Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
Thus its addition to wheat gluten and rice protein isolate.

Steve

Steve Pope wrote:
> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.

I can't parse this sentence. Help?

Serene

Serene-y the Meanie > wrote:

>Steve Pope wrote:

>> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
>> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.

>I can't parse this sentence. Help?

The customers test the batches of gluten for protein content.
Because melamine is a cheap nitrogen-containing substance
of about the right molecular weight, and the testing is not
that specific, it boosts the result of the test.

So the belief is the melamine was deliberately added to boost
profits.

Steve

Steve Pope wrote:
> Serene-y the Meanie > wrote:
>
>> Steve Pope wrote:
>
>>> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
>>> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
>
>> I can't parse this sentence. Help?
>
> The customers test the batches of gluten for protein content.
> Because melamine is a cheap nitrogen-containing substance
> of about the right molecular weight, and the testing is not
> that specific, it boosts the result of the test.
>
> So the belief is the melamine was deliberately added to boost
> profits.

But did they know it was poison?

(I will go google this myself. I'm just boggled, is all.)

Serene

Serene-y the Meanie wrote:
> Steve Pope wrote:
>> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
>> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
>
> I can't parse this sentence. Help?
>
> Serene


The Chinese wheat gluten (and rice protein, and one other product that I
can't remember) company spiked low-quality products with melamine
because it's cheap and it gives a false-positive when they test for
protein -- it makes the low-grade gluten test like high-grade.

Allegedly.

Best regards,
Bob

On Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:42:15 -0700, Serene-y the Meanie
> wrote:

>Steve Pope wrote:
>> Serene-y the Meanie > wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Pope wrote:
>>
>>>> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
>>>> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
>>
>>> I can't parse this sentence. Help?
>>
>> The customers test the batches of gluten for protein content.
>> Because melamine is a cheap nitrogen-containing substance
>> of about the right molecular weight, and the testing is not
>> that specific, it boosts the result of the test.
>>
>> So the belief is the melamine was deliberately added to boost
>> profits.
>
>But did they know it was poison?
>
>(I will go google this myself. I'm just boggled, is all.)
>


It is also being reported in corn gluten in South Africa now.

As far as knowing it was poison, it is still not clear whether the
melamine is the actual poison or a marker for the foods with the
poison. There could be something else that hasn't been found, but
happens to be in the same batches of gluten.

It does seem pretty likely that he melamine was added intentionally to
make the gluten seem like it was higher quality.

(Steve Pope) wrote:
>Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
>melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
>Thus its addition to wheat gluten and rice protein isolate.
>
>Steve

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_503671.html

excerpt:

The Trib learned yesterday that melamine-contaminated feed was fed to
hogs.The FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department
of Food and Agriculture are investigating.

Some animals that are believed to have eaten the contaminated food were
slaughtered and sold as food before authorities learned their feed had been
contaminated, said Nancy Lungren, spokeswoman for the California agriculture
department.

http://picasaweb.google.com/crmartin1

"Steve Pope" > wrote in message
...
> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
> Thus its addition to wheat gluten and rice protein isolate.
>
> Steve
It gets better . . . after reading two different stories, I am not sure if
the recalled pet food was fed to hogs or if the hogs had their own melamine
laced food, but whatever. Hogs for the human food chain have been fed the
doped food. http://tinyurl.com/2xdxvu

Serene-y the Meanie > wrote:

>> So the belief is the melamine was deliberately added to boost
>> profits.

>But did they know it was poison?

They probably gauged it was relatively non-toxic since that's
what the sparse literature suggested. Unfortunately this
proved not to be true, for cats especially.

Food that was fatal to a cat in Marin County tested 50 ppm
melamine. Some of the wheat gluten samples were 7% melamine
(if you're trying to fudge a test, then you need more than
a few ppm of it).

Steve

"Steve Pope" > wrote:
> Acording to an article in USA Today, the motive was the
> melamine passes for protein in the customer's testing.
> Thus its addition to wheat gluten and rice protein isolate.

It's not like this kind of thing hasn't happened before, in fact, many times
before. It's happened with wine, it's happened with olive oil, and who knows
what else.

Do people remember the deliberate spiking of Austrian wine with antifreeze
to give lower quality wine more sweetness so it could be sold for more? This
was back in the early 1980s from what I recall. Some people have no problem
putting others health at serious risk, even to the point of killing many, so
they can generate bigger profits. I think that Gordon Gecko's famous line in
the movie "Wall Street" is quite true in real life for some businessmen, and
not just on Wall Street: "Greed is Good"

As much as we might like to believe otherwise, I'm certain that the ethical
and moral standards that businesses operate under in China are much weaker
than in the USA. It's as if they are still in the late 1800s, when the
conditions such as described in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" were
prevalent. When we buy food from there, we are subjecting ourselves to all
those problems of eras past. It's as if the clock has been turned back on
food safety.

--
wff_ng_7 (at) verizon (dot) net