Today’s Food Matters column in the San Francisco Chronicle is about the melamine scandals.  Melamine is still a big problem.  It has just turned up as the cause of death of 1,500 raccoon “dogs” (animals raised for fur in China) and in pizzas in Japan.  There seems no end to ingenious uses for making food and feed appear to have more protein than they really do, never mind that melamine forms kidney crystals when mixed with one of its by-products, cyanuric acid.

For the science types among you, the intrepid Procter & Gamble scientists who identified melamine in pet food have just published their toxicology findings.  Take a look at Figure 1, which compares the chromatography of the “control” (safe) cat food with the cat food “tainted” with melamine and its nasty by-products.  And check out Table 1; it reports that nearly 15% of the so-called wheat gluten was actually melamine and cyanuric acid.  The amounts in Chinese infant formula were in the same ballpark, so it’s no wonder that so many babies got sick.  This is a huge scandal and clear indication that our food safety systems need a major fix.

Center for Science in the Public Interest has mapped legislative initiatives by state.  Here’s a quick way to see which states are doing what.

Adam Voiland of U.S. News and World Report interviewed David Ludwig and me for this story based on our recent JAMA article.  He’s packed a lot of information into these 10 categories, which start with #1, the billions advertisers spend on marketing to kids, and end with #10, food industry attacks on critics (this means me).  Check out the links!

Melamine-laden milk powder made in China has made its way into Chinese infant formula, of course, but is also turning up in candy in New Zealand, croissants in Japan, M&Ms in South Korea, and coffee drinks in the United States.  Now the British Food Standards Agency (FSA) warns that melamine has been found in something more exotic.  Would you believe chocolate-flavored “willy” syrup.  You don’t know what this is?  Consider it a caloric sex toy.   If you have used it already, the FSA says not to worry.  The melamine dose is too low to do harm.  Whew.

Thanks (I think) to blogger Doctor Yoni Freedhoff for passing this one along.

And this one is international.  Ketchum Public Relations asked about 1000 people in the U.S., the U.K, Germany, Argentina, and China what they thought about a bunch of issues about food choice.  The results are interesting, if not particularly credible.  For example, 44% say they are confused about which foods are good for them, and only 30% or so would rank profit as the highest priority if they were CEO of a global food company.  That’s the difference between consumers and people who go to business school, I guess.  Enjoy and have a sane weekend.

Andrew Martin begins his account of the latest Pepsi quarterly report like this: “Tap water is making a comeback.  That’s bad news for PepsiCo’s profits.”  Sales are down 10%.  Why?  People aren’t buying as much soda or bottled water.  Score one for the environmental movement.

The Environmental Working Group says the plastic bottles are bad for the environment but that’s not all.  Its latest report tests the waters and finds plenty of fertilizer and drug residues in them. Oh great.

Surely, this collection of items is nothing if not ironic.  The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has issued its 2008 Global Hunger Index, which maps 33 countries with alarmingly high rates of hunger.  And then we have Taco Bell’s new Big Bell Box; it racks up 1670 calories with the drink and more than 3 grams of sodium (about 7 grams of salt).  We also have the Heart Attack Grill, which I guess is not really a joke.

I thank Andy Bellatti and Hugh Joseph for pointing these out (I think).

My commentary with Dr. David Ludwig, author of Ending the Food Fight, has just been published in the October 15 JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association).  Here’s the title: Can the food industry play a constructive role in the obesity epidemic?  Well, can it?  I have my doubts, but read it and see what you think.