Sticking with the milk theme from last week, I came across a very interesting news bit from China. As most know, there has been a terrible milk contamination problem in China. Melamine, described as an industrial chemical, has been purposely added to milk in China to make the milk appear to have a higher protein content than it really has. The result has been lots of sick babies, even some fatalities. I won’t go into the details here as a Google search for “Melamine Milk China” will return 2 million results for your reading pleasure. What I saw this week that caught my attention was the following headline.
“Chinese Set Standards for Allowable Levels of Melamine in Milk”.
“Allowable levels” of what is technically known as 1-3-5 triazine or 2-4-6 triamine??? A chemical that used in fire retardant foams because its high nitrogen content is released as a flame snuffing gas when it reacts with heat or fire. I also know from personal use that melamine is used to coat the outside of particle board to make a smooth white product to use for shelving. If I lived in China, the only acceptable level of this in my milk would be none at all!
As an aside… Wasn’t it melamine that was found in dog food from China a year ago and was responsible for killing hundreds of dogs here in the U.S.? This is another reason to support food labels that tell us as much as possible about what we are buying, including the country of origin.
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Wow, who knew, they also use it in paint to give it a harder finish, we use it a lot at work, never thought of drinking it.
I doubt even with food labels would they have listed melamine as part of their milk compound.
Myron Tays last blog post..If poor people worked they wouldn’t be poor anymore would they?
Okay this is really bad! Standards??????????????????
Thanks for sharing, great info as always.
Anna
Annas last blog post..What’s on the Far Side of the Moon?