Not rat poison, but melamine - and it might be in your dry food, too

The latest reports from the FDA and veterinarians at Cornell University say that the recalled Menu Foods products were contaminated with melamine, a chemical used to make plastics.  It’s also used in fertilizer.  The FDA and Cornell were unable to replicate findings of aminopterin (a common ingredient in rat poison), which had been reported by a vet in New York.  Traces of melamine were found in the urine and kidneys of certain cats who died after eating the recalled food.  To make matters worse, the shipment of wheat gluten which was contaminated with melamine was also sent to a pet food plant which manufactures dry food.  The FDA hasn’t released any more details, and they’re still trying to find out if that dry food wheat gluten ever got into production.

Interestingly, melamine isn’t known to be toxic, but because it’s not meant to be ingested, I don’t think anyone’s ever tested it.  I hope this doesn’t lead to a round of lab cats and dogs being sacrified just so researchers can say, “Hey yeah, it does kill them.”

The details above came from an Associated Press story, which I found in the Toronto Star.

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Updated to add:  I’m still seeing reports which say that wheat gluten is only a product in wet food.  However, it’s clearly listed as an ingredient on this bag of Pedigree kibble.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 03/30 at 07:25 AM

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  1. Hey Leigh Ann,

    What could take so long about finding out if that wheat gluten went into the dry food, produced at the plant to which it was shipped?  I mean, what could take very long about that?  If it got into wet food, I bet it got into dry, so the public has a right to know what plant used it in producing what brands of dry dog and cat food.  I don’t get it.

    Posted by Jody  on  03/30  at  12:26 PM

  2. It is my understanding that basic ingredients are going to be very difficult to track, esp due to the volume.

    On a smaller scale, picture this. You are very picky about ingredients. Let’s say you you buy some salt, some herbs, some organic veggies, some canned hominy, and whatever else you need to make your famous recipe of soup that people just line up for. It’s a big party too and all the soup is gone in hours. Everyone’s happy and goes home.

    Eventually ‘they’ find that people got sick and the one thing in common is that they were from a population that went to your party and all had some soup. Some find out that other people got sick but they are not sure if they are affected (power of suggestion). Now every ingredient in your kitchen might be suspect. That includes the salt used. What if it were sea salt, or iodized commercial salt. They could test your salt, but what if the salt you used came from another health food store and from a different lot. What if the stuff you used for the party was a different brand this time because your trusted stuff was gone from the store that week. What if you can’t remember? Anything can get contaminated and taint the soup.

    What if instead of the soup, it turned out to be the extra bowls someone brought in for the party? What happened there? Or maybe some sicko who came late, slipped a bad ingredient into the pot, increasing the differential between affected people?

    A lot of CSI is involved. In the meantime groups are trying to criminalize something in the event, including you. Maybe even a special interest group that has a problem with the way some organic veggie is raised?

    My point is that some ingredients and elements of the foods are so ubiquitous and may move in such tremendous volume that different lots are involved. Some of us may remember Qualitative Inorganic Chemistry where one is given a vial of some powder and need to discover what is in it to ace the course. Compared to the real world, that controlled unknown in class is a much easier mystery to solve.

    An LD50 test has not been conducted on everything and all species involved. This makes it more difficult to ascertain what happened.

    The less one knows about these realities, the easier it is to get angry. I personally feel more frustrated due to the sheer magnitude of the mystery. I see this whole event as very chaotic. I’m sure you all do as well. Yikes.

    Wish we could call in Abby (Pauley Perrette), from NCIS!

    Posted by Semavi Lady  on  03/30  at  02:07 PM

  3. I like the soup analogy.
    I could rant about “wheat gluten” and how much gluten is in most people’s everyday diet, but I won’t. Ask anyone with Celiac disease about gluten. It’s not that shocking an ingredient, but last I heard, cats and dogs don’t need many grains in their diets. Is it still a grain once you extract the gluten from the wheat?

    Posted by Victor Tabbycat's Mom  on  03/30  at  02:30 PM

  4. I agree that it’s complicated… Gluten does provide stickiness, thickening bulk/texture and protein.

    It’s commonly used in vegetarian and traditional foods in Asia to give body to meat substitutes or fillers that are sources of protein. Globs of gluten dough, sometimes mixed with soy, can be formed into mushroom, cheese, veggie, fish, meat or chicken flavored patties or other shapes for example.

    And the very concept of ‘gravy’ or ‘cuts’ as a texture in pet food is more of a cultural people pleaser marketing issue. Look at an inverted can-shaped mound of ground brown stuff—looks less appetizing to the owners than ‘food shaped’ globs of gluten dough that may or may not have significant amounts of other sources of protein.

    Those humans looking for thickening substitutions for their own foods may use rice flour, arrow root, egg yolk, guar gum, tapioca starch, potatoes, nut flour, cooking it down and other methods. I think wheat gluten is very cheap, versatile and readily available so it tends to be ubiquitous and people with sensitivities or dietary concerns do explore other options, not always with the same level of culturally established satisfaction.

    I also think that too many additives that are GRAS (generally accepted as safe) are not (http://www.cobankopegi.com/temp/comet-DNA.pdf ), or in combination with other GRAS, may have undesireable effect.

    Posted by Semavi Lady  on  03/30  at  03:35 PM

  5. Jody, at least part of the delay in tracking the connection between contaminated wheat gluten and dry pet foods is that Menu Foods only manufacturers wet food.  So, while Menu Foods was able to easily know which of their foods were made with wheat gluten, the dry food problem is going to involve a completely different company.  There must be records, though - if that wheat gluten came from China, there was an importer, a ship, a port, a customs clearance, a trucking company, etc., all involved in moving it from one place to another.  Someone must be able to account for all the wheat gluten in that contaminated shipment (I sure hope it was just one shipment).  When we had the recent e.coli spinach contamination, investigators were able to track the problem down to the the specific shift when the spinach was packaged, and even knew who was working during that shift. 

    I guess what bothers me is all the erring on the side of caution for the pet food manufacturers.  The FDA has reports of pets drying after eating dry food, yet they aren’t saying what types of dry foods were involved.  I’ve anecdotally seen Iams referenced, but I couldn’t find a list of dry food ingredients on the Iams website.  It definitely wasn’t an ingredient in any of the Nutro dry foods I looked at.  I did see it listed on the Pedigree food, which is why I mentioned it.

    Personally, I’m pretty open-minded about dog food ingredients.  It’s the plethora of unnecessary cat food ingredients which concerns me most.  If esthetics (or fiber requirements) necessitate some sort of thickening agent, there are many very simple, unprocessed options (like egg yolks and potatoes).  We don’t need to be carb-loading our cats.

    Hold the presses… I’m now seeing actual press releases about dry food recalls.  The first I’ve found is Hill’s Prescription Diet m/d.  Stay tuned…

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  03/30  at  08:18 PM
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