Chinese Food: Here’s what’s in the chicken jerky that’s poisoning our pets

Chinese Food: Here’s what’s in the chicken jerky that’s poisoning our pets Posted on May 15, 2012 by Amy Renz In China, over 80% of people worry about food safety. Excessive pesticide use, illegal additives, diseased livestock, and “gutter oil”are their primary concerns.[1] If one billion people are scared of their country’s human food supply, then this one American is scared about the pet food it’s exporting for our dogs and cats. Seventy percent (70%) of pet food imports to the US are coming from China, and skyrocketing. From finished food products to pet food ingredients for US manufacturers, that is one scary number. Reports of illness and death from eating China-made chicken jerky dog treats like Waggin’ Train, Canyon Creek Ranch (both Nestle Purina brands), and Milo’s Kitchen (Del Monte) is just one example. In the last six months, that Chinese chicken jerky is responsible for 600 sick or dead US dogs (according to petitions and lawsuits). Yet that’s nothing compared to the 8000 dead US dogs from willful melamine contamination in 2007, or the multitude of Chinese people that become sick and die every day from something they ate. With 22% of the world’s population feeding on 7% of the world’s arable land, the availability and the safety of food is a grave situation. In a second, we’ll talk about the pesticides, antibiotics, lead, arsenic, heavy metals, methanol (or cocktails of all these things) that are poisoning that chicken jerky. To comprehend it, we need to first grasp the human situation in China. Consider: 123,000 Chinese are poisoned by pesticides each year; as many as 10,000 of them die.[2] 750,000 people die prematurely in China each year from high pollution levels. [3] Groundwater in about 55% of the cities monitored across China is not safe to drink. [4] 25% of all the water in China’s seven main river systems is “too toxic for human contact.”[5] Coal burning pours thick toxic ash over swaths of land contaminating crops, livestock and people. Only 1% of China’s 560,000 urban residents breathes safe air,[6] and toxic sulfur dioxide produced in coal combustion contributes to 400,000 premature deaths a year. [7] All this and agriculture has exceeded industry as the biggest polluter. Runoff dumps millions of tons of pesticide and fertilizer, and billions of tons of manure into major rivers and waterways, creating dead zones in the East China Sea and eutrophication (i.e. dense bacterial blooms) in inland bodies of water.[8] Every year 12 million tons of China’s crops are contaminated with heavy metal residues that threaten public health. [9] 49% of fruits and vegetables in China contain pesticide residues that exceed China’s standards for BANNED organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. [10] These are highly toxic pesticides. Residues of antibiotics, growth hormones, and growth promoters like copper sulfate and arsenicals are ending up in the meat and animal products made from the livestock, and in the environment via manure run off. Rampant overuse of antibiotics also has created superbugs that are a threat to humans, livestock, wildlife and arable land.[11] Many Chinese still just dream of eating meat. Chinese spend 40% of their income on food. The average urban Chinese makes $1,688/year. The average rural Chinese makes $712/year. 150 million Chinese (equivalent to half the US population) are in poverty making $1.25/day or less. [12] On every street corner there are problems with human food safety. In 2010 babies in Central China under 15 months old were growing breasts. The milk formula they consumed contained residues of growth hormones that were administered to the livestock.[13] In March, 200 grade school students fell ill after eating egg yolk pie; it was found to contain chicken feathers [14] In March, a food processing company, with an annual output of 8 million ducks, admitted to selling dead ducks instead of incinerating them as regulated.[15] In 2011, restaurant waste “processed” into two to three million tons of swill-cooked dirty oil, was resold as cooking oil (aka “gutter oil”).[16] In February, a woman bought a roaster chicken from a grocery store only to find it had four legs. She was told it could be a deformity from radioactivity.[17] This year, more stores sell fake or deformed eggs[18], expired meat products and normal chicken as “free range”[19]. In 2008, six Chinese babies died and 294,000 were made sick by another case of melamine tainted formula with 51,900 requiring hospitalization.[20] In 2008 Chinese pork dumplings tainted with methamidophos (a highly toxic pesticide) exported to Japan and sold domestically made 500 Japanese and countless Chinese agonizingly sick.[21] This week, a friend of mine who just returned from another routine trip to China, told me a new flavor of ramen noodles has entered the market. Dog flavored. All that food safety worry constitutes one giant collective gulp. And if these instances aren’t enough then read those on From China with Luck or on Wikipedia – including the soy sauce made from human hair and hazardous bodily secretions, hams soaked in pesticides, and pesticide-laced powered ginger sold to Whole Foods supermarkets in the US.[22] Chinese may die abruptly from acute poisoning, or over time from prolonged lethal exposure. One statistic is certain: if you want an eight fold increase in your odds of developing stomach cancer, just visit China. The Big 5 pet food companies that control 85% of the global pet food market have propagated a crazy myth. Let me quote Waggin Train and Canyon Creek Ranch (Purina): “These [jerky] treats are made in China… In China, dark meat chicken is more popular with consumers than white meat chicken, and so the supply of quality, white meat chicken used in our products is more readily available for dog treats.” [emphasis added] Now let me quote my father: “Bull pucky!” Students have launch in a primary school in Enle township, Yunnan province, April 25, 2012. [Photo/Asianewsphoto] How idiotic do they think we are? When 700-900 million rural Chinese are lucky to choke down 4.5 ounces per day of some type of tainted meat, we cannot possibly think the Chinese would wrinkle their noses at a quality juicy pure white meat chicken breast. No. That chicken breast is ending up in dog food because it is too poisonous for the Chinese to even contemplate sneaking it into the human food supply. Toxins in Chinese Food, the likely culprits… Now let’s explore what’s in that chicken and practically every other food coming out of China. Dogs consuming the tainted Chinese chicken jerky have exhibited gastrointestinal upset and Fanconi Syndrome where the kidneys leak glucose and electrolytes into the urine, and (if untreated) kidney failure ultimately results. The short list of the know causes of acquired Fanconi Syndrome are: Ingesting expired tetracyclines (a broad spectrum antibiotic) Lead poisoning [23] Exposure to a number of other chemicals and substances can also have a deleterious effect on the kidneys and the GI tract. Common suspects are: Arsenic Heavy metals (particularly mercury, lead, cadmium, and copper) Highly toxic pesticides (herbicides and insecticides) Fertilizers Disinfectants (including their inert ingredients) Methanol Coal tar A Snapshot of China’s Livestock Farming: Beginning in the early 1980’s industrial forms of livestock raising began to replace China’s backyard farm system. Then a farmer would produce maybe two pigs a year; one for their family to consume at spring festival and one for the state. Then pigs didn’t eat grains, they grazed on weeds, crop remnants, and ate kitchen scraps, and left behind perfectly good fertilizer. Today China’s industrialization of livestock farming – driven by their need to ensure an adequate food supply for their 1.3 billion people – has taken place in concert with the development of a multi-billion dollar (USD) feed industry and a massive pesticide industry. Swine CAFO. Industrialized pig farming. Pig farming is by far the biggest livestock industry in China. To put things in perspective, in 2010 China produced more than 50 million metric tons of pork from a swineherd of 660 million head, nearly all of which was consumed domestically. This is five times the amount of pork produced in the US and almost half of the global total of 101.5 million metric tons.[24] This increase in livestock (pigs, chickens, cattle, etc.) also generated 4.8 billion tons of manure in 2008. The sheer volume of it and China’s failure to institute regulations, makes it a waste management problem. Today most manure is polluting large tracts of land and waterways. Mean Cocktails: antibiotics, arsenicals, growth promoters and other chemicals Today in China, about 75% of livestock raising is done with specialized household farms (50%) and industrial confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) (25%). (In the US, 97% of livestock is raised in CAFOs). Specialized household farms may have up to 500 head of swine (or a commensurate number of chickens). CAFO are massive outfits with tens of thousands of heads. Both groups use commercial feed with growth hormones, antibiotics and growth promoters such as copper sulfate, arsenic, and other drugs to hasten the conversion of feed to meat (i.e. produce larger, leaner livestock quicker on less feed).[25] Industrialized Chicken Coops. Many do not provide this much room. China buys about 25% of the US’s total soybean production (99% of which is genetically modified) and together with corn (most produced domestically),“fried” cottonseed, and additives, its feed companies produce animal feed. The feed industry in China is $62 billion (USD) and 70% is owned by billion dollar transnational, vertically-integrated firms (meaning their operations include everything from soy crushing to make soy meal, and feed production through farming and slaughter). US based Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus (together ABCD) and Wilmar (Singapore) are the major players. ABCD not only export US soy to China, they import it there to make soy meal and oil. Corn, once a crop reserved for human consumption, is becoming increasingly used for animal feed. So much so that the central Chinese government will likely no longer regulate it in the same way as grains intended exclusively for human consumption.[26] Both soy and cottonseed are grains without regulation. Arsenic is a pesticide sprayed on cotton fields. Just like in the US, the common feed additive cocktail includes a form of tetracycline (an antibiotic), arsenic (e.g. roxarosone, carbarsone, Arsanilic acid), and a coccidiostat (an antiprotozoal drug). There’s no regulation or recording of who buys animal feed, how much they use, or whether they use it following any stated guidelines – including expiration dates. In China, farmers also buy things like “lean meat powder.” This can be anything, but often it is a long ago banned and dangerous drug called clenbuterol that stays in the tissues of the livestock and is conferred to those consuming it.[27] We know that consuming expired or broken down tetracycline (in animal feed, in soil, in meat, or in manure) can induce Fanconi Syndrome. Ingestion of copper sulfate by animals of three ounces of a 1% solution produces extreme inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, with symptoms of abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Examinations of copper sulfate-poisoned animals showed signs of acute toxicity in the spleen, liver and kidneys and gastrointestinal tract. [28] We also know that arsenic produces GI disturbances, and that consumption of both arsenic and gossypol (the natural toxin contained in cottonseed) can result in kidney tubular damage. Arsenic is one of those crazy, notoriously toxic substances. Once fed to livestock it passes unchanged into manure. It stays in the soil and is conferred to anything that soil touches – like crops or other animals. In the presence of water it converts into highly toxic arsenate. It’s a carcinogen with a long rap sheet of other maladies. And in 2005 China was the top producer of white arsenic with nearly 50% of the world share. [29] So how do these drugs end up in humans or dogs? Easy. Either: In the meat of the livestock if the additives are given in the livestock’s feed or in drinking water in excess, or too close or to the time of slaughter. In the meat of the livestock if the additives are ingested though environmental exposure. Through fecal bacteria found in meat products. The amount of antibiotics entering the environment is tough to determine as it is currently not tracked. In the US, some estimate that 25.6 million pounds every year are administered for nontherapeutic purposes to swine, chickens and cattle.[30] With four times our population, and five times more swine, China’s number could be easily 4 to 5 times that amount – especially when you consider that the feed additives industry in China is valued at nearly $30 billion. Constant , proactive, subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics in animal feed has caused massive problems in China (and the US) with antibiotic-resistent superbugs. This is a major human health problem. It’s also a big environmental problem. Researchers found bacteria with tetracycline resistance in soil samples taken from Chinese feed lots.[31] China’s abuses may be excessive, but they’re not alone. Though the US banned the use of arsenic as a pesticide for cotton, high levels of arsenic are still found in domestic rice grown on former cotton fields. And a recent US study found arsenic in 55% of the uncooked chicken products (including organic varieties) purchased in US supermarkets. [32] Get the Lead Out – and all those other heavy metals Lead is another leading cause of acquired Fanconi’s Syndrome. Like cadmium, copper and mercury, it’s a heavy metal that’s toxic to the kidneys, liver and stomach and prominent in China’s environment. China is the world’s leading producer and consumer of lead. There have been cases of massive lead poisoning in China. Most lead poisoning comes from pollution from battery factories and metal smelters. In recent years, many new factories have opened to produce lead-acid batteries for electric bikes, motorcycles and cars. [33] Wang Yaya drinks from a water tap in Guiyang, Guizhou province. WANG JING/CHINA DAILY Lead, cadmium, copper and mercury are also dumped into waterways from the textile industry. In 2010 China processed 41.3 million metric tons of fibers, about 52% of the global total. It also discharged 2.5 billion metric tons of heavy-metal sewage, making the sector the third biggest polluter of all 39 industries. That is especially worrisome for China where two-thirds of cities lack an adequate water supply, one-fifth of all cities have unsafe water, and 300 million rural residents (the population of the entire United States) have no access to safe sources of drinking water.[34] Pollution in China has led to chronic health problems such as gastric disorders, diarrhea, asthma, bronchitis, conjunctivitis, as well as acute poisoning and death. And there is a term in China for the mass incidents of pollution: “cancer villages.” Many Chinese disregard pollution in favor of profits and growth. Local governments put their own projects and economic benefits ahead of central government directives, and the concerns of local farmers and villagers.[35] In 2006, the river that flows through the village of Shangba in Guangdong province suffered massive heavy metal pollution from the Dabaoshan mine. The mine, which produced huge piles of tailings (mining refuse) discarded them next to rice fields. It also dumped large amounts of cadmium, a known carcinogen, as well as lead, zinc, indium and other metals into water supplies. High levels of cadmium and zinc in the drinking water and in the rice grown by the villagers showed up in test results. Stomach, liver, kidney and colon cancer accounted for 85% of the cancers acquired by villagers in what is now known as “the City of Death.”[36] All this lead and pollution enters the soil and waterways through conscious or accidental dumping, runoff, or toxic ash. It enters their crops and livestock and is passed on through the food chain. Pesticides, Fertilizers, and Disinfectants: You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. If you think things can’t get much worse. Think again. Think nerve gas. Photo illustration [China Daily] Beneze. Tulene. Furans. Xylene. Various hydrocarbons. Organophospates. These things will kill you just for lookin’ at ‘em. Greenpeace estimates that China uses 35% of the world’s fertilizer. [37] That’s over 51 million tons. More than the US and India combined. [38] China is now the world’s largest pesticide user, producer and exporter. Chinese farmers use 1.7 million tons of pesticide (herbicide and insecticide) on approximately 300 million hectares of farmland and forest, and it increases every year.[39] On a per hectare basis, that’s three to five times higher than in most other countries.[40] Organic (synthetic) pesticides are the most toxic and they are the most widely used in China. China makes 300 types of pesticides and 800 pesticide mixtures under 14,000 brands.[41] And they have completely destroyed 7% of their arable land from improper use.[42] Every year, they also poison 123,000 people, and kill 300 – 500 farmers from improper handling, and another 10,000 people from accidents.[43] Farmers suffer liver, kidney, nerve, blood, eye, skin, respiratory problems and headaches from pesticides. In one study, tests measured the levels of chemicals in farmers that are known indicators of pesticide poisoning, and found elevated levels in the liver (22%), kidney (23%) and nerves (6%).[44] Overusing pesticides is a common practice in China. Many farmers, who fear the pesticides they buy are fake, mix them at concentrations 2 – 3 times the recommended dosage, and apply them more often than instructed. [45] Compounding the overuse problem is a major conflict of interest. The local regulatory officials responsible for monitoring and maintaining proper pesticide usage by farmers are essentially self-employed. Without salaries or offices they must generate their own revenue and the way they do this is to sell pesticides to the same farmers they’re supposed to regulate.[46] In 1997 the central government forbade the use of highly toxic and hypertoxic agricultural chemicals for insect control on vegetables, melons, fruits, tea, and herbs for human consumption.[47] Yet these things could still be sprayed on animal feed crops, and directly on livestock, they’re relatively easily obtained, and use of them is prolific. Arsenic is a highly toxic. It’s chump-change next to organophosphates. Organophosphates are the basis for nerve gas. While the central government purportedly forbade most organophosphates in 1983, methamidophos, an organophosphate, remained widely-used. In 2000, a single boat accidentally dumped 50 tons of methamidophos into the Yangtze River. The river became barren and many species of fish are now extinct. In 2007 China banned the use of methamidophos and four other highly toxic pesticides: parathion, methylparathion, monocrotophos and dimecron and has recommended 15 others in their place. But these chemicals still exist in the environment, and can likely still be acquired and used – especially for unregulated animal feed crops. Eutrophication Runoff into the waterways, the pervasiveness of these chemicals in the soil, and their abundance in billions of tons of manure are just the natural ways these chemicals persist. Less than 1% of the 4.2 million large-scale farms for pigs, cattle and chicken use biogas digesters to dispose of livestock waste.[48] Research found that farming was responsible for 44% of the chemical oxygen demand (the main measure of organic compounds in water) and 67% of phosphorous discharges, and 57% of nitrogen discharges into bodies of water. In other words: farming has replaced industry as the biggest environmental polluter. From drinking water, feed grown in contaminated soil, or fecal contamination, these chemicals can easily find their way back into the tissues of the livestock sold for China’s human consumption – or if rejected there – sold for exported pet food. To underscore the point, even in the US we allow for export human food stuffs rejected for our own consumption because of contamination of banned substances.[49] Inert Ingredients, Disinfectants, and the Kitchen Garbage Xylene is classified as an “inert ingredient” on that can of Ortho flying ant killer we have in our tool sheds. It’s anything but inert. Like cresols, it’s just one of the many substances used to kill insects that permeate the environment. According to Merck’s online veterinary manual, these are toxic substances for livestock that can cause kidney damage. And oh, yeah, livestock may be sprayed, dipped or dusted with Xylene to get rid of bugs. Xylene is an organic compound created along with benzene and toluene in the coal or petroleum industries. Cresols (think coal-tar) are mainly hydroxytoluenes, and the first indication of poisoning in animals is usually death.[50] In fact if you see the words benzene or toluene, don’t wait for the alarm; put on the gas mask and hazmat suit. An article on “gutter oil” caught my eye. At the opening of this article we talked about “gutter oil,” created from “recycled” kitchen waste being resold for humans. Turns out China has a better idea for restaurant waste. They want to turn it into animal feed. “The kitchen leftovers, thought to be a good source of digestible energy and high-quality proteins, might end up as feed for livestock such as pigs and chickens, as a supplement to their diet.”[51] China has even monetized the project at $15.2 billion (USD) wasted in 2009 on restaurant leftovers. They’re also exploring turning 60 million tons of annual restaurant leftovers into fuel. On the surface that sounds like a better solution. Fuels contain varying amounts of benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene and xylene. And the issue is that this is happening in conjunction with turning the leftover material from the fuel conversion process into dirty, synthetic fertilizer. [52] On top of this is something that hits the chicken jerky production right between the eyes. Milo’s Kitchen, Canyon Creek Ranch, Waggin Train and others all use glycerin (aka gylcerol, natural vegetable glycerine) in their dog treats. Glycerine is a natural byproduct of biodiesel production. In fact one gallon of biodiesel yields one pound of glycerine. This glycerine from biodiesel is contaminated with methanol, a highly toxic substance and it’s entering the animal feed market. It’s happening in the US. And no doubt happening in China. Read: Glycerine: A Biodiesel by Any Other Name Wouldn’t Taste as Sweet. Recycling restaurant grease into animal feed and pet food is not new. The FDA unfortunately allows it in the US. But there’s something wrong about picking up all the already-suspect garbage from China’s restaurants, rendering it down, no doubt treating it with disinfectants, feeding it to animals, and considering it safe. It’s at least something I would never let past my dog’s nose. Coal in Your Stockings, Poop on Your Soles and Bird Flu in Your Blood China passed the US in 2008 as the world’s largest emitter of Green House Gasses with 17.3% of the world’s total. Their environmental problems cost the country more than $200 billion a year, roughly 10% of China’s GDP in 2005.[53] China Officials Release Amusingly Good “Smog Report” China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego.[54] Like an exploding bag of flour, all this soot ends up everywhere. From an agricultural perspective, it can coat crops and livestock in the toxic cresols mentioned earlier. Not only is there 4.8 billion tons of manure running into waterways there are chemical spills with local health risks and global implications. In 2005 an explosion at a state owned petrochemical plant released over 100 tons of benzene and nitrobenzene into the Songhua River affecting 3.8 million residents. This river, 600 km downstream serves as the main water supply for the Russian city of Khabarovsk.[55] Satellite imagery has identified global concentrations of the poisonous nitrogen oxide produced by vehicles to be the largest in China, and some soot clouds are so thick they block out entire cities from being seen at all from above. Reports indicate that only 32% of China’s industrial waste is treated in any sort of way. Some project that by the year 2050, if nothing changes, over 1 million people each year will die in China just from air pollution.[56] Los Angeles authorities claim that 25% of the particulates in their skies come from China. Research confirms that dust clouds from Asia contain not only harmful pollutants but also living organisms that transmit disease – like outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian flu. [57] And this past April, more than 23,000 chickens at several farms in the Chinese village of Touying were confirmed for the H5N1 bird flu virus. A total of 95,000 chickens have been culled. There’s no mention of where those diseased birds will end up. But if China thinks restaurant waste makes fine animal feed, then those dead birds must look like that “readily available” “quality white meat chicken,” Waggin Train was talking about.[58]