Did you have any idea that just within the last few years, glass noodles — the tasty, high-protein, transluscent noodles made from mung bean flour, which you can pick up in the international foods section of most groceries, or at a local ethnic market like Ranch 99 — were twice implicated in scandals of the type that has roiled the pet food market?

Neither did I, until I decided to go looking for info on the quality of such imports.  I found a whole slew of stories on the topic — but none in US news sources.

In a 2004 case, a company was producing noodles made from a cheaper, lower-protein substitute (corn starch), and then making them translucent through application of a lead-based whitening chemical.  In a 2006 case, another company used an industrial bleach to make their noodles more shelf stable.

Given the Bushies’ neutering of our regulatory agencies (see: MSHA’s complicity in the string of mine fires), what assurances do we have that products like this aren’t on our shelves, either from China or from companies here at home?  Remember Food Lion’s bleached meat?

Furthermore, given that glass noodles are on our shelves, and have been for years, why hasn’t the US media talked, at all, about these ’04 and ’06 cases?  Where’s Lou Dobbs, chief reporter on the trade-paranoia beat, when you need him?