by KYW's David Madden

The Food and Drug Administration says in the wake of the tainted pet food problem, it will be stepping up testing of imported vegetable proteins that humans eat.

The FDA also said it planned to begin testing a wide variety of vegetable proteins at firms that imported the ingredients to make everything from pizza dough to infant formula, and protein shakes to energy bars. The ingredient list includes wheat gluten (in photo above), corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein, and rice bran (see related story).

Local food safety experts agree that the FDA is right to do the testing, but differ on its timing.

Jennifer Quinlan is an assistant professor of bioscience at Drexel University:

"What they’re looking for, this melamine, is not normally in the food supply. There wouldn’t have been a reason to think it was. But because we do know that it now appears to be in some food coming in -- some of the vegetable proteins coming in -- it certainly makes a lot of sense to test for it."

She suggests the government is being “proactive” in addressing the situation. 

At Temple University, assistant professor of public health Jennifer Ibrahim calls the FDA’s announcement a “knee-jerk reaction” and believes this testing should have been done long ago. 

Not only that, she’d like better coordination of food safety testing between the public and private sector.