Return of the Recall

Just when I thought perhaps there was a grip on the recalls and there wouldn't be much of anything new to report they are back with a vengeance. I originally posted my concern for the fish food I was feeding Lucky (one of my goldfish) back in April. I was afraid that a lot of the ingredients in my fish food were similar to ingredients in dog and cat food. My suspicions have been proven correct not only last month by the commercial fish food products that were contaminated but as recently as this week by
ornamental/pet fish feeds being contaminated. The brands are Atlantis by Sargeant pet food products and Zeigler.

I never fed either of the brands above, still, I contacted the brands that I do feed and have so far received one response. That response was from Hikari and they wrote:

Monika - Hikari has always stood for superior quality and the recent scare in no way will impact that. We constantly test our product raw ingredients before use to verify no unwanted items are included and since we are the only fish food maker that controls our entire production process we can be assured what we want in the food is actually what is. Others, as the dog food companies have found out, are at the mercy of the product producer. All our wheat-gluten is from sources that are not impacted by the Chinese problem. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us and your interest in your aquatic pet's well being!

I will continue to feed my fish Hikari as well as the ProGold stuff I got from goldfishconnection.com (waiting for a reply from them) because I haven't seen any adverse reactions in my fish while they've been on this food.

UPDATE 6/7/07: I heard from goldfishconnection.com. I was feeding their two products called Pro Gold and Color Enhancer Flakes. I contacted them and the response I got was this:

Hi Monika,
All of our food is made in an USDA inspected plant under very strict
regulations. Many of the same foods we use are used to feed fish for human
consumption and are tested for any toxins.

Rick

I wrote back that that wasn't very reassuring considering that in the previous months it was the fish feed used in fish for human consumption that came back with the melamine. I sent him a link to that news article. He wrote back "Thank you for the info." I followed up with an email asking specifically if they use/used Uniscope as their binding agent supplier. I have received no follow up response from him. To me, that's suspect. (UPDATE 6/8/07: Communicated again with Rick and he said they do not use UNISCOPE and we had a few more email exchanges and I believe the man to be sincere. I did say I will not be using the pellets until this clears up and he understood. He did mention there was expensive krill in the food and that is what is causing my white comet to start turning yellow here and there. Maybe one day she'll turn gold again! haha..)
Previously, before the dog and cat food recalls, I was using a little of the Wardley line but after comparing ingredients and seeing 'glutens' and 'protein concentrates' and meals of sort in the fish food I threw out the Hartz produced Wardley line (knowing they were made by Hartz sooner would have produced the same result - I hate Hartz).

In other news.. Cavs are in the finals (yeah!) and poor Kucinich (the only one making sense) is either ignored or lumped together with Gravel and Biden (ugh!)

D'oh!

Cavs were watching on as LeBron passed the ball to Marshall in the final seconds. I fell asleep with about 2 minutes in the 4th quarter so I missed this much debated ending that a lot of people are analyzing.

NJ doesn't care about basketball

I read an article a few weeks ago saying how empty the seats at the
home games for the Nets are and how those seats would not be
empty if the Nets were a NY team. I started to watch the games
played a little closer since reading that and I did notice all the
empty seats. I felt instant guilt - I live so close to the arena but
often can't afford the tickets to go.

Last night's Game 6, however, had the Continental Airlines Arena
packed with fans. Even Bon Jovi showed up. But the reason I say
New Jersey doesn't care about basketball is that watching the
game wind down with the Nets sealing a non-win and it was
obvious the traffic was more important for these fans than
supporting the Nets to the end, and not just supporting them
to the end but forgetting to stand up and applaud the greatest
of those players (Kidd, Carter, Jefferson and what the hell,
Moore) who will probably never play together again. Wish I was
there last night.

Call me a traitor, I don't care... but.. the Cavs have grown on
me and now that Jersey is out after giving it their best (I know
that can be argued but I'm not going there) I am happy to cheer
on LeBron and company - I think they might take it all the way.

"If you don't like Jason Kidd, you don't like basketball."

Those were the sage words of Charles Barkley last night
after the Nets won (still trailing 3-2). I couldn't
watch the game last night (good thing because from what
i'm reading it was pretty ugly) but I caught the analysis
at the end and I have to say I like watching that Charles
Barkley - he doesn't mince words and says it like it is.

3-1. Ugh.

This is a great pic. Cavs pretty much plowed down the Nets.
Not fun to watch - especially those extended last seconds.
Nachbar and then Carter missing those last shots that
could have given us the win - so hard to watch! But Nets
had no chance against the Cavs defence.

Can I state for the record how much I can't stand that
uncoordinated, stumbling fool Varejao? He distracts the
entire game for me and perhaps that works on the court
but he's awful to watch. Maybe it's because he's so
dangerous .. last year he elbowed Nikos Zisis and
broke his face! Maybe it's just me, but Varejao is
like a little kid let loose with the pros, chasing
after all the balls, and flapping around. He really
fits his nickname of "The Wild Thing".

Nets serve more turnovers than a bakery!

Richard Jefferson on Jason Kidd's eight turnovers: "He still had 17, 10 and eight, he just threw in a couple turnovers. I would never take anything away from Cleveland and what they did. They're a good defensive team, but Jason Kidd is his own player. I don't think anyone can take him out of his game. Sometimes he might try to do things or things might not work. He's one of the most experimental players I ever played with so I wouldn't think their defense had too much of an effect."