Instead of sitting at the computer and reading news today, I turned on the TV news channels and flipped between them every so often while I did other things around the house. I heard lots and lots of mindless babbling and ridiculous opinion, as well as a lot of stupid speculation about that plane that went down. Hey, journalists! If you don’t have a story, don’t sit there and guess at what the story is … just don’t report it until you know the story (or even just a little bit of the story)!
While the potatoes in the stew are cooking, I thought I’d sit down and see if there was anything important I missed in the news today, since what I had been watching and listening to didn’t seem much like news at all. Lo and behold, there was a story I think is being vastly under-reported.
Anyone else remember the pet food crisis of 2007? I certainly do, and I believe many of my pet owning friends do too. For anyone who has pets, it was a scary time. Every day brought additions to the list of pet foods that were recalled for being contaminated with melamine … sickening and killing beloved dogs and cats. There were weeks when I didn’t know what to feed my cat†. Everything seemed to be on the recall list as soon as I bought it. I have always been the sort to read pet food labels and do some rudimentary research into what I feed my pets, but I spent hours and days reading labels and researching companies trying to find something to feed our cat††. At first, no one knew what exactly was causing it, and then it was found to be melamine tainted wheat gluten from China. Changed my way of eating forever, let me tell you†††.
I can’t be the only person who remembers that whole situation clearly. It was pretty awful.
Since I know a lot of people do remember and might like to know how things turned out, and since it was such huge 24/7 news for months, I was surprised not to hear a single peep about Stephen and Sally Miller, owners of Las Vegas based ChemNutra, having “agreed to plead guilty to 27 misdemeanor charges of distributing adulterated and/or misbranded food and one felony count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.”
I happened across the story while looking for something else. Pass it on, because no one seems to be talking about it in the news media right now, being much too distracted by speculations on why a plane went down and Obama’s every move in the middle east and, of course, the abortion doctor. I think it’s sort of big news.
Footnotes- † Fuzza Wuzza was our cat at the time. He was twelve. We lost him to cancer in the middle of this pet food crisis. I will never know for sure, but I do believe the food he had been eating –one of the first recalled brands– contributed to his demise. He might have been developing lymphoma anyway, but he went from “irritable bowel syndrome ” to “something’s not right, let’s do some tests” to “it seems like lymphoma, but not” to “failed liver, failed kidneys, and lymphoma throughout his body” in the course of about three or so months, during which time he was seeing a vet about every 7 days. Even the prescription food from the vet turned up on the recall list. So yes, I do believe strongly the melamine in the pet food helped kill my cat before his time. The timing of when he got sick and had to go to the vet the first time is just too close to when the foods were first out killing pets before anyone knew about it. Makes me sick to think on it. [↩]
- †† I finally ended up with Wellness Core. It’s a little pricey, but the cats love it. My only complaint is that it isn’t readily available everywhere, and even when fed in small daily amounts, it seems to make our current cats quite fat. Or it could just be they are a bunch of really lazy brats who never burn off calories. Anyway, good cat food and good company. So far, I trust them. [↩]
- ††† Wheat gluten is another of those ingredients (like high fructose corn syrup) that seems to be cropping up in all manner of processed foods these days, and China is the number one producer of wheat gluten on the planet. The wheat gluten in canned ravioli most likely has been imported from China. Just something to think about. While you are at it, think about whey there would be wheat gluten in canned ravioli. Here’s a hint: You thought all that meat-like stuff was actually meat?! [↩]