in Chinese shipments of corn, wheat and rice gluten. “That melamine was found in all three of those, it would certainly lend credibility to the theory that this was intentional,” Sundlof said. Read the rest of the story here. Photo credit: High on Poker

Read the article from FDA Consumer Magazine 1990 that tells how two U.S. citizens spike wheat flour with UREA to boost the protein content and command a higher price. This food for for HUMAN consumption. They were fined $250K each but netted $250K on the deal. It’s horrifying enough to learn that China did it to our pets, but to learn THIS … Spiked wheat - Schuler Grain Co. uses additive to artificially boost the protein content of its wheat FDA Consumer, Dec, 1990 by Judy Folkenberg, Richard Nelson, Sharon Snider Spiked Wheat A tip from a disgruntled former employee of a large Minnesota grain company led to court-ordered heavy fines and probation for the owners last February. Schuler Grain Co. in Breckenridge, Minn., was using an additive to artificially boost the protein content of its wheat and thereby increases the price it brought on the market. Ultimately, the Schulers’ profit came out of the consumer’s pocket–for higher-priced baked goods a

A farm in western North Carolina has been quarantined after a chemical blamed for more than a dozen pet deaths was found in its hogs, state officials said Wednesday. None of the hogs has entered the...

The Associated Press put together an outstanding list of Questions and Answers, some of which I’ve excerpted here: Q: What chemical tainted the food? A: Traces of melamine, a nitrogen-rich chemical used in a variety of industrial processes, were found in the pet food. Its most common use is to make resins, which in turn can be molded into products like countertops and kitchen utensils, including plastic dinnerware sold as Melmac. It also is both a contaminant and byproduct of several pesticides, including cyromazine, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Q: Is melamine toxic to animals? A: Melamine appears to have caused acute kidney failure in animals that have died or been sickened after eating foods laced with the chemical. Previously, the only known risk was to rodents. When fed to male rats in high doses, melamine indirectly caused tumors by forming stones that irritated the lining of the bladder, according to a 2002 United Nations Environmental Program report. T

The Sacramento Bee is reporting that the chemical linked to cat and dog deaths on two continents has made it into pig feed and perhaps onto California tables, with state agricultural officials announcing late Thursday they’ve quarantined a Ceres hog farm where lab tests showed melamine in pig urine. The hog feed apparently came from a pet food plant which had rejected the materials.  Here’s one more dirty secret of the pet food industry.  Grains that aren’t considered good enough for household pets go to hogs ’cause they’ll eat anything. Even Melamine. Lucky for the hogs, they appear to be perfectly healthy, according to State Veterinarian Dr. Richard Breitmeyer. Unluckily for the hogs, nobody’s going to want to buy them because nobody knows, yet, what happens when humans consume products that contain melamine. It should be noted that so far, only one pig farm has been identified as having been exposed to this ever-widing circle of melamine contami

While this is not a US Problem, YET, tests have confirmed that Vets Choice and Royal Canin dog and cat dry pet-food products contained corn gluten contaminated with melamine, says the manufacturer. The contaminated corn gluten was delivered to Royal Canin by a South African third-party supplier and appears to have originated from China. Posted on The Safe Pet Food Blog at http://safepetfood.wordpress.com Our recommended no corn, no wheat, no soy, no gluten holistic favorite: http://teresaholladay.com/recommends/samples/?diggsa read more | digg story

Breaking, breaking news… A top holistic brand, Natural Balance, just voluntarily recalled four products and confirmed that they found melamine in a US-supplied rice gluten. I’m guessing corn, wheat, and rice gluten providers have long known a “dirty industry secret” of making protein content appear higher and just finally got caught. read more | digg story Brought to you by The Safe Pet Food Blog, http://IsYourPetFoodSafe.com Comparison of ingredients and pricing of 11 brands: http://teresaholladay.com/recommends/compare

…In recent months, Xuzhou Anying appears to have posted several requests on online trading sites seeking to purchase large quantities of melamine.   Clues to pet food recall traced to Chinese city By David Barboza Wednesday, April 11, 2007   Brought to you first by the International Herald Tribune   XUZHOU, China: U.S. investigators looking into the tainted pet food that killed at least 16 cats and dogs, sickened thousands of pets and led to a recall in North America have traced the problem to this bustling eastern city. Xuzhou is the home of Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development, a small agricultural products trader that U.S. regulators say was the source of the wheat gluten, distributed to major pet food suppliers in North America, that was at some point adulterated with a toxic chemical that sickened or killed the animals. Although U.S. and Chinese regulators are still investigating the matter, this city is already yielding clues about how th

The other day I noticed a pretty interesting situation. Crayon had somehow found its way out of its box in the closet and onto the wall in my kid’s room. It’s one of those times when you just don’t ask how it happened. Americans face these kinds of situations almost every day. The American Heart Association even keeps track of them. There are 72 million people in the United States age 20 and older with high blood pressure. And, between the years of 1994 and 2004 the actual number of deaths from high blood pressure rose 41.8 percent.They will tell you that the cause of most of the cases of high blood pressure in the US is not known. What they mean is no scientist wants to look like an idiot by saying the leading cause of high blood pressure in America is from the misuse of multicolored wax in a big yellow box.Anyway, part of the problem has been solved! The answer: a beautiful, white melamine foam called the Magic Eraser or the Ultimate Sponge. Basically, you get it wet and it wor