beyond outrageous ...

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Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC) — Consumers Must Be Warned!Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC) sounds OK, but how would it look if we saw the word "glue" on our food and beverage labels? MPC is legal for glue and for industrial uses, but it has never been approved for human consumption. Why then does the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permit MPC use in any food or beverage without first having this unapproved ingredient tested for safety and nutrition as required by law under federal "Generally Regarded As Safe"(GRAS) status?The FDA has failed to uphold its own standards that are supposed to protect the public's food supply by allowing this illegal "manufactured" powder to be used in baby formulas, sports drinks, nutritional supplements, diet products, snacks, candies, desserts, yogurt, cheese products, pizza, ice cream, and countless other food items. Ignoring the strong objections raised by both dairy farmers and consumer food activists, FDA has allowed MPC use to continue with about 200 "patents" now in use or pending.Concern about the absence of safety and nutritional studies on MPC use led the National Family Farm Coalition to submit a petition to FDA to stop the use of MPC. To date, that petition has been ignored. Serious health issues which developed long after the introduction of margarine, hydrogenated fats, and high fructose corn syrup prove that concerns about untested innovation in food ingredients is not unfounded. The manufacturing process for making MPC is also problematic with the composition of the product altered by the process itself, which, while concentrating the protein, concentrates any bacteria levels. Valuable components are also removed, and the resulting product is nutritionally altered.The fact that MPC is a powder that comes from diverse foreign countries makes it impossible to verify its source since it might be mixed together to obtain certain levels of protein, and no one using it wants to certify its origin or its safety or nutritional analysis. Some of the countries sending MPC to the U.S. for use in our food supply include India, Russia, and China, all nations where questionable health issues in the past have included radiation contamination, chemical pollution, and disease factors. India, one of the major exporters of MPC, has free-ranging, garbage-eating water buffalo as a chief source of its milk protein concentrate. Shipment and transhipment can easily hide the fact that MPC originates in foreign countries routinely challenged by outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease, Hoof and Mouth Disease, brucellosis, and many other serious diseases. Don't count on U.S. Customs to watch out for consumers since less than two percent of any imports is being inspected. Global terrorism underscores the need to maintain safe, domestic milk supplies.Why is FDA continuing to allow MPC use in our food even after the agency warned Kraft, the biggest user of MPC, to stop using it in their Kraft American Singles? Why are the nation's largest dairy co-operatives, including Land O'Lakes and Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), also the biggest importers of MPC? This MPC causes a "created surplus" in dairy products that is used to drive down the price farmers receive for domestic milk. The ensuing low milk prices are driving thousands of dairy farmers out of business every year making consumers increasingly dependent on imported dairy products while they are unaware of the problem with MPC in our food supply. MPC can never be reconstituted into milk. Milk should be the pure ingredient dairy processors use in our dairy products. Disregarding this tradition, the nation's largest dairy co-operative, DFA, formed a partnership with Fonterra of New Zealand and shockingly proposed manufacturing MPC in the U.S. with American taxpayers slated to subsidize a "domestic MPC industry." DFA's stated intention to "manufacture 50% of MPC in the U.S." with the other 50% imported would give them access to whichever source that would be cheaper. This would benefit powerful interests like DFA, Kraft, and Wal-Mart as they profit at the expense of both farmers and consumers. Furthermore, how would consumers know whether they were consuming the domestic 50% or the imported 50%?FDA has listed as a top priority to change the definition of milk to allow MPC use in anything at all while the agency that has lost touch with the very people it was supposed to serve continues to ignore consumers' rights in its push to "Modernize Food Standards." Consumers everywhere should insist that all MPC be excluded from use in foods until strict testing is conducted to prove that the product meets both safety and nutritional standards to ensure the health of the unsuspecting public.Remember, milk is a natural. MPC is not. For too long, too little effort has been made by government officials to safeguard and defend our U.S. milk supply. Our government agencies, including FDA and USDA, and Congressional representatives must start putting consumers and farmers above the money and power of global corporate dairy processing interests. By Cochran and Donna Hall (dairy farmers, PA)