Cat food, dog food, human food and melamine

This is look at pet food recalls of 2007 and 2009- a wider perspective on melamine and our food chain.



I happened upon a fascinating Book Salon discussion at Firedoglake with Marion Nestle about her book "What to Eat". Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health andProfessor of Sociology at New York University. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley.

It's well worth reading the whole discussion, but from the perspective of a pet owner, her comment here particularly struck me:

I’m writing a book about pet food, What Pets Eat, with my partner, Dr. Malden Nesheim. This will be a combination of Food Politics and What to Eat, but for cats and dogs. Like What to Eat, it’s not really about what you should feed your pet, but instead how to think about what to feed cats and dogs. Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine was a spinoff from What Pets Eat, but it came out first. It is a history and analysis of the pet food recalls of 2007 which totally predicted the melamine-in-infant formula scandal in China and also the peanut butter recalls. It’s a book about the implications of our global food supply for food safety here and elsewhere.

I went to You Tube, and found part of an interview with Marion Nestle about her book "Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine". I had trouble embedding it, but the direct link is here A longer version of this interview is here . A snippet from her words-

...it started on March 16, 2007..... then as the food recalls unfolded, one after another over a 3 month period, it became clear that pet food companies didn't have any idea where their products were coming from...

Indeed! And, given recent human "events", I'd guess the same for food companies in general.