Check Your Breakfast Bars - FDA Will Detain China's Vegetable-Protein Imports

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is launching a rare, massive import alert that will allow inspectors to detain any vegetable-protein imports from China. FDA officials have growing concerns over China's lack of safety controls in their food manufacturing processes. The detainment of vegetable-protein products includes ingredients used in a wide variety of products like Chinese food, cereal, breakfast bars, bread, dairy products, and noodles. The ingredients from China to be tested during import are: amino acids, soy gluten, soy protein, mung-bean protein, corn gluten, corn gluten meal, corn by-products, rice gluten, wheat gluten, rice protein, and rice protein concentrate.

Of particular significance is the detainment of amino acid ingredients. There are 10 essential amino acids that are commonly added to foods to make up the protein levels of a product and enhance flavors of food. Those 10 amino acids that the body cannot produce are: Histidine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan, and Valine.

In a quick check of products in my kitchen, I found my bread, breakfast bars, milk, spaghetti noodles, canned tuna, cashews, dry rice, canned beans, canned roasted chicken with wild rice soup, peanut butter and certain protein enriched cereals all had some form of the ingredients or amino acids that will soon be detained and tested if imported from China. It is not clear how many food manufacturing companies in the United States use ingredients from China, but the new import restriction is likely to slow the production of many staple products in the U.S.

If you decide you want to make your own breakfast bars, just like you are doing with your dog food, here is a web site with a variety of breakfast bar recipes.