notice that this has been in the "meal" of fish food for a while.
Ingrid

http://www.itchmo.com/read/melamine-...years_20070429

No more denials, no more hemming and hawing by the FDA. Time to take
massive cautionary action is now. It's not just animal feed anymore.
It's not just pet food. It's a crisis. It's been going on for years.
It's being done in "wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins".

All ingredients and foods imported from abroad needs to be tested now.
Period. Any food that used suspect ingredients should be recalled.
ASAP.

Highlights below from the IHT article (emphasis ours):

Here at the Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group factory, huge
boiler vats are turning coal into melamine, which is used to create
plastics and fertilizer.

But the leftover melamine scrap, small acorn-sized chunks of white
rock, is then being sold to local entrepreneurs, who say they secretly
mix a powdered form of the scrap into animal feed to artificially
enhance the protein level.

"It just saves money," says a manager at an animal feed factory
here. "Melamine scrap is added to animal feed to boost the protein
level."

The practice is widespread in China. For years animal feed sellers
have been able to cheat buyers by blending the powder into feed with
little regulatory supervision, according to interviews with melamine
scrap traders and agricultural workers here.

"Many companies buy melamine scrap to make animal feed, such as fish
feed," says Ji Denghui, general manager of the Fujian Sanming Dinghui
Chemical Company. "I don't know if there's a regulation on it.
Probably not. No law or regulation says 'don't do it,' so everyone's
doing it. The laws in China are like that, aren't they? If there's no
accident, there won't be any regulation."

Most local feed companies do not admit that they use melamine. But
last Friday here in Zhangqiu, a fast-growing industrial city southeast
of Beijing, a pair of animal feed producers explained in great detail
how they purchase low-grade wheat, corn, soybean or other proteins and
then mix in small portions of nitrogen-rich melamine, whose chemical
properties give a bag of animal feed an inflated protein level under
standard tests.

"If you add it in small quantities, it won't hurt the animals," said
one animal feed entrepreneur whose name is being withheld to protect
him from prosecution.

The man - who works in a small animal feed operation that consists
of a handful of storage and mixing areas - said he has mixed melamine
into animal feed for years.

We've always suspected that this problem went back further than Menu
Foods and this article confirms our suspicions. Again, we may never
know the degree of deaths and illnesses in pets as many have long died
and evidence has been lost.

On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:31:20 CST, wrote:

We've always suspected that this problem went back further than Menu
Foods and this article confirms our suspicions. Again, we may never
know the degree of deaths and illnesses in pets as many have long died
and evidence has been lost.

And we have no idea of the animals people eat that have been fed this
stuff, and I heard it is possibly in some human food. I'm kind of glad I've
been off wheat gluten for a number of years now, but I do wonder.... am I
really allergic to that... or some foreign additive that shouldn't have
been there? Hmmmm, ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

That is exactly what I been thinking too. altho I am hoping that the
allergy tests use purified wheat antigens for testing. wake up
feeling like crap. the worst is when I cheat and we go out for pizza.
that is when the celiac like symptoms show up. Ingrid

On Tue, 1 May 2007 04:14:08 CST, ~ jan wrote:
I'm kind of glad I've
been off wheat gluten for a number of years now, but I do wonder.... am I
really allergic to that... or some foreign additive that shouldn't have
been there? Hmmmm, ~ jan

On Tue, 1 May 2007 07:52:03 CST, wrote:

That is exactly what I been thinking too. altho I am hoping that the
allergy tests use purified wheat antigens for testing. wake up
feeling like crap. the worst is when I cheat and we go out for pizza.
that is when the celiac like symptoms show up. Ingrid

And pizza dough is suppose to be a low gluten mix.... but I heard that on a
CSI LasVegas show... so perhaps it was just made up TV. ;-)

But... back to fish, so I don't completely derail this thread, check your
ingredients list. I sure hope the Manda Fu doesn't use wheat gluten from
China.... all the text is in Japanese. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

how can we know where the ingredients come from? that was the problem
with all the pet foods, they are not required to list where the
ingredients come from....... in fact, if they change the formulation
they arent required to "update" their labels either... until the next
time they print new labels.

boy am I glad I feed our dogs raw meaty bone diet and the fish been
getting freeze dried krill, dapnia. there have been at least 3 dogs
on our immediate block have died in the past 4 months. it is
sickening. Ingrid

On Tue, 1 May 2007 09:51:32 CST, ~ jan wrote:
But... back to fish, so I don't completely derail this thread, check your
ingredients list. I sure hope the Manda Fu doesn't use wheat gluten from
China.... all the text is in Japanese. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us