The Fido-fodder scandal is spreading. Now it's tainted poultry in Indiana, chickens laced with melamine originally sold as pet food and "salvaged" as chicken feed. (Goldy of HorsesAss.org, who's really been on top of this, has more over at the Slog.)
Like the contaminated spinach scare last year, the story has everything, including a vague, ominous threat (adulterated food supplies), cute, innocent victims (Fido, Fluffy), and an amorphous, unknown villain (The Chinese? Greedy American capitalists? Our own government?)
RobertInSeattle added a great comment to Cornichon's original post a couple of days ago: don't automatically blame the Chinese, he says; consider the possibility that American buyers of contaminated feed were aware of what was going on.
So where's the FDA as this menace moves from dog dish in the general direction of our own dinner plates? Aren't they ones who are supposedly protecting the food supply? Well, they just got around to appointing a Food Safety Czar.
Dispatch calling all czars, this is dispatch, come in please: AIDS czar, Iraq war czar, drug czar, food czar ...
Whew, we feel a lot safer now.
Posted by Ronald Holden at May 2, 2007 9:28 AMMakes the argument for eating locally produced, minimally processed foods a little stronger, doesn't it?
I realized how much that has changed in our lives last week when we were looking for a can opener and realized we hadn't used it in months. I took that as a positive sign.
Posted by: sailcocktail at May 4, 2007 9:18 AMHere's an even scarier thought: When I was doing business with the Arabs in the '80s (this was a consortium that included the bin Laden family members), they openly told me that they controlled huge herds of cattle - the eatin' kind - on ranches out in Western Canada. In the world we live in today, kinda makes you a little paranoid, don't it?
Posted by: RobertinSeattle at May 2, 2007 10:31 AM