Food contamination, what's the cause?

keith p

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I'm hearing all different stories on how and what the food got contaminated with. (rat poision, something with plastic, act of terrorism)

What's REALLY the cause of the contaminated food, or are they still uncertain?
 

white cat lover

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There are a lot of stories....plastic(or something along those lines), rat poison....IMO the cause is still uncertain.
 

catsrnmom

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I heard on the news today that they could not find the rat poison in the contaminated foods, but now they have found an ingredient I think in the wheat gluten that is used to make plastic like plastic plates, and eating wear...I don't think they know for sure yet..
 

jenniferd

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All of it is very confusing. One lab found rat poison. The other labs can not find rat poison, but found something else (plastic ingredient) yet I am not sure if that ingredient even should cause kindey failure.
So, who knows?
 

sharky

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I am sure there is more too come...
 

techiegirl

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sunspot42

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Wheat gluten is used in quite a few dry foods, so you can bet the contamination is gonna spread to other brands, too.

Even worse, the FDA has found a different toxin - melamine, a plastic - than was identified by the original lab (a rat poison). My guess is that BOTH substances have contaminated the wheat gluten at different times . . . One other possibility - the wheat gluten isn't the only contaminated substance contained in these cat foods.

I'll bet this has been happening off and on for quite some time too, and has just now been detected.

That's what you get for feeding cats grains, which aren't part of their natural diet, anyhow. Cats are carnivores. Feed them MEAT. They aren't setup to handle the carbohydrates and plant toxins found naturally in grains, let alone pesticides, fertilizers and other manufactured chemical residues found on cheap grains imported from China.

It is a little outrageous that Menu Foods, which controls the manufacture of something like 80% of all the canned food in North America, can't be bothered to systematically test their ingredients for contaminants. You'd think with those kind of economies of scale, routine testing would be performed as a matter of course. It's not like it would add more than a penny a can to the cost of their product (if that much).
 
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keith p

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My first cat lived on Science Diet Light (dry) kibble and water his whole life, our vet at the time said he needed to loose alot of weight and that he is allergic to canned food.

We had to put him to sleep at age 12, he couldnt walk, would not eat, and could not go to the bathroom at all.

That was in 2002, mabye this poision has been in the food for many years and nobody suspected anything?
 

bikeman

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Purina One dry cat food contains wheat and wheat gluten (that's what we primarily feed Junebug). Not on the official list. Yet.

This is just getting surreal. Every day another manufacturer. Yesterday, Hill; today, Purina. Did every company buy contaminated ingredients?

The government is getting involved in this big time. Good, but I can't help but to think their underlying concern is whether or not the wheat gluten (if that turns out to be the cause) might have found its way into human foodstuffs.

CONJECTURE MODE ON:

And thus far, the findings and the results don't seem to make sense to me. Rat poisons, in general, don't cause renal failure first - most are in the class as acute blood thinners that break down cell walls. Pets would bleed to death internally. And that would happen first. And it would be very noticable in necropsies. I am not a chemist, so I don't positively know if aminopterin belongs in that class.

Melamine is a gelling agent, and hasn't been detected in all the suspect foods. Different labs, different findings. Nothing conclusive. I am pleased the recalls are happening, but I get the sense that they are not as close to the cause as the media makes them out to be. They just don't know. And that's the scariest part of all this.

CONJECTURE MODE OFF:

Just tonight, we made the decision to ban anything with wheat gluten from our cats' diet. We might think about also placing wheat gluten on our own list of suspect human food ingredients until we all know more.
 

mzjazz2u

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They did find rat poison in some of the food but are doing further testing to see if there was anything else in the food that could have caused the problems some cats are having. One of the things found in the process was the melamine (or plastic). I think they are trying to be very thorough. This is a huge deal and has pretty much turned the pet food industry upside down. In the long run, it could result in many positive changes.
 
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