Trace Amounts of Melamine

Carly and I were watching the news last night and what do we see: Logan's brand of formula, Enfamil Lipil, is in the news for containing a scary chemical. Trace amounts of melamine were found in the formula by the FDA. Melamine is the same chemical that was criminally used in China to boost the protein of infant formula; it was making infants sick, causing kidney damage and failure, even killing some children.

We were pretty upset and immediately went to the Internet to find out more information...we were not happy with the teaser that the scary news media gave us in the middle of the Dancing with the Stars finale. Anyway, after much googling, it turns out that this is something not to worry about too much, but still, it's not really acceptable and very frustrating.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but the melamine found was something like 10,000 times less than the melamine in Chinese formula...likewise, they gave some sort of analogy saying it was a drop of chemical in something like a whole truckload of liquid or something. I don't mean to be reactionary or anything, and I understand that we live in a world where risks are everywhere, but is it too much to ask that we do everything we can to attempt to protect the most innocent? After the Chinese problem was encountered, the FDA stance was that no melamine was acceptable...after quietly investigating American formula, they may be backtracking saying some parts per million are ok. They blame this contamination on the cleaning of the machinery or packaging or something because this level of melamine would do nothing to make the formula more protein rich. Anyway, the whole situation is scary and raises a lot of concerns for me and my family.

In case you didn't know, Carly and I have been vegetarians for the past 6 years or so now. Sure, I enjoy the occasional package of beef jerky now and then, and Carly did crave KFC during her pregnancy, but for the most part, we live on a plant based diet. Part of why we don't eat meat is because we don't like how industry mechanizes the whole process. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that we are more efficient and enjoy the many products of industrialization. But something has gone too far when we are so removed from the processing of our food. I'm not always confident that the organic, natural foods movement is the way to go, but I do think there needs to be more awareness and transparency in how our food gets to our tables.

Here's my dirty little secret...I had actually been buying the Target brand formula more than the Enfamil Lipil. It was over half the price less than the Enfamil, and as far as nutrition, it is identical. I'm telling you this, because we tried to figure out if the Target brand was affected by the melamine chemical. After some pretty intense sleuthing on the web, I managed to find out that the Target brand was made in a factory in Georgia. They had a nice website...and had been making formula for over 40 years. Encouraging, but I have a hard time trusting. It was challenging to find out where my baby's formula was made. Should it have been? Should I have done this before I gave it to him? Probably. But the whole food processing mechanism is also to blame I think. We don't have to think about where our stuff is coming from if we don't choose to.

I want to have some land, grow my garden, have a few goats that munch my lawn, and make goat cheese. It would be nice if my neighbors had chickens, and I could swap my goat milk for eggs. Maybe to some, this sounds backwards. To me, it sounds so forward thinking that it may even be revolutionary.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The fact is, we thought that formula was ok for Logan now. It is, but not as ok as we thought it was. We're sticking with the Target brand, but every time we make up a bottle, a little gnat of worry is buzzing around in our brains. No wonder people freak out all the time. This human world can be a scary place.