Kraft Cheese?: Adulterated Food?

[Guest guest]

Kraft " Cheese? " : Adulterated Food?

JoAnn Guest

Nov 17, 2006 19:24 PST

--

Kraft " Cheese? " : Adulterated Food?

FDA: Don't Ask! Don't Tell!

The Agribusiness Examiner i.115 7may01

 

America's dairy farmers already besieged with a chaotic national

milk price structure, increasing concentration within the dairy

industry, growing energy costs, corporate pressure to employ a

questionable bovine growth hormone (rBGH). and the ever-present

threat of foot and mouth disease are now being menaced by still

another threat to their economic livelihood.

 

Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC) is today being widely used in the

making of so-called cheese products, principally by Kraft, the

nation's largest cheese manufacturer, and Land O'Lakes. The general

definition of MPC is a blend of dry dairy ingredients from 42% to

90% casein (pure dairy protein). The World Trade Organization (WTO)

has two Harmonized Trade Schedule (HTS) numbers to designate MPC ---

04049 and 3501.

 

HTS04049 is made by ultra filtering skim milk, retaining anything

the size of a protein or larger (bacteria, somatic cell, etc.) and

then drying that to form a powder. With HTS 3501 proteins obtained

in other ways can be added (i.e., casein). Neither of these two

products are considered milk by the Food and Drug Administration's

(FDA) definitions.

 

 

" MPCs are cheaper than domestic forms of dairy proteins (farm milk,

nonfat dry milk, etc.). Not manufactured in the U.S. MPC's are added

to cheese vats --- on the cheap yielding more end products with

`savings' retained by the manufacturer, " according to John Bunting,

a Delaware County, New York dairy farmer. Traditionally, half of all

U.S. milk is destined to go into cheese production.

 

Imported MPCs come from traditional dairy countries such as New

Zealand, which provides the U.S. with 45% of its imports. Other

countries importing MPC's into the U.S. include Argentina, Poland,

India, China and the Ukraine, home of the city of Chernobyl. Between

1996 and 2000 imports of MPCs into the U.S. increased by 400%.

 

Recently the USDA announced that it was scrapping plans to tighten

restrictions on dairy imports posing a risk of foot-and-mouth

disease.

Any further restrictions on dairy imports will not take effect until

a public comment process and publication of a final rule, USDA said

May 4. European Union officials announced written confirmation of

the decision.

 

 

The import restrictions would have primarily affected some European

soft cheeses and products containing casein. Casein would have had

to be treated at ultra-high temperatures needed to kill the FMD

virus. Cheeses

would have been required to be similarly treated or to have aged

sufficiently to kill the virus.

 

Under U.S. law, using an ingredient not approved by the FDA is one

form of food adulteration. FDA defines food additives as " all

substances . . .the intended use of which results or may reasonably

be expected to result . . .in their becoming a component or food

otherwise affecting the characteristic of food. "

 

MPC is a food additive without exemption. FDA has no standard for

MPC. The FDA does not list MPC among food additives " Generally

Regarded As Safe " (GRAS). Thus, using MPC in any human food

constitutes

adulteration, EXCEPT when individual manufacturers have followed

exact costly and complex rules for properly self-determining

unapproved food additives to be GRAS.

 

If a food manufacturer like Kraft, which has 56.8% of the nation's

cheese market and 62.2% of the " American " cheese market, and Land

O'Lakes completes a self-GRAS determination then use of MPC in a

non-standard food would be legal. FDA's GRAS self-determination

rules

require each food manufacturer using an unapproved food additive to

conduct its own self-determination.

 

" As of late January, 2001, " Bunting notes, " no food manufacturer has

voluntarily submitted any GRAS self-determination to the FDA. Nor

has FDA reviewed any GRAS self-determinations by firms listing MPC

in human foods. Don't ask! Don't tell! "

 

As Peter Hardin, editor and publisher of the authoritative monthly

The Milkweed, who along with Bunting has done much of the

investigation of MPC use in the U.S., shows " virtually EVERY Kraft

processed `cheese' product in the supermarket contains MPCs. Add up

the Kraft products listing MPC as an ingredient: Cheez Whiz,

Velveeta, the array of processed Singles products, Kraft emerges as

a huge user of the 100-120

million pounds of MPCs that entered the U.S. in 1999. Kraft now

spells processed cheese products `M-P-C'. "

 

Hardin also has demonstrated that certain claims about Kraft's

processed " cheese " products " appear to be less than truthful. " For

example, Kraft

uses the word " Cheez, " not cheese in Cheez Whiz, but still claims

that Cheez Whiz is a " cheese dip. " And, he adds, " good luck finding

cheese in

Velveeta, a Pasteurized, Prepared Cheese Product.'

 

" Kraft has intentionally `dumbed down' the quality and integrity of

the " processed `cheese' products by using MPC, " he adds. " But Kraft

(and others) want more. The National Cheese Institute (NCI) has

petitioned the FDA to allow ANY dairy ingredient (foreign or

domestic) to be used in cheese manufacture. Kraft --- NCI's largest

member --- wants to make

it legal for all cheese manufacturers to `dumb down' all cheeses,

processed, natural . . whatever. Why? Cheaper ingredients boost

corporate profits. "

http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Kraft-Cheese-Adulterated.htm

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets