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March 24, 2007
Pet Food News - Menu Foods Recall and the 40 Parts Per Million
We now have more information about the contamination in the Menu Foods products. The New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University and the New York State Food Laboratory tested three samples of the contaminated products. One sample was clean, but the others contained aminopterin at a level of 40 parts per million. According to Cornell lab director Bruce Akey, this is a sufficient concentration to cause kidney failure in dogs and cats.
The operating hypothesis at this point is that the aminopterin was sprayed on the wheat during shipping or storage in order to prevent rats from eating the crop. Because the normal method of creating gluten from wheat is by washing it, this had to have happened after the wheat had been converted.
Wheat gluten is high in protein and has a chewy texture. The so-called cuts and gravy pet foods use the gluten to to make the food bits feel meatier when they're being chewed. This is not necessary in your standard canned or dry pet foods. The safest protocol for buying pet food right now is to look at the ingredients, and if it does not say wheat gluten, you're safe no matter who makes the product. You'll end up passing over some good stuff that's not contaminated, but it's much easier than memorizing the long list of brand names. This is just until the crisis passes, by the way. There's nothing wrong with wheat gluten when it hasn't been poisoned.
Before the government does something drastic and saddles them with a lot of expensive testing procedure, Menu Foods and other manufacturers should consider getting their wheat locally and plastering 100% American Made on the can and pouch labels. It will mean a price increase, but it's nothing compared to the cost of a new Federal agency for pet food regulation.
Finally, I'd like to point out that no wheat gluten is used in the manufacture of mozzarella cheese. In fact, I've suggested to Bruce that he put me on a pure mozzarella cheese diet for the next few weeks to be absolutely safe, but for some unknown reason he isn't buying it.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Sat 11:20 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (2) | More Pet Food News | Tags: Bruce Akey Cornell University Menu Foods mozzarella cheese New York State Food Laboratory pets wheat gluten
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Comments
Posted by: Megan at March 25, 2007 1:49 AM
Posted by: Nikki Wharton-Eby at March 26, 2007 10:03 PM
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