Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Watch what you eat

I'm guessing that most of the people who frequent this quiet little corner of the blogosphere are already aware of the recall of dozens of different brands of pet food which have been contaminated with either rat poison or a chemical used in manufacturing plastics and resins, depending on whose lab analysis you believe. If you haven't, check it out, especially if you have a pet that might be affected.

But the story gets more disturbing. Now the Boston Globe is reporting that one of the substances blamed for the contamination may have also been shipped to plants that manufacture processed food for human consumption. Oh joy! (See this diary from DailyKos, and the comments following, for further discussion.)

This blog seems to be following the story closely, and links to an AP story that identifies the US importer of the tainted wheat gluten as ChemNutra. (They also suggest that it may have come through other sources as well.)

Maybe it's time to start eating nothing but whole fruits and veggies, buying meat directly from rural relatives, and baking my own bread using that much-neglected bread machine that's been sitting around since a long-ago Christmas.
Personally, I find it disturbing that a company named "ChemNutra" even exists. It summarizes, in an economical nine letters, much of what's wrong with our food sources.

2 comments:

Felix said...

Yam @ 10:08AM | 2007-04-04| permalink

Soylent green is PEOPLE!!!!!!

Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" provides a good description of the modern agribusiness food chain. It's quite fascinating.

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Steph @ 10:47AM | 2007-04-04| permalink

Or you could just start shopping at Whole Foods and farmers markets. I can guarantee that we don't carry anything that ever came from a place called ChemNutra!

And I second Yam's recommendation. It's a great book, even though it slams my company.

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Felix said...

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll add it to the list of Books To Be Read.

Also: I have activated Google comments, but for now they can only be reached by clicking on the "#" symbol next to the time stamp. I don't know why this is. It might have something to do with the fact that I have not yet deleted the Enetation code from the blog template. That will be a project for the near future, since I have successfully managed to cut-and-paste old comments conversations into the Google comments.