The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting livestock and fish/shrimp feed manufacturers about a voluntary recall of products used in feed production because several have been found to contain melamine and related compounds.

The feed ingredients were made by Tembec BTLSR Inc. of Toledo, Ohio and Uniscope, Inc. of Johnstown, Colo.

Tembec, a contract manufacturer for Uniscope, makes AquaBond and Aqua-Tec II, which it distributes for Uniscope. Uniscope makes Xtra-Bond using ingredients supplied by Tembec. All of the products are binding agents that are used to make pelleted feed for cattle, sheep, and goats, or fish and shrimp.

The companies have confirmed that Tembec added melamine as part of the formulation of the products to improve the binding properties of pelleted feed. Melamine is not approved as an additive for animal or fish/shrimp feed.

What? You thought the melamine in animal feed situation was over? Silly you! This time it was American companies using melamine and “a urea formaldehyde resin-type ingredient” as binding agents and not some place in China. This is why I have pretty much stopped trusting any company anywhere to do something I can do myself or to buy products to create the things I eat that don’t contain things they shouldn’t. It’s going to take a lot of hard work and some time and money to get to the point where I am 100% responsible for the production of all food prepared and eaten in my home, and I may never fully achieve that, but it’s a goal I am shooting for. In the meantime, I plan to stay informed and be aware and careful.

For example, Lin and I eat a lot of talapia (fish). It was supposed to be farm-raised and mercury-free, the safest and best fish to eat. I’m not especially fond of it, but it’s inexpensive and was a presumably safe choice. We never questioned where it was being farm-raised. Silly us! Yesterday at HEB, I noticed country of origin stickers on the price placards in the fresh fish department. Talapia … product of China. I spoke with the head fish-monger. The talapia at HEB has always been from China. To be honest, I almost threw up right there in the store.

There have been times when I would make talapia in the same manner I had made it before, but it tasted “different” somehow. Not rotting fish bad, but off somehow. We always chalked it up to having been in my freezer for a week, or having been an older or especially “gamey” tasting fish. Or, in retrospect, maybe it was a sick fish stuffed full of antibiotics, or a fish raised in polluted waters. No way of telling is there, seeing as so few of our imports are checked and so much of our seafood comes from elsewhere. So I passed on the talapia and will continue to do so.

Additionally, those shrimp I bought today? They were tasty, but they weren’t Black Tiger Shrimp as adverstised. I knew that when I bought them, but I really wanted some jumbo shrimp to cut down on prep time for dinner. Actually, one of them was a Black Tiger Shrimp … one of the 16 I bought. The others were regular white shrimp from who knows where. I am in a distinct position to know the difference. I started my life in a small Texas Gulf Coast shrimping village and have spent a good part of my life living on the coast. I have eaten a lot of Texas Gulf Coast shrimp … mostly bait shrimp either left over from a fishing trip or bought due to being cheaper than the ones in the store. Just so happens, bait shrimp on the Texas coast are Black Tiger Shrimp. Same shrimp as in the stores with a much higher price tag attached. Oh sure, bait shrimp are probably not at all approved or inspected for human consumption, but they are the same shrimp from the same source … only fresher, especially if you buy them when they are still alive and kicking. So even reading the “labels” on things isn’t a guarantee you are getting what you pay for, unless you know how to identify exactly what it is you want to buy. I would imagine your average consumer doesn’t know all that much about shrimp identification.

I’d complain to the store about the shrimp issue, but why bother really? Instead, I just won’t buy any seafood at all at HEB. When the urge to have seafood becomes so strong I simply must have some, I will drive my butt down to the local seafood market and grill them extensively about the origin and safety of all products before purchasing. If they can’t or won’t answer my questions, or if they are put off by me even asking questions, then I guess we live without seafood or eat it only on the rarest of days when our seafood addiction can’t be ignored. Though I have to tell you, right now, I simply don’t want to eat any seafood at all anymore.

I know not everyone can start eating things grown and produced locally and eating what’s in season at the moment. I don’t even know if we can successfully pull that off. I hope we can, and I hope that at least people become more aware of what they are putting into their bodies and can and do make as many choices as they can to eat as fresh, healthy and local as possible. Maybe if I can manage to pull this off I can tell others how to do it too as simply and inexpensively as possible. Here’s hoping.

I’ve been babbling all night. I couldn’t sleep even though I am super tired. Insomnia sucks. I’ll probably be passing out from fatigue very shortly, so you’ll get some piece and quiet from my ranting for a while. Grocery shopping today? Not at all likely. Besides, we have a ton of leftovers from last night’s birthday dinner (I made American-size portions and we have European-sized stomachs), and Lin brought home pizza from his office birthday party. We have food and beverages, so we can make it another day.