Oct 2, 2008
Melamine Contaminated Food List
Before you check out the following items, please click here first to grab the Sciencebase newsfeed. I’ll be updating the melamine news over the next few days, and the RSS newsfeed system allows you to keep up to date with the Sciencebase site without having to check back by adding our headlines to your Google account, My Yahoo, Bloglines or your active bookmarks in your browser.
As the melamine in milk products from China problem continues to grow apace, Sciencebase presents a succinct list of melamine contaminated food list culled from the most recent news results on the subject. This is by no means an exhaustive list nor is it a condemnation of any particular products, it’s here merely to raise awareness of what is happening with regard to the melamine in milk scandal.
- Powdered baby milk.
- HK finds melamine in Chinese-made cheesecake.
- Cookies With Melamine Found in Netherlands.
- Mr Brown coffee products.
- Manufacturing giant Unilever recalls melamine tainted tea. CNN is also reporting that the Hong Kong authorities Sunday (October 5) announced that two recalled candy products made by British confectioner Cadbury had high levels of melamine.
- Melamine Detected in Two More Ritz Snacks.
- More Chinese-made sweets recalled in Japan.
- White Rabbit brand Chinese candy contaminated: Asian health officials.
- Lipton, Glico and Ritz the latest businesses to be affected by milk powder scandal.
- Hong Kong finds traces of melamine in Cadbury products.
- Recalled Melamine Milk Products include Asian versions of Bairong grape cream crackers, Dove chocolate, Dreyers cake mix, Dutch Lady candy, First Choice crackers, Kraft Oreo wafer sticks, M&Ms, Magnum ice cream, Mentos bottle yoghurt, Snickers funsize, Yili hi-cal milk, Youcan sesame snacks and others. Testing of some of those has already proven negative.
- Melamine Found in More China-Made Products, including Heinz DHA+AA baby cereal.
- 305 Chinese dairy-based products temporarily banned in Korea.
- US bloggers have gone so far as to uncover dozens of products recalled in China that were still on the shelves of their local supermarkets.
- 31 new milk powder brands found tainted.
Just for the record, this is not, as was suggested on a couple of blogs linking here, a definitive, complete list. I will update it as and when new information comes to light. Check out the previous posts for more information in the background to this news story and for further discussion on the issues surrounding the melamine in milk products scandal: Melamine Scandal Widens and (2008-09-29) Milky Melamine.
The obvious question to me is why are melamine and melamine scrap being put into milk and animal feed? What we are seeing here is not just accidental leaching of this substance, whether the particular form is toxic or not, into the food supply, but an intentional addition of it to “cut” the milk with a cheap “filler.” And why not just use US and Canadian milk suppliers who have a high quality product? Just go on the website tradekey.com and look at all the offerings of milk products of Chinese origin at CHEAP prices. That is the source of the problem here—people who are willing to cut corners on quality and safety to make more profit on their product. It comes down to a question of ETHICS.
I shop locally at farmers markets, where I often buy better quality for less than supermarket prices. For items I buy in supermarkets, I do my homework and purchase brands that have consistently offered high quality and are healthy. This usually means I do not buy mainstream commercial brands for my family. Even within the “natural foods” industry there are now questionable companies buying up smaller, profitable natural companies. Find out more at cornucopia.org.
Money is power. Be willing to do homework on brands you buy and use your dollars to vote for a better quality life.
@BabyKramer – melamine monomer is not actually particularly toxic.
what you say is true. but it is unacceptable to hear comments on the news whrein they actually do say that some melamine contamination are in levels known not to cause any harm… Now why should there be even any levels at all. If you say carry over from containers or trays etc.. that would be so miniscule it would not even be detected. but for some products to be considered accetable because they have only 1% melamine is totally out of the question. and as per the big industries NEstle etc. they knew what they were putting into their products. 5 years from now when all this bruhaha has died down whats to say the chinese or others they wont be up to same antics again? as far back as i can recall, here in asia the chinese m erchants are always being accused of diluting or falsifying products….. (meat in buns not real meat, etc. ) pirated discs, fake bags etc….etc…. etc…..
It’s impossible to specify something as pure. There is always going to be contamination even if that is at the parts per trillion level and below. A factory may have a line that has a melamine polymer component, a sorting tray perhaps, so there could be minute amounts of melamine leached from the equipment with use that makes its way into the product. Setting a safety limit means that the QC/QA guys can check for levels above what is safe. It’s not to give manufacturers permission to deliberately add the stuff, but to give them reasonable testing limits.
Thanks, David, for posting this article and to the others who have already submitted comments.
My question is, why are “safe” limits for melamine set? Why should there be any melamine in our foods? When reports like that seen today of “trace” amounts found in US baby formula are issued, it downplays the fact that melamine is, in fact, present.
Perhaps someone could explain why we should tolerate ANY melamine being added to our food?