Mars investigating hundreds of thousands of Skittles said to be intended for cattle

[NWCorona]

Source: Wate ABC

NEW YORK (AP) – A mysterious Skittles spill on a rural highway in Wisconsin is taking another twist, with Mars Inc. saying it doesn’t know why the discarded candy might have been headed to become cattle feed.

The case began when a Wisconsin sheriff posted on Facebook this week that “hundreds of thousands of Skittles” had been found spilled on a highway. Later, he updated the post to say the candy had fallen off a truck on its way to be cattle feed.

A variety of food byproducts are commonly used for animal feed, and Mars says it has procedures for discarding foods for that purpose. However, the company says the Skittles in question came from a factory that doesn’t sell unused products for feed.

Schmidt said one of his deputies came across the spill and sent him photos, which he posted on Facebook. He said the Skittles spilled from a box that started to disintegrate in the rain, and about half of them got out. The Skittles on the ground did not have the standard letter “S” on them, he said

Read more: http://wate.com/2017/01/21/mars-investigating-hundreds-of-thousands-of-skittles-said-to-be-intended-for-cattle/

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Candy as cattle feed? Makes you wonder what else they are giving livestock to eat.

[keithbvadu2]

1. George Zimmerman will be along shortly.

[ck4829]

2. There is a history of this

http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/10/news/economy/farmers-cows-candy-feed/

This is an interesting twist though.

[NWCorona]

5. You learn something new everyday

Cut-rate byproducts of dubious value for human consumption seem to make fine fodder for cows. While corn goes for about $315 a ton, ice-cream sprinkles can be had for as little as $160 a ton.

Kinda makes a strong case for being a vegan. I try to buy meat directly from the source but you never really know. The same can be said of processed foods as well.

[Crash2Parties]

9. IF one can afford it (if less often), grass fed organic is an alternative to going vegan.

If being vegan doesn't fit.

[eggplant]

12. That's just silly.

Cows eat grass, too, and that's not particularly good for humans to eat either. The cows DO process it, you know.

[NWCorona]

13. Yes the cows obviously digest it but do they have a choice?

We do and can elect not to eat candy that doesn't have any real nutritional value.

[NickB79]

3. Our cultured dairy facility sells waste for pig feed

Lots of protein in cottage cheese and yogurt, but I can't see what nutritional value Skittles would provide.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. There's fat in chocolate. There's fat in milk. Cattle also need calories

which they can get from the sugar. Even if cows produce the fat in milk from non-fat molecules, they'll need a digestible source of carbon and hydrogen for that.

[Ellen Forradalom]

4. Skittles

will KICK THEIR ASS.

oh YES INDEED.

[dionysus]

6. She can't she dissoved on the highway in the rain! Per article...

[True Dough]

7. Is there more to this than we really know?

[keithbvadu2]

8. Be careful..... Might be GMO

[Hayabusa]

10. So it literally fell off the back of a truck while "falling off the back of a truck"?

[cstanleytech]

11. In the end its all carbohydrates isnt it?

[mwooldri]

14. Or is it?

What were in those discarded Skittles? Gelatin?

If you feed cows cow products, they go mad. This leads to mad cow disease. If those diseased cows enter the human food chain, a few people develop new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It's the reason that people from the UK who lived there in the 1980s and early 1990s cannot donate blood in the USA.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. But those "cow products" were actual cow muscle, and more importantly cow nerve tissue

not gelatin. And while there seems to be controversy about E120 colouring in red Skittles (ie cochineal from insects), they are claimed as 'suitable for vegetarians', so they don't have animal-derived gelatin in them.