Melamine in Foods

What is melamine
• Melamine is a cyclic nitrogenous compound
• Formula : C3N6H6

• Solubility in water 3.1g/l of water @ 20 Celsius

• Toxicity LD50 (rats) – 3248 mg/kg. Not a proven carcinogen. Not genotoxic.
• Melamine was considered harmless compound before the current issue
• Melamine is not a Food Additive
Structural analogues of melamine
Triazines
Uses of melamine
• Melamine resin – polymerized melamine for manufacturing of kitchen ware,
table ware, table top laminates and packaging material.

• Manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers

• Melamine polysulfonate – concrete plasticizer

• Melamine cyanurate – Fire retardant material

• As a pharmaceutical to treat African Trypanosomaisis.

• Used as a non protein nitrogen source of cattle feed.

Recent Melamine scandal
• In 2007 many pet illnesses and deaths in USA was traced down to Melamine
adulterated wheat gluten products in pet foods.

• Recent infant deaths and illnesses due to renal failures in China are related to
melamine adulterated infant milk manufactured in China
Health effects due to melamine
• Melamine in pure state is non toxic at low levels. LD50 (oral,rats) is 3248 mg/
Kg. Compare this value with some of the chemicals in foods and common
medicines. (LD50 – oral, rats)
– Table Salt – 3000 mg/Kg
– Caffeine – 192 mg/Kg
– Nicotine – 55 mg/Kg
– Aspirin – 200 mg/Kg
– Paracetamol – 1944 mg/Kg

• Melamine when combined with cyanuric acid in the body, it can create
Kidney Stones due to formation of water insoluble Melamine cyanurate. This
can lead to kidney malfunctions, mainly in infants.
Sources of Melamine in foods
• Will full adulteration
– As in Some dairy manufacturing companies in China.

• Use of raw material contaminated with melamine

– Most Chocolate and other consumer products affected due use of milk
powder contaminated with melamine.
– Melamine was not a routine quality control testing parameter of any food
product / food ingredient, prior to the recent melamine issue.

• Naturally through food chain

– Some pesticides used in agriculture get converted to melamine.
(Cyromazine – An approved chemical in Sri Lanka as an insecticide)
Will full adulteration
• World over payments for cows milk is based on Fat & SNF (Solid Non Fat)
content of the liquid milk.

• Suppliers try to get an advantage by diluting milk with water to increase volume

• If fat content is below 3.5% (country dependent) and SNF is lower than 8.0%
(Country dependent), milk is rejected or payments are generally reduced by half or
by a fraction due to adulteration.

• Therefore suppliers add various material such as Sugar, urea etc.. to increase SNF
%. Melamine is a recent addition to the list, probably due to difficulty of
identifying the material at the inspection / testing at the time of purchasing liquid
milk.

• Melamine is not water soluble. Therefore it has to be dissolved in formaldehyde

before adding to liquid milk.
Will full adulteration
• The most widely used protein analysis method of food is “Kjeldhal method”.
In this method all organic nitrogen (mainly protein) is converted to
Ammonium sulphate, to determine the total nitrogen content. The nitrogen
content is them multiplied by a factor (Mostly 6.25) to estimate the protein
content.

• This is fairly accurate and simple method. However if nitrogen rich material
such as Melamine (Melamine has 66% of nitrogen), is added, it will increase
the nitrogen content and thereby give false high content of protein.

• The Wheat gluten product used in pet food manufacturing and Milk Powder
must have adulterated to increase false high percentage of protein.

• World milk powder prices are about 3500 - 4000 USD per MT, where as
industrial grade melamine in China is about 700 USD a MT.
Use of contaminated Raw materials
• Most blamed raw material for melamine contamination is some of the
Milk products from China. The values ranged from 1 ppm to over 6000
ppm.

• Most of the finished products manufactured using contaminated milk

products were identified positive for Melamine. The reported values
ranged from <1 ppm to few hundred ppm.

• Recent study in Malaysia traced Melamine contamination of well known

brand of biscuits to Ammonium bi carbonate, the most common raising
agent in bakery industry. The values ranged from 33 ppm to 508 ppm.
Melamine through food chain
• Cyromyzine is a widely used pesticide in most of the countries. It is also used
as an ecto-parasiticide in veterinary medicine.

• Cyromyzine is a systemic insecticide, which get absorbed in to plant tissues.

In the plant the pesticide get convert to Melamine.

• WHO reported that metabolite of pesticide Cyromyzine was found in plants

and animals. Therefore there may be some amount of melamine in food
materials of plant and animal origins

• Information in this area is not yet extensively available.

Cyromyzine Melamine
Identification of melamine
• There are no simple methods or quick methods to identify / determine
melamine in foods.

• The methods recommended by FDA requires expensive equipments such as

GC-MS, LC-MS, and HPLC. GC-MS is considered as the most sensitive and
can detect levels low as 0.05 ppm.

• Currently the facility is not available in Sri Lanka. Testing cost in Singapore is
300 S$ per sample.

• An ELISA testing kit method is available, but the kit is validated only for milk
and milk products. The consumables and the initial costs are fairly high.
– ELISA Kit for 86 tests – 370 USD
– Other equipments required - >7000 USD
 Specifications & limits of melamine
• Since melamine in foods is a recent issue, food authorities world over are still evaluating the
limits of melamine in foods and food raw materials.

• Lack of established limits resulted indiscriminate ban on foods. Foods containing 1 ppm and
100 ppm melamine are treated alike.

• Since melamine is not a food additive, ideally it should not be in foods and limit should be
zero. But we are not living in an ideal world.

• It is necessary to establish limits to identify purposely adulated foods and foods that are not
adulated, but unavoidable under normal safe manufacturing conditions.

• Limits are established for much more poisonous materials than melamine.
– E.g.; Aflatoxin, Heavy metals, Pesticide residues

• Therefore food authorities will compelled to come up with reasonable and safe limits to
protect the consumers as well as food industry.

• It is also said that if everyone goes for melamine zero foods, there will be worldwide
shortage of foods, particularly in developing world and available foods will be prohibitively
expensive.
 Specifications & limits of melamine
• WHO reported that due to widespread use of melamine, also in material in contact
with foods, low levels may be detected in foods, not necessarily due to adulteration.

• FDA of USA suggested following limits are safe.

– 1 mg/Kg for Infant foods
– 2.5 mg / Kg for all other foods

• European Union, Canada, China and many other countries have adapted the FDA
limits.

• However, it looks like that prohibiting of melamine positive foods are done by case
by case evaluation.
Key References
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine
• http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/melamine.html
• http://www.who.int/foodsafety/fs_management/Melamine.pdf
• http://www.wvu.edu/~Agexten/ipm/insects/ld50.htm
• http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/consumer.html
• http://www.hazard.com/msds/