Many in US consume MELAMINE daily.
Some important points on the increasing occurrence of melamine in the food chain. It seems the use of melamine is primarily originating in China. It has been common practice to test protein content in animal feed or food products using a simple amine test. Producers can boost this "protein" result by adding triamino triazine (melamine) directly to the product. This gives a false positive in the amine test for proteins, boosting the price that the producers can seel the product for because the purchaser thinks there is more protein in the product that there really is.
This simple short cut to greed has many unintended or intended consequences.
Melamine by itself has the same toxicity as table salt. But melamine is also highly reactive with certain other additives and can break downb into very toxic cyanide-like compounds. Melamine is an antifungal and fire retardant so it has other useful properties to extend the shelf life of food products and further encourages its use. And it is inexpensive.
But many triazine compounds have been found to have pharmacological activitiy as "mood stabilizers" and anti-anxiety drugs. Very useful if you happen to be trying to keep a population of billions inside the box.
But with the expanding reliance of US food producers on inexpensive animal feed, we are having a flood of melamine-drenched animal feed entering our US food supply. Feed for all livestock and poulty and fish are increasingly being sourced from China. That means more melamine for us.
The FDA has tracked numerous occurrences of melamine in the US food supply in 2008, and has issued official statements that the amount of melamine making it into US CONSUMERS is several thousand times lower than the highest safe concentration. But this concentration is still likely within the pharmacological dosages required for the "mood stabilizing" effects.
No publication has been found that indicates the FDA has banned melamine, nor even regularly monitors any food for melamine levels. And if they did, it appears they have no problem with us consuming small but "mood-stabilizing" amounts every day.
Would this then mean that we do consume melamine each and every day because the US producers feed it to the animals in their feed and then it ends up in us and our pets? Those of us who home cook-are we unknowlingly giving small amounts in any chicken, beef, bison, fish, etc that we cook for our beloved pets? Sure the pet food gets tested but maybe human grade food needs to be tested for melamine also in the US.
the article from above is at: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=131806
