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You know sometimes I think the FDA is really on the ball and other times I have to wonder if they’ve got their heads stuck up you-know-where. This is one of the former.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter last month that said Redux was illegally marketing the drink as a street drug alternative and a dietary supplement. May 4 was the deadline for the company to respond.

This seems a bit extreme to me. While granted, I don’t care much for the name I can’t help but feel that the FDA was being just a tad paranoid with this stance. Taking statements like “Speed in a Can,” “Liquid Cocaine” and “Cocaine — Instant Rush” from the official website and claiming that the manufacturers were deliberately trying to sell the product as an alternative drug seems ludicrous. For me, I understood those comments as being descriptive slang. How many times have you heard someone offer you something as a pick-me-up as “liquid speed” or “should be illegal”? It’s hardly cause to wave a red flag at.

“Of course, we intended for Cocaine energy drink to be a legal alternative the same way that celibacy is an alternative to premarital sex,” Ivey said. “It’s not the same thing and no one thinks it is. Our product doesn’t have any cocaine in it. No one thinks that it does. We think it is most likely legal in the United States to ship our product.”

Apparently when it comes to working with the FDA sir you have to check your sense of humor at the door. Your consumers got the difference and even those, like myself, who just heard of the product caught the joke as well. The stuffy-suits apparently missed the memo.

You know after all this fuss from the FDA now I want to go out and buy this drink.

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Last night I made my first attempt in making an edible dish for my kitties and I was met with an amazing amount of success. Denali will eat just about anything, provided it doesn’t eat her first, and given the fact that she apparently doesn’t mind eating coyote meat that might not be an entirely accurate description of dietary tastes. Isis however is absolutely finicky. Though she likes canned cat food, only certain flavors appeal to her and she certainly doesn’t like to eat it on a regular basis either. She’s not much for human food either except for, strangely enough, cookies and the odd bites from one of our hamburgers. She does love chicken though, so endeavored to make something that would appeal to her since she is the one in primary need right now. We still have a sufficient amount of safe dry food left.

I didn’t have enough ingredients readily available to make a properly well balanced dish for the cats but seeing Isis trying to crunch dry food for another nigt was out of the question so I made due with what I had. Somehow I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams! Both Isis and Denali loved this recipe! Isis even went back into the kitchen and availed herself of the remains from their dinner twice! Three helpings. That is utterly amazing for my finicky girl.

The ultimate test came earlier today when I took out the portion I had placed in a covered bowl and spooned out a serving to her. It was still chilled a bit from the refrigerator and had a thin coating of her medicine on it but Isis happily dug into it. Now I know this dish is appealing to cats. Now I happily offer this recipe up to you:

What you’ll need:

• 2 chicken breasts, skinned.
• 2 teaspoons catnip
• 1 bay leaf (whole)
• 2 cups steamed white rice
• 1/2 cup milk
• blender
• large mixing bowl
• strainer

Preparation

In a pan, add in white uncooked rice, bay leaf, and catnip and allow to boil. When the rice is soft and ready, carefully strain so as not to loose the bay leaf and catnip.  When finished place in a covered mixing bowl and set it to the side.

Over an open flame, grill both breasts until cooked. Do not add any sauces or herbs - especially garlic! When ready the chicken should be nice and tender. Remove chicken from grill and cut into bite size portions then place into a blender. Set blender mode to chop and proceed until all pieces have been finely diced up.  As you do this add in a bit of milk to allow the blender to better able chop and blend the meat. Do not add in all of the milk yet.

Once  the chicken is finely chopped and mixed with some milk pour it into the mixing bowl where you have the rice. Carefully stir and mix the ingredients. Due to the stickiness of the rice you will need to add in a bit of milk and a touch of warm water as you stir. you do not want the mixture to be runny though so do not add in all of the milk at once - you may not need it! The mixture texture should be akin to making cookie dough or tortilla mixture.

Once the mixture has been fully mixed and the texture is as desired it is ready to serve. This mixture makes approximately 5 servings for 2 cats.

Now, because my mother interfered this recipe was altered slightly from my original intention, it remains to be seen what results the original would have yielded, so if you’re feeling gutsy you may want to try alternating the preparation of the chicken. Leave the skin on, boil instead of grill ect. The choice is completely up to you.

Please note, this mixture is not perfectly balanced so you would not wish to feed this to your animal continuously over a lengthy period of time. It would be akin to you having a fast food diet. However, if you do not have the time or money to run out to the store to buy all of the recommended ingredients to make a perfectly balanced meal and you do not want to risk the cat food on the shelves this is a quick and simple alternative that will tide your cat over nicely. It will also serve as a great treat as well. Enjoy!

This is just an absolute low for commercial products and capitalism:

Chinese authorities have told the FDA that the wheat gluten was an industrial product not meant for pet food, Sundlof said. Still, melamine can skew test results to make a product appear more protein-rich than it really is, he added. That raises the possibility the contamination was deliberate. (source)

FDA officials won’t know for sure until their visas to China are approved and they begin the inspection of the facilities, but the fact remains, there is a high probability that the food was deliberately contaminated just so the food would pass muster. Pathetic.

To top it off some of the melamine may have gotten placed into pig feed as well. The agent was found in pig urine at a pig farm and that farm has been quarantined. FDA officials are now looking into the possibility that the meat sold from that farm was contaminated.

If this isn’t enough to get your goat I don’t know what is. Apparently several stores nationwide are still peddling the tainted pet food to unsuspecting consumers. So if you thought it was safe to pick up what was on the shelves, because surely by now the tainted food is off the shelves, you were dead wrong.

WASHINGTON - Contaminated pet food is still being sold at some stores, U.S. health officials warned on Thursday after checking hundreds of retail outlets.The Food and Drug Administration said it had inspected about 400 stores nationwide and still found some dog and cat food products affected by last month’s recall by Canada-based pet food maker Menu Foods Income Fund and other manufacturers.

“FDA believes most companies have removed the recalled product; however, some have not,” the agency said in a statement. (source)

It just disgusts me to think that corporate America is so gung ho about making an extra buck that retailers are out there still peddling the contaminated food with no thought or care to innocent lives they’ll be destroying!

If you are a pet owner please be aware of the dangers of the food currently on the shelves. Visit the FDA’s official list of recalled pet products. Are you perhaps curious about making your own pet food? If you are thinking about it I recommend reading this post first.

With the massive recall of wet (and some dry) cat and dog food many pet owners are fearing for their pet’s health, and with good reason. So what is a concerned pet owner to do when they never know which pet food might be next on the list of contaminated foods? Why cook their own special goodies of course!

It’s a trend that is gaining momentum. Grinding up one’s own meat and mixing it with a variety of healthy supplements to give pets a well balanced and contaminate-free meal is easier than most think, the only key is to remember what is necessary in pet’s food and what things should be left out to avoid bacterial contamination. Arden More and Anne Davis’ book Real Food for Dogs: 50 Vet-Approved Recipees to Please the Canine Gastronome has jumped in rankings on Amazon.com and is the most widely sought after book for canine food recipes.

Vets recommend that you contact your veterinarian for assistance or turn to other valid sources before trying to whip up your own pet food. It is also recommended that you use this a temporary fix until the scare is passed.

View: AP article on home cooked meals for pets and recipes
View: Official FDA list of recalled pet foods