三聚氰胺; Melamine.

Author's note: Before I go on the entry about melamine, let me talk about my encounter at MOS last Saturday. Basically, it was my friend's birthday celebration so we went to MOS for a girls' night out.

Dear Esther loves dancing on the Smoove platform, so what else can we do but to accommodate the birthday girl? In order to have the party strings spraycan on hand, I did not deposit my bag, and instead put it on the floor between my legs and kiap it like an auntie.

5 minutes into dancing, I felt my bag being jerked upwards and as I looked down, this fat, unexceptional guy in spectacles and a T-shirt looked back at me. Once he noticed that I was looking at him, he moved away from me and stole glances at me stealthily. I immediately jumped down from the platform and checked my bag. My head started spinning when I couldn't find my LV bag inside.

Thankfully, it was on the platform. That arsehole unzipped my exterior carrier bag and tried to take out my LV bag inside. Only thing that stopped him was that he underestimated the length of my LV bag, so it jerked on my carrier when he tried to take it out.

Chris on a crutch! I knew I should have pulled that guy out of MOS and handed him to my dear bouncer friends, but my legs turned into jelly when I first thought my LV bag was gone. All I could do was to stare at the guy incredulously while getting the hell out of dodge, patting my bag constantly to make sure it was still there. I've lost a digicam at the exact same spot before. I'm NEVER stepping foot into Smoove dancefloor ever again.

Right. Now onto the infamous topic, melamine.

大白兔奶糖 is like one of my favourite Chinese New Year snacks. How can!

Basically, this is melamine:
aka C3H6N6.

In chinese, you call it 三聚氰胺(sān jù qíng àn). It's actually some sort of chemical to falsely increase protein contents in food by actually increasing the nitrogen levels(common tests measures protein levels BY testing the levels of nitrogen in said product).

Nitrogen is the key component in building proteins, and nitrates, though not naturally produced by the human body, once introduced, can also be converted into amino acids, which are also used to build proteins. Therefore, melamine were popular with additives and pet/human food(so their products can be sold at a better price for higher Protein rating), though eventually they got banned under Pure Food and Drug Act, from being used in animal feed and in products for human consumption, and also vegetable proteins.

Ingestion of melamine may lead to reproductive damages, bladder/kidney stones, which can lead to bladder cancer. Long time absorption may also lead to kidney failure. In animals, when melamine combines with cyanuric acid(in which cyanuric acid itself is permitted in pet food in small amounts since its essentially nontoxic), might cause renal failure in your pets.

In some instances, it is still relatively safe to consume small amount of melamine-tainted food, but you must spare a thought for possible chronic intoxicity, even if you get lucky enough to avoid acute intoxicity.


I've had kidney infection/stones problems before, so I'm not about to risk my health again, even if it means more pricey food. So, darlings, with a) everything being 'Made in China' nowadays, b) having no official list of melamine-tainted food yet, c) if you have been unknowingly feeding your pets melamine-tainted products, and d) if you are a dairy lover like I am, there's only two words for the likes of us:


We're screwed.
(Thank Gawd for small favours like soya bean)


P.S: I did not simply copy the above information from a site; In order to provide my blogders with a 'summarised' explanation of melamine, I did my fair share of research, aite?! I WAS a pure chemistry student after all! (Even though I was crap at it.) For commercial uses for melamine, read here.