The Guardian is reporting that seven people in China have been arrested because they allegedly injected dirty pond water into lamb to increase its weight and raise the price. Apparently, up to 100 sheep a day were slaughtered at an illegal warehouse.
The lamb was sold at markets, restaurants, and food stalls in Foshan, Guangzhou and other markets. Public health officials raided the slaughterhouse. They found carcasses, live sheep, equipment to inject water into the meat, and forged Chinese inspection stamps.
Food safety concerns have been a big problem in China for many years. Last week, donkey meat, which is prized as a delicacy in that country, was found to be tainted with fox meat, which is much cheaper. In 2008, six infants died after drinking melamine-tainted infant formula. The bird flu has been an issue in China for years; now no live birds can be sold at 110 markets in that country for the next five years.
Problems such as this one are why many food safety experts and consumer advocates are fighting the probable USDA decision to allow chicken processed in China into the United States. The U.S. government is close to approving this situation.
This is crazy. Even though we will not import chickens raised in China, we are accepting chickens which were raised elsewhere but processed in China. Isn’t the processing the problem, not the raising?