What is in my food? My tea?

[gotsnowgotslush]

Irene Chan
Assistant Country Director, China Office, Office of International Programs, Food and Drug Administration

RESIDENCE: Beijing, China

Chan said the food industry is so large and the ability of the FDA to conduct inspections of exporters is so limited that her office takes a risk-based approach, focusing on high volume companies and products that require close scrutiny.

This recently has included seafood exporters and processors of low acid canned foods, including mushrooms, bamboo shoots, vegetables and certain fruits.

The FDA opened the first of its three China offices in Beijing in late 2008, and then in the cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, to provide greater oversight, additional inspections and collaboration regarding food, pharmaceuticals medical devices and cosmetics that are exported to the United States. China is the fourth largest exporter of food to the U.S.

The U.S. presence in China came after a series of pharmaceutical and food safety scares, including concerns about illegal antibiotics in farm-raised seafood and tainted pet food. In 2008, the FDA restricted the entry of all food products from China containing milk after inspectors found evidence of the industrial chemical melamine.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...e-food-imports/2011/05/09/AFAZXxaG_story.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

USDA Caution on Organic Fraud from China

Although there's no evidence that certain extracts falsely labeled as organic were sold in the U.S.,
the Department of Agriculture is nonetheless warning organic distributors and processors to be aware of a fraudulent organic certificate being circulated by an uncertified operation in China.

The certificate falsely represents hibiscus, jasmine and beet root extract powders as being organic under National Organic Program (NOP) regulations, the USDA said in a news release Wednesday.

That constitutes a violation of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, the regulator said. Any use of the organic certificate or other fraudulent documents to market, label, or sell non-organic agricultural products as organic may result in a civil penalty of up to $11,000 per violation.

The NOP said it was alerted to the fraud by the accredited organic certifier whose name is falsely attributed as the issuer.

"It's important the organic industry is aware of these sorts of attempts to deceive the organic system," said Ruihong Guo, associate deputy administrator of the National Organic Program. "We're continuing to remain vigilant to these attempts so organic standards are protected."

Certificate issue location and date: Northeim, Germany, Jan. 26, 2012

http://www.uslaw.com/library/Health_Law/USDA_Caution_Organic_Fraud_China.php?item=1144539

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Monday, October 17, 2011

FIFA says more than half the players tested at the Under-17 World Cup in Mexico had traces of clenbuterol in their
doping tests because they ate contaminated meat.

Tests in Germany after the tournament revealed players from 19 of the 24 teams showed evidence of the drug in
109 of 208 urine samples.

FIFA medical officer Jiri Dvorak calls the results "highly surprising," but insists it was "not a problem of doping,
but a problem of public health."

Mexican authorities have acknowledged issues with farmers feeding banned steroids to livestock. Mexico's players
all tested clean because they switched to a fish and vegetables diet before the competition, which they won.

FIFA and the World Anti-Doping Agency declined to prosecute cases.

http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20111017/APS/1110170782

January 27, 2011

It has shown up frequently in pork but also in snake dishes in south China and beef from the far western
Xinjiang region, sending diners to the hospital with stomach aches and heart palpitations. Clenbuterol, known
in China simply as “lean meat powder,” is a dangerous drug that’s banned in China yet stubbornly continues
to pop up in the food supply, laced into animal feed by farmers impatient to get their meat to market and
turn a profit.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/27/lean-meat-powder-banned-in-china/

The lasting distrust has led some regions to avoid pork that has not been village or home raised.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

McRib sandwiches contain same ingredient as yoga mats, shoe soles

November 1, 2011

Secret sauce?

The sandwich contains 70 other ingredients.

“restructured meat product”

(Is that like the extruded paste of chicken scrap parts that is used for nuggets?)

"The McRib, at its heart, is, well... heart. The slab of "restructured meat product" consists of salt
(980 mg, more than half your recommended daily intake)
and pig innards, like tripe, heart, and scalded stomach."

http://gothamist.com/2011/10/30/the_mcrib_is_made_of_soles_of_shoes.php

Happy innards from happy pigs? Antibiotics?

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...humane-society-pig-treatment-article-1.972107

What is this stuff?

http://www.foodfacts.info/mcrib/

"the bun alone containing 34"

"Names of chemicals that you cannot pronounce"

azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching agent that is most commonly used in the manufacture of foamed plastics
like in gym mats and the soles of shoes, is found in the McRib bun.

http://blog.beaumontenterprise.com/...tain-same-ingredient-as-yoga-mats-shoe-soles/

And some of those ingredients, such as azodicarbonamide,
ammonium sulfate and polysorbate 80.

"Ammonium Sulfate Precipitation is a simple and effective means of fractionating proteins.
It is based on the fact that at high salt concentrations the natural tendency of proteins not to
aggregate is overcome, since the surface charges are neutralized. Charge neutralization means
that proteins will tend to bind together, form large complexes and hence are easy to precipitate
out by mild centrifugation. Since each protein will start to aggregate at a characteristic salt
concentration, this approach provides a simple way of enriching for particular proteins in a mixture,
and is used, for example, to isolate immunoglobulins from sera. "

polysorbate 80-

It is similar to the naturally occurring human protein erythropoietin, but has some side effects that can be life-threatening.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Franken-corn was found in fast food, soon after the USA government promised that the genetic experiments would not enter the food market.

Newly synthesized wheat allopolyploids, in my Wheaties? My wheat crackers? Synthetic DNA made in a lab. Artificial Gattaca food. Looks real.

 

[o_so_wet]

Pink Slime / White Slime...Yum Yum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime

 

[Fuckette]

i hate food coloring

 

[sweepthefloor]

I don't know, the label says: "Brewed since 1759 with natural ingredients..."

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

White Slime- Chicken Slurry! Why waste all those chicken by- products?

Dark meat gets its color from myoglobin, which plays a key role in transporting oxygen and shows up in the muscles an animal uses most often.
Chickens walk, but rarely fly. That's why leg meat is dark and wing and breast meat is white.

Through centrifuge and other extraction methods, Fletcher is "creating" white meat. Dark meat's disadvantages are its fat content
and color. And that's what is removed.

"We grind the meat up, add excess water and make essentially meat slurry," he said. "We then centrifuge it at a high speed,
which breaks up the meat. What settles out are the raw, extracted layers."

The result is three distinct layers: fat, water and extracted meat. The chicken, is whitened by removing much of the fat that colors it.

Just like pink slime, coloring is added, and flavor to cover up the ammonia smell. Mixing the slurry causes worry about bacteria.
The chicken fragments must be soaked with ammonia to kill the bacteria off.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

What is in the water?

Methanol (Found in antifreeze, paint solvent and vehicle fuel.) Isopropanol- Hydrotreated light distillate (Found in the fuel for the US Air Force's U-2 Aircraft.)
Crystalline silica (Found in concrete, brick mortar and construction sands.) Ethylene glycol, Diesel, Sodium hydroxide (lye) Naphthalene (Found in mothballs.)

Got poison?

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

There is a fantastic food thread, somewhere. *sigh*

Vegetarian Hunan-style tofu

(Lost inside the LA Times Food page)

Fermented black beans, Red Fresno chile pepper (Scoville rating 2,500 - 10,000
Jalapeño pepper, chile oil, fresh ginger, garlic, sesame oil, scallions, shiitake, rice wine

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

What is in my shampoo? They don't know how it effects human health, they did not bother to look, but they put it in my shampoo?

Will be found as PEG50 or PEG100 or other number - this is a numbing agent and is commonly found in No Tears Baby Shampoo - eck!
The reason is doesn't sting their eyes, you guessed it: their eyes are numbed to the pain! Sensitive teeth calls for a special toothpaste
which works wonders but be aware - it too contains PEG ingredients and the effects of PEG ingredients on our health is still being
evaluated.

Not all ingredients will tell you if there are “Phthalates."

Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) Stearates (PEG-2 Stearate, PEG-6 Stearate, PEG-8 Stearate, PEG-12 Stearate, PEG-20 Stearate, PEG-32
Stearate, PEG-40 Stearate, PEG-50 Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, PEG-150 Stearate) are esters of polyethylene glycol and stearic
acid. The PEG Stearates are soft to waxy solids that are white to tan in color. In cosmetics and personal care products, PEG
Stearates are used in skin creams, conditioners, shampoos, body cleansers,and soapless detergents.

The PEG Stearates are produced from stearic acid, a naturally occurring fatty acid. The numerical value of each PEG Stearate corresponds
to the average number of ethylene oxide monomers in the polyethylene chain. Polyethylene glycol ingredients may also be named with a
number that indicates molecular weight, for example polyethylene glycol (400) stearate is another name for PEG-8 Stearate.

"PEG-12 laurate, it means 12 molecules of polyethylene glycol has been reacted with 1 molecule of lauric acid (C12 fatty acid, generally
from coconut oil or palm kernel oil). The number is important - as the number increases, the water solubility increases. Something like PEG-8
oleate will be more water soluble than PEG-6 oleate, and PEG-10 would be more water soluble, still."

polyethylene phthalate plastics?

 

[atmas]

What is in my shampoo? They don't know how it effects human health, they did not bother to look, but they put it in my shampoo?

Will be found as PEG50 or PEG100 or other number - this is a numbing agent and is commonly found in No Tears Baby Shampoo - eck!
The reason is doesn't sting their eyes, you guessed it: their eyes are numbed to the pain! Sensitive teeth calls for a special toothpaste
which works wonders but be aware - it too contains PEG ingredients and the effects of PEG ingredients on our health is still being
evaluated.

Not all ingredients will tell you if there are “Phthalates."

Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) Stearates (PEG-2 Stearate, PEG-6 Stearate, PEG-8 Stearate, PEG-12 Stearate, PEG-20 Stearate, PEG-32
Stearate, PEG-40 Stearate, PEG-50 Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, PEG-150 Stearate) are esters of polyethylene glycol and stearic
acid. The PEG Stearates are soft to waxy solids that are white to tan in color. In cosmetics and personal care products, PEG
Stearates are used in skin creams, conditioners, shampoos, body cleansers,and soapless detergents.

The PEG Stearates are produced from stearic acid, a naturally occurring fatty acid. The numerical value of each PEG Stearate corresponds
to the average number of ethylene oxide monomers in the polyethylene chain. Polyethylene glycol ingredients may also be named with a
number that indicates molecular weight, for example polyethylene glycol (400) stearate is another name for PEG-8 Stearate.

"PEG-12 laurate, it means 12 molecules of polyethylene glycol has been reacted with 1 molecule of lauric acid (C12 fatty acid, generally
from coconut oil or palm kernel oil). The number is important - as the number increases, the water solubility increases. Something like PEG-8
oleate will be more water soluble than PEG-6 oleate, and PEG-10 would be more water soluble, still."

polyethylene phthalate plastics?

Ethylene oxide monomers?
No. Polyethylene glycol is, by definition, a sequence of ethylene hydroxide monomers. Ethylene oxide is a starting material to produce PEG.
Ethylene oxide is one of the most prominent sterilants for medical devices. It is relatively unstable and polymerizes easily. It can also be persuaded to form oxiranes.
PEG is the chief active ingredient in automotive antifreeze. Water solubility is deceptive: with all those repeating hydroxyl groups even low molecular weight PEG alkanes are pretty soluble.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Thank you, atmas.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Adam Perry Lang makes me wish that I still ate the flesh of dead animals.

BBQ steak cooking on the grill, at one in the morning. Nearly raw in the center, charred on the outside.

http://media.al.com/entertainment_impact/photo/11036863-large.jpg

Chicago will be having a visit from him very soon- Lucky carnivores!

Chicago WAVELAND PARK• LAKEVIEW

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

2012 Spicy Chicken Bites- No chicken Popcorn, this year ? Pure breast meat- (scraps, re- formed ?)
taken from the rib cages of chickens, by mechanical separation ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/...ted-meat-chicken-mcnugget-photo_n_749893.html

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"sewing-type" needles were found in sandwiches served on flights from Amsterdam to three U.S. cities

Gategroup, the Swiss-based company whose Gate Gourmet unit supplies Delta with onboard meal

Homeland Security/ TSA did not examine the sandwiches ? They did not need the wave of a magic wand ?

(This sandwich is setting off an alarm! Did you put it through the line ? What kind of filling, does it have ?)

Hint- That is not Marmite!

 

[bluemuse]

Oy. This stuff keeps me up at night.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Sadly, it happened again on two other flights, days later. Sewing needles, in sandwiches ? yikes

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Now, I understand why Oscar Wilde complained when the muffins were cold. I did not understand that he was whinging about English muffins.

(I have taken up making English muffins. Not those white flour paste, bleached sugar monstrosities- multigrain.)

Fresh is fantastic! So tender! Toasted will be good. (If I could only learn to stop burning the bottoms!)

 

[oggbashan]

The Boston Tea Party was not about taxes, but about illegal additives in the tea...

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

When she heard about a lawsuit involving the Pam cooking spray, she took a closer look. “There was nothing scary on it [the ingredient label]
just this innocuous word, ‘propellant,’ ” said Ms. Sturges, a hairdresser from Los Gatos, Calif.

After digging deeper, she learned that “propellant” included petroleum gas, propane and butane. “I’d been spraying that
on muffin tins to make muffins for my grandchildren — oh my God!”

(Yes, isobutane and propane are on the label- propellants.)

Ethanol, and nitrous oxide ? Let us hope that grandmother's kitchen is provided with is good ventilation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/b...take-aim-at-food-industry.html?pagewanted=all

The lawyers who took on Big Tobacco decided the time was ripe to go after Big Food.

 

[sweepthefloor]

sugar!

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

If only, it was the sugar that we know and lurve. Read the label. Read the FAQ.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Apples for apple sauce- bright, clean, wholesome- use lemon juice to keep brown discoloration at bay
VS
"....large, laminated bags of fruit products that were supposed to be sealed and sterile, but instead were broken open and tainted
with white, brown, blue, blue-green and black mold. Some of the compromised bags were bloated and one had “a strong fermented odor.”

Wendy Alguard, the USDA inspector
Jerry Pierce, USDA inspector (was Wendy Alguard’s predecessor)
The Boss, their supervisor at the USDA
Snokist, the applesauce corporation
The USDA, United States Department of Agriculture

Snokist-
paid more than a half-million dollars in user fees to the USDA in just over three years. The fees pay for USDA inspections and services
to monitor the food Snokist is sending to USDA programs like school lunches and food banks.
The Boss at USDA-
didn’t want to lose the “fees” Snokist was paying the USDA to remain in the school lunch program.
USDA-
"Our employees don’t have the authority to halt questionable applesauce that could be going to non-government contracts."

Official at one Snokist company- said his firm had no idea that Snokist was reprocessing applesauce (plausible deniability- It was not me!)

Snokist -
documents showed the company had reprocessed mold-contaminated applesauce at least 13 times between January 2008 and May 2011
repackaging food into 15-ounce cans, 106-ounce-cans, 300-gallon bags and 4.2-ounce, single-serve cups.

Food and Drug Administration officials-
this week posted a warning letter to Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., saying the company cannot ensure the safety of
moldy applesauce and fruit puree that has been reconditioned for human consumption.

http://www.nwcn.com/news/washington?fId=139316008&fPath=/home&fDomain=10212

http://www.king5.com/news/investiga...nore-moldy-food-at-local-plant-139235213.html

http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Mold-at-WA-food-plant-reveals--139316008.html

Snokist employee- would scrape thick mold off the top of the spoiled applesauce, heat-treat the remaining product
and then send it down the production line for sale to the public.

Snokist’s consultant-
concluded in 2009 that the mold in applesauce “would not be eliminated by your firm’s thermal process.” Records show the company
continued selling it to customers.

Jerry Alguard- My Boss basically told me to mind my own business.
Wendy Alguard- tipped off the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) to Snokist’s unhealthy practices.

The FDA agency quickly put a stop to it.

Alguard says the USDA tried to transfer her to a less desirable job in California.
She was fired late last year after refusing the assignment.

Jerry Pierce says his career was tarnished, as well. He retired from the USDA at the end of 2011.
The USDA inspector who worked at Snokist before Pierce was also terminated by the agency.
A USDA spokesperson denies that there was any retaliation involved

Snokist were blamed for illnesses of nine North Carolina children who became sick after eating applesauce at school (Caused the recall of said applesauce)
MSNBC- November 4, 2011

February 13, 2012

The story is told to the public.

The inspectors had been making reports to whoever was Boss at USDA for years.

Snokist
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in after a series of battles with the Food and Drug Administration over the reprocessing of moldy applesauce
and unsanitary conditions at its Terrace Heights cannery.

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2012/02/16/oregon-canners-interested-in-buying-bankrupt-snokist