Pets poisoned with "Food Grade" gluten, in Human food supply?

The recalled wheat gluten used in pet food that has been killing pets is "food grade" meaning it could be used for human consumption.

Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a "food grade" additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.

"Yes, it is food grade," Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query. Del Monte issued a voluntary recall Saturday for several products under the Gravy Train, Jerky Treats, Pounce, Ol’ Roy, Dollar General and Happy Trails brands.

Since cats are particularly sensitive, they started dying right away.  Humans may be getting poisoned (slow kidney failure), but we may not know yet.

You might think we would notice people getting sick, but it is important to note that here in Washington state kids start dying all the time from e. coli, and when our decent (not great) health system investigates it often turns out the contaminated food comes from some other state that does not have the health surveillance system to notice the pattern of sick kids.  

•  I suspect this has been going on a long time.

  Now that there is the internet and a lot of people with dead and very sick pets, it has surfaced. Humans will take longer but children and old people will get sick faster.

  I am reading all labels carefully these days.

  by abbeysbooks on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 09:48:41 PM PDT

  •  The tip-off something was wrong

    was the way both my ginger tom and recently aquired tabby female rejected the sample offerings of Pounce "Meaty Morsels" cat treats.

    The tabby will eat "anything" and my ginger tom is also voracious, but I limit him, and her by default, to Urinary Tract health feed, usually 9 Lives, which he will tolerate but will barf up sometimes due to the fine pieces tickling his throat.  I have to set out fresh feed every time.  She does not have the same spit-up problem he does, so I am pretty sure that the feed is not the issue, it's the crumbs and small chunks gagging my tom.

    Anyway, these "Meaty Morsels" were rejected out of hand by the both of them, and that seemed odd.  They go nuts chasing the chicken flavored heart shaped ones, and devour them pretty quickly, even eagerly.

    Now I read that Pounce "Meaty Morsels" have been recalled due to contaminated wheat gluten.

    Why in hell are we importing wheat gluten from China when we are a wheat and processed wheat mill product exporting nation?  Fuck globalization, why are we using uncontrolled products?

    Many products like snack crackers, snack treats, and the like, use wheat gluten to bind the dough together during processing.  Is this garbage from a basically unfriendly-to-the-US country in this stuff?  Are your kids eating it?  Is it in your "Cheez-Its," your "Sociables," your "Saltines?"  Dammit, who's responsible for this very Republican-like disaster?  

    by boilerman10 on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 07:17:52 AM PDT

    •  The wheat gluten from food source

      is contaminated. It is food grade which means it is in human food also. sorry I don't have the link right away but I am i a hurry. I think our animals are the canaries for us. At least your cats show taste.

      by abbeysbooks on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 01:46:46 PM PDT

•  Thanks for Celiac Sprue?

  Not really, but better than dying (barely).

  by axman on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 09:55:42 PM PDT

•  "an unnamed US supplier"

  I posted the following comment under the subject "Archer Daniels Melamine" in one of the "recall" threads yesterday . . .

  Just wondering, but why unnamed?  Who has the deep pockets in the world grain trade?  What name would bring panic to the aisles of every grocery store?

  You've undoubtedly heard the puff ad on NPR . . . you know, the one about soy protein to China . . . well . . . those bottoms don't come back empty, and it doesn't all go into pet food . . .

  Fron MSNBC:

  "The investigation has traced the melamine to wheat gluten that Menu Foods, Nestle Purina PetCare Co. and Hill’s Pet Nutrition bought from an unnamed U.S. supplier."

  Just speculation, of course, but why won't they disclose the supplier of the contaminated gluten ? ? ? Surely they know (by now) and can trace it all the way back to the source.  What's the big secret ? ? ?

  I'd say it's a near certainty that some of this batch, or of others like it, got into the "human" food supply.

  by Deward Hastings on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 09:56:06 PM PDT

  •  Yes. I'm sticking with home-cooked unprocessed

    foods, and lots of cooked grains and home made bread these days. Oh, and dark chocolate!

    Ever since I heard about the contaminated wheat gluten, I have considered it best to assume that all human food containing wheat gluten was contaminated until proven otherwise.

    Gluten is "On Notice", to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, and I'll take it off when I hear concrete information.

    by means are the ends on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:04:24 PM PDT

    •  yup

      it's times like this that i'm thankful for the used bread machine i picked up a year ago, and that i gave up most frozen/processed instafood around the same time.

      by wu ming on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:24:32 PM PDT

      •  Don't be too comforted

        Don't be too comforted. Some wheats and bread mixes contain wheat gluten.

        This pet-supply-poisoned story is getting bigger week by week.

        At this point, if you own pets, it is safe to say, do NOT feed any pet aby pet food product with wheat gluten in it. Seriously.

        At first, it seemed to be limited to a single large manufacturer of pet food, Menu Food, but it now seems to be coming from a single supplier -- a Chinese company, Xuzhou Anying Biological Technology of Peixian -- of a single ingredient, wheat gluten.

        This protein ingredient from China, wheat gluten, has been contaminated with melamine, a chemical which could be used as a fetilizer but is not approved for use in the U.S. for fertilizing human food. I don't know that it is prohibited, it's just not approved. Also, there's a lot of disagreement among toxicologists as to whether or not there's enough melamine in the wheat gluten imports to be killing these pets, or even if it's really harmful, despite some confirmation that this wheat gluten has a lot of melamine in it (6.6% of the content of the wheat gluten batch is in fact melamine). In the meantime, the FDA has put out some kind of order to detain imports of wheat gluten coming from this particular Chinese company, and the reason given is that there's a "Poisonous or deleterious substance" has contaminated it. But the FDA hasn't, beyond this seizure order-like notice, confirmed that melamine is the problem.

        Also, some concerned pet owners at http://www.petconnection.com/ have postulated with some validity that there's a large American corporate "middleman" that has sold this wheat gluten to all these pet food manufacturers.

        As for the human food supply, no one knows for certain or is saying anything. Hopefully, it's not in the human food supply. However, the Xuzhou Anying Biological Technology company lists its wheat gluten as a product for human consumption on its Web site.

        Unless you personally know the farm your wheat came from and/or know as confirmable fact that your bread mixes or wheat contain no contaminated wheat gluten, I would not be thankful or comforted about anything, yet.

        Only time will tell if this story gets bigger than poisoned pets.

        It should be noted, too, that the FDA continues to talk about pet deaths in the teens, but lists compiled by various state veterinary associations are putting it in the hundreds if not thousands.

        by Brian Bell on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 11:22:15 PM PDT

        •  Of course

          the FDA still only "confirm" the death if the pet comes in to an FDA office and fills out an affidavit naming the brand and lot # that killed it.

          It's sort of like Iraq . . . you were only killed by an American bomb if you can name the pilot who dropped it.

          by Deward Hastings on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 08:41:24 AM PDT

•  FDA Alert about wheat gluten

  Is not limited to the Chinese company, Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology, but includes imports from the Netherlands.

  Appropriate screening criteria have been set for wheat gluten from China and the Netherlands, as a country through which transshipping of Chinese wheat gluten may occur.

  We've only just begun to scratch the surface of this nightmare!

  by gabriella on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:09:44 PM PDT

  •  Correction

    I certainly believe this story COULD be bigger tham pet food supplies.

    However, the bottom of that FDA import detention alert SPECIFICALLY lists wheat gluten from the firm of Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company Ltd. as the products that are to be detained. It is NOT a general notice to detain all wheat gluten, just wheat gluten from this particular firm coming directly from China and coming through the Netherlands.

    That it would come through the Netherlands en route to the U.S. is not necessarily indicative of anything as Rotterdam is a HUGE port. And as for shipments coming from China, well, this company's from China.

    I think the danger is not that wheat gluten is a poisonous thing -- far from it -- but that wheat gluten from this particular Chinese firm has been contaminated with a fertilizer. Whether or not that wheat gluten has entered the human food supply remains to be seen.

    That said, I think this diary ought to be recommended and this story is much more desering of Kossicks' attention than it is getting, if only because it illustrates vividly some of the issues with free trade, if not because this story is growing and it may end up affecting the human food chain.

    by Brian Bell on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 11:33:43 PM PDT

    •  Brian, I agree that the wheat gluten

      From this particular Chinese company coming directly from China, or through the Netherlands, is to be detained.

      As you stated:

      However, the bottom of that FDA import detention alert SPECIFICALLY lists wheat gluten from the firm of Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Company Ltd. as the products that are to be detained. It is NOT a general notice to detain all wheat gluten, just wheat gluten from this particular firm coming directly from China and coming through the Netherlands.

      But, the alert mentions there are manufacturers and shippers, plural, on an attachment. Maybe I am dense, but, I could not find this "attachment" on this alert.

      Investigations have revealed that the source of the melamine was wheat gluten which is an ingredient in the pet food.  The attachment to this alert includes manufacturers whose wheat gluten products have been found to contain melamine.

      Districts may detain without physical examination, products offered for importation from manufacturers and shippers listed in the Attachment  to this import alert.

      Is it not reasonable to believe that the "attachment" may list more than just the one Chinese company?

      by gabriella on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 09:35:17 PM PDT

•  What is melamine?

  by bejammin075 on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:11:21 PM PDT

  •  Melamine

    http://en.wikipedia.org/...

    http://www.wisegeek.com/...

    by Spathiphyllum on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:16:38 PM PDT

    •  Melamine is used in Melmac retro dinnerware

      see some here:
      http://stores.ebay.com/...

      by Tigana on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:36:57 PM PDT

  •  In this case...

    It was used as some kind of fertilizer. Or possibly to clean the wheat gluten in some manner, although the general consensus seems to be a fertilizer, in this case.

    by Brian Bell on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 11:36:11 PM PDT

•  This was something our vet told us

  It was crossposted in another thread:

  OK, this is scary... (8+ / 0-)
  Recommended by:Buckeye BattleCry, GayHillbilly, Cassandra77, Catte Nappe, ilyana, tallmom, godislove, jhritz

  My husband just got back from the vet clinic to get a refund for a recent and thankfully unopened bag of M/D.  The vet followed him out to his car and told him that what he couldn't say over the phone was that they know that the wheat gluten supplier handles human food as well.  The good part, the parts per million is low enough to where they don't think it will make people sick due to body mass (compared to a cat or dog).  The bad part is that the FDA is taking their time because they want to make sure they are %100 percent certain about the contamination in the human food supply before making any announcements.

  by Spathiphyllum on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:14:12 PM PDT

•  FDA needs to be brought to heel

  and folks with sick and dying pets may be mad enough to ask questions they would not if their food and drugs made them sick.

  by Tigana on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:39:05 PM PDT

•  Frustrating...

  all I hear is "melamine." In trying to track down the MSDS and other information it's clear there are different forms, solid, and some in solutions, with one solvent being formaldehyde.  Someone, somewhere has a lot more information that isn't being made public.  (Del Monte', like all large companies, has at least one state of the art analytical labs, the nature and full extent of this should have been in the public domain within a few days, not weeks.)

  Also disheartening is that some companies MSDS's are total CRAP!  This is no surprise given that the Chem industry is just a tiny bit more responsible then the oil industry to the general public.

  by Paulie200 on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 11:16:29 PM PDT