Recently, the American health authorities banned the use of melamine in food products citing sickness in pets who have eaten the tainted food.

Melamine is derived from coal and has the effect of boosting nitrate levels of foods it is added to. In effect, the animal feed is tested to contain very high amounts of protein but in reality, has no nutritional value. Melamine is cheaper than natural and nutritional animal protein additives such as soybean protein.

Melamine is regularly used in China (though banned since Thursday), where unscrupulous animal feed manufacturers use it as a cheap substitute for natural protein additives to boost their profit margins at the expense of farmers (who buy feed with low nutritional value) and consumers (who then eat coal). There are no regulations pertaining to the use of this arguably safe food additive. The full health implications of melamine are yet to be ascertained, but the American ban sure is bad for business for Chinese animal food manufacturers.

春雨亭 – please read in mandarin

春雨湿湿，风里诗，
柳叶青青，西湖清，
人在绍兴，酒上口，
亭外一片，天外天。

~

春风细雨, 酒唇边
桃红柳岸, 觅詩仙
绍兴橋頭, 千杯渡
夢裡南柯, 天外天
kindly submitted by FuFu

My University, the University of Hong Kong has received the Platinum award in this year’s Reader’s Digest Asia Trusted Brands Survey, in the category of universities in Hong Kong, racking up a score of more than three times that of its nearest competitor.

So I think the next question will be for my faculty’s lawyers to figure out how to prevent the brand from being pirated in nearby Shenzhen.

lunch on temple street