Saturday, September 27, 2008 Plastic in my milk By Ober Khok Sira-sira store
I WILL ramble in my column today. I think it’s the effect of toxic elements in my food taking its toll. Come, ramble with me and be my love.
There is so much talk about plastic in China‘s “lactic juice,” that Joy’s cat Whiskers and Krystal’s dog Shadow won’t drink our leftover milk anymore. My Tita Blitte scolds them — the pets, I mean:
“Stop playing with your food! Whiskers, drink your milk if you want strong bones. Shadow, finish yours if you want clear eyes.”
The polite thing to say now when offering someone a cup of coffee is this:
“Would you like cream or milk with melamine in your coffee?”
One may also reassure guests: “Don’t mind the formalin in the tuna sandwich. The melamine in your cookies is more lethal.”
At home, it’s a family joke to ask:
“So, Krystal, what kind of fish would you like — the one soaked in the formalin special or the one with the aniline (anyil) dry rub?”
My neighbor Illustracio and I once heard about fish vendors who soak the day’s catch with water mixed with formalin, a preservative used to keep a body from yielding too fast to decay.
Anyil is an organic, blue compound used in the preparation of dyes and a chemical I can hardly pronounce: methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. It gives fish a rich color and a “fresh” look.
Man, I feel guilty. This topic will spoil your appetite, but then you need to lose some weight anyway.e are as guilty as the Chinese businessmen who fortified their milk products with the compound melamine. It is used in making tiles, plastic and whiteboard, according to www.wisegeek.com. When ingested, it can cause kidney stone formation.
The word “fortified” sure now has a new meaning to me.
I remember that the Department of Health warned fish vendors a few years ago about the danger of using formalin and anyil to preserve fish or improve its looks. But I still hear people say that the practice persists.
It is not a lesser evil compared to the milk scandal stirring up China. Any act that sabotages the health of the public is a crime.
Five or six days ago, The Associated Press reported “China’s food safety crisis widened Friday after the industrial chemical melamine was found in milk produced by three of the country’s leading dairy companies” prompting stores to pull out suspected products.
The Philippines is doing its best to prevent the situation from going rancid, too.
The cheese of the matter, I suspect, is that it is about economics at play. Some unscrupulous businessmen may want to make bigger profit. I only wish that each time they add a “trade secret” or a “secret ingredient” to the product, they remember public welfare.
I saw on television some consumers (mostly the poor) who said they bought the product from China because they are cheaper.
Of course they are cheaper. They have a secret ingredient that adds bulk, which proportionately increases the sales.
To fight back, we can develop consumer vigilance by reading labels and looking up words we don’t understand. Ignorance is a malady we can remedy. A dead and ignorant person is a tragedy.
But how safe can we really get?
As my Uncle Gustav puts it: “If you want milk that’s safe, raise your own cow. If you want plastic in your “lactic juice,” drink a brand that’s under question and consider your act a game of Russian roulette.”
