cardboard for food!!!!

[jasemateau]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/12/...na-Bad-Buns.php

BEIJING: Chopped cardboard, softened in an industrial chemical and made tasty with pork flavoring, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in a Beijing neighborhood, state television said.

The report, aired late Wednesday on China Central Television, highlights the country's perennial problems with food safety despite continuing government efforts to improve the situation.

Countless small, often illegally run operations exist across China and make money cutting corners by using inexpensive ingredients or unsavory substitutes. They are almost impossible to regulate.

China Central Television's undercover investigation report features the shirtless, shorts-clad maker of the buns — called baozi — talking about how the product was sold in a neighborhood in Beijing's sprawling Chaoyang district.

The hidden camera follows the man, whose face is not shown, into a ramshackle building where steamers are filled with the fluffy white buns, traditionally stuffed with minced pork.

Today in Asia - Pacific

After mosque battle, Musharraf's troubles persist

China's 'soft power' winning allies in Asia

China prohibits poisonous industrial solvent in toothpaste

The surroundings are filthy, with water puddles and piles of old furniture and cardboard on the ground.

"What's in the recipe?" the reporter asks. "Six to four," the man says.

"You mean 60 percent cardboard? What is the other 40 percent?" asks the reporter. "Fatty meat," the man replies.

The bun maker and his assistants then give a demonstration on how the product is made.

Squares of cardboard picked from the ground are first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda — a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap — then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning are stirred in.

Soon, steaming servings of the buns appear on-screen. The reporter takes a bite.

"This baozi filling is kind of tough. Not much taste," he says. "Can other people taste the difference?"

"Most people can't. It fools the average person," the maker says. "I don't eat them myself."

The police eventually show up and shut down the operation.

omg what a crack up!!!!!lol

i knew there was somthing wrong wif em!!!!!!!!! :D

had some in the phillipines some years ago but they gave me the FARTS like nothing else. (but thay were a little bit different)

[Legba]

i cant wait for the secret ingredient on iron chef to be...

cardboard

[Amulte]

i used to live with a dude who made and eat steamed bumms religiously, never with cardboard tho... i think i love the things when home made. never found them at a shop or stall.

hmmm flavoured cardboard made somwhat edible with meat... wish id thought of that when i was at uni

[Benzito]

Steamed buns are the best! Kat makes them sometimes, and whenever I go to the city I make sure I get to chinatown for one.

But, I find this story more sad than comedic as jasemateau did. I'm glad we don't live in a country so impoverished that someone would sell cardboard as food. I once saw a photo of children in Sao Paulo, Brazil, making soup from cardboard. Water and Cardboard. They just wanted to fill their stomach with something.

[Rev]

whats wrong with cardboard?

have you never eaten a snag at a suasage sizzle before?

[jasemateau]

yeah found it funny how far the enterprising minds in china can be.

working with them, is also a crack up sometimes for the reasons they wish to cut corners,

but yer the who thing, the news was saying it was made for a chain of food outlets, so no feelings of gulit in the sense of starvation.

and being a foodie!!!!!

OMG was my first thought!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest Øskorei]

i cant wait for the secret ingredient on iron chef to be...

cardboard

LMAO, thanks Bacch, that's the first belly laugh Ive had for a while.

Good to know there's another Iron Chef tragic out there also.

[Benzito]

Myself and my partner Kat are nuts for the Iron Chefu.

[Legba]

Source

Reporter detained over fake food story

July 19, 2007 12:36pm

BEIJING police have detained a television reporter for fabricating an investigative story about steamed buns stuffed with cardboard at a time when China's food safety is under intense international scrutiny.

A report directed by Beijing TV and played on state-run national broadcaster China Central Television last Thursday said an unlicensed snack vendor in eastern Beijing was selling steamed dumplings stuffed with cardboard soaked in caustic soda and seasoned with pork flavouring.

Beijing authorities said investigations had found that an employee surnamed Zi had fabricated the report to garner "higher audience ratings", the China Daily said on Thursday.

"Zi had provided all the cardboard and asked the vendor to soak it. It's all cheating," the paper quoted a government notice as saying.

A city-wide inspection of steamed bun vendors in the wake of the report had found no such cases, the paper said.

Beijing TV had apologised for failing to check the report's authenticity and said it would make efforts to improve staff ethics, the paper added.

China is reeling from a series of tainted food and drug scandals that have sparked criticism at home and abroad.

The deaths of patients in Panama from mislabelled drug ingredients from China, deadly toxins in pet food exported to the United States and food laced with hazardous antibiotics and chemicals have raised fears about the safety of China's surging exports.

On Wednesday, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to improve food safety in a meeting with a visiting Japanese House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono, Kyodo news agency reported.