OK, you didn't hear it here first, but you knew Tumbledown couldn't let this topic go without comment, especially as the evidence for potential food contamination piled up. First, there was the epidemic of pet deaths. Then, on March 30, the FDA cleared the pet food companies of augmenting their pet food with rat poison (aminopterin), and charged them instead with using contaminated wheat flour (mistakenly identified as wheat gluten) to make their doggy biscuits. The flour (a.k.a. gluten) had been supplemented with a melamine additive, a "food supplement" if you will, by crooked Chinese providers who were trying to spike the protein and nitrogen content of their product. (See Brenda Goodman's March 31 NYTimes article, "Pet Food Contained Chemical Found in Plastic, F.D.A. Says." Cyanuric acid has also been identified as a possible culprit.) But pardon my ignorance, aren't "doggy bones," ...well, bones? Ok, maybe dogs like biscuits and donuts too. And don't dogs eat chopped meat? In Tumbledown's humble opinion (ITHO), the whole fiasco is the end result of seeing food--either for humans or for our pets--as "simply" a combination of the various chemicals known to be necessary for life. (The source of those chemicals? ...who really cares?) Of course, chemistry will always be important to farming and gardening, and to food production, preparation, and consumption, but food should always be more than the sum of its chemical parts. Cooking should always be more than mere chemistry. (Don't worry, Tumbledown does get the importance of soil chemistry for growing nutritious food.)
One result of this pet food scare has been an increase in home cooking for pets. So, riddle me this: if the food you are cooking for your favorite pet (or for yourself) comes from Brazil, or China, or California, how is that a whole lot better than buying the manufactured food? But forget the harm to Fido and Snowflake (16 deaths? 32? hundreds?) caused by the "manufacture" of their food, how about trying these newly fabricated tasty people-treats: Anyone hungry for Melamine-roasted Capon? or Chicken Breasts with Creamy Melamine Gravy? Not hungry for chicken? What about pork? I could recommend Ham Steak Melamine or Spicy Melamine Sausage or a nicely breaded Melamine Pork Tenderloin. Yummy! Prefer fish? What about Catfish with Melamine Sauce? or what about a good ole Southern-Style Melamine-encrusted Fish Fry? (See Sarah Abruzzese's New York Times article, April 25, 2007. "F.D.A. Says Livestock Were Fed Pet Food With Suspect Chemical," for a plausible summary of how the melamine-tainted pet food could have entered the human food chain, as the tainted pet food was treated in a "business as usual" fashion: they take "pet food that does not meet quality standards and reconstitute it into livestock feed." Now, that must be reassuring to anyone who was hoping that better [consolidated] government oversight and inspection might protect our food supply. According to a New York Times article by Barboza, the F.D.A. thinks that the levels of toxins in farm-fresh fish fed meal with melamine and other contaminants, "was probably too low to harm anyone who ate the fish." "Probably," now there's confidence!)
Melamine has been used in the manufacture of eating utensils and some fertilizers, without knowing or caring about its potential toxicity, so it shouldn't surprise us when it shows up in food. Tumbledown knows that the adage "you are what you eat" doesn't mean we'll all become melamine cereal bowls. (Remember those? Melmac, all the rage in the 50's and 60's; indestructible, until the microwave warped and burned and chipped them. They were hardly "microwave safe"! Tumbledown still remembers with pleasure and more than a little nostalgia those bowls filled with fresh peaches or strawberries and cream or homemade ice cream during the halcyon days of youth.) But maybe you'll forgive Tumbledown if he doesn't trust the green light now being offered by the food safety police. Is it really OK now to eat animals who have ingested melamine-laced feed? The assurances of the food protectors ring hollow. But (I know what you'll say), Tumbledown, they've been so right on everything else, you should probably just trust them on this one. (NOT!)
The F.D.A. assured the public quickly--too quickly?--that "they did not believe the contaminated wheat gluten had entered the human food supply," despite the fact that 13% of the U.S. supply of wheat gluten now comes (or did until the scare) from the country where the melamine-laced flour (alias, gluten) originated. Other food safety police hastened to add that melamine is not a "known toxin." (See Goodman.) Such assurances are belied by the limits of human knowledge, and the problem is not just human ignorance, but even moreso human greed and duplicity. The Chinese manufacturer knew that he was cheating, gaming the system at least, by adding melamine to gluten.
So, what is the solution? Tumbledown repeats: localized, diversified production of food. Grow your own, eat what is in season (or will store) in your locale, get to know and support a local farmer. Can a suburbanite on one acre support feed a whole family this way? Maybe not, but you would be surprised what can be grown and eaten from one acre without provoking a riot by the neighborhood association. (Maybe pork or mutton would be too much to ask!) Does it mean eating dandylion greens, or a fresh dandelion and chive salad in March and April in Indiana?
Maybe, but only if you really like dandelions better than melamine. And in late May or early June, there is already an abundance! Spinach, lettuce, radishes and rhubarb, onions and berries!
Oh, my, my, my! Fresh garden berries. Where are those "melamac" cereal bowls when you need them?
