Why Melamine?

October 24, 12:01 AMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

Previous Next

6 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Food Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Koala’s March Crème-filled Cookies are the latest 
Chinese-made brand to be recalled by the Food and
Drug Administration.

It’s been all over the news. Reports of melamine-laced foods probably has millions of people around the United States checking for the country of origin on the labels of the foods they buy. Tens of thousands of children in China have been sickened by the presence of the chemical in Chinese dairy products and many have even died.

So, what exactly is melamine?

In short, it’s a chemical vital to the manufacture of common plastics. Do you have Formica countertops in your house? They contain melamine as do countless other – safe – plastic items throughout your home. What makes melamine the culprit in this scandal is its high nitrogen content (For the particulars on its molecular construction, go here) and it’s that high level of nitrogen that’s so appealing to the criminals who have been lacing their products with the stuff.

In order to increase their profits, some Chinese food processors have been diluting their milk products with water. That’s bad enough, of course, but in order to pass inspections, they’ve been adding melamine to the diluted product. Why? Because the tests that are used to determine the protein content of food products don’t actually measure the protein content: what they actually measure is the level of nitrogen. It’s the level of nitrogen that serves as an indicator of how much protein is present in the food.

As the Hartford Courant described it earlier this week, “Proteins are made from chains of amino acids, and each amino acid contains a nitrogen atom. In other words, in any normal, unadulterated food, protein is the only source of nitrogen.”

Also important to remember is that it actually takes significantly high levels of melamine to injure any adult who might consume it. Part of the problem is that this has been going on for a while now, and – unfortunately for those poor Chinese infants – the levels of melamine have been building up in kidneys that can’t accommodate nearly as much of anything as can larger adult kidneys.

 “Because it formed crystals in the body and was not fully dissolved in urine,” noted Scientific American last month, “the melamine gathered in the kidney, gunking up the organ and forming stones.” Interestingly, what Scientific American was describing was the impact on thousands of pets who consumed pet food made with melamine-tainted wheat products last year. Now it’s happening to children.

Tragic doesn’t begin to describe this mess.