China: Live pigs are force-fed wastewater to boost their weight before slaughter

...Wang Xinpei, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said China "has paid great attention" to the issue, especially food products because it concerns people's health. "It can be said that the quality of China's exports all are guaranteed," Wang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing.

Also Wednesday, Beijing police raided a village where live pigs were force-fed wastewater to boost their weight before slaughter, state media reported. Plastic pipes had been forced down the pigs' throats and villagers had pumped each 220-pound pig with 44 pounds of wastewater, the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday.

Paperwork showed the pigs were headed for one of Beijing's main slaughterhouses and stamps on their ears indicated that they already had been through quarantine and inspection, the paper said. Suspects escaped during the raid and no arrests were made, it said.

The case underscored China's chaotic food safety situation, where manufacturers and distributors often use unapproved additives, falsify expiration dates or find other methods of cutting corners to eke out small profits...

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/06/28/china_says_safety_of_exports_guaranteed_1183027814/

Stop doing business with these fuckers in every small way you possible can. the next time you pick something up off of a store shelf and read "Made In China", ask yourself, "Is this something I can live without? Is there an alternative product made anywhere else but shit hole China"? We HAVE to start whittling away at this blind consumerism. Boycott Chinese crap!

(including Wolfgang Puck's, e.g.), the cans say only "Approved organic". The "USA" part is too often "Packaged in" or "Distributed by".

But what is the ORIGIN?

And for the health-conscious amongst us: Those edamame beans? Yep. China.

In general, it's more and more difficult to find any foodstuffs not from China, Indonesia, Thailand, and environs.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/cool/

On May 13, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, more commonly known as the 2002 Farm Bill. One of its many initiatives requires country of origin labeling for beef, lamb, pork, fish, perishable agricultural commodities and peanuts. On January 27, 2004, President Bush signed Public Law 108-199 which delays the implementation of mandatory COOL for all covered commodities except wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish until September 30, 2006. On November 10, 2005, President Bush signed Public Law 109-97, which delays the implementation for all covered commodities except wild and farm-raised and shellfish until September 30, 2008. As described in the legislation, program implementation is the responsibility of USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service.

Profits are #1, aren't they? Hasn't that been the lesson of BushCo?

I think the GOP should be driven to dinner on Chinese tires, force-fed Chinese pork, then brush their teeth with Chinese toothpaste.

.

it is a major polluter; it is the main culprit (IMO) in the extinction of rare mammals (and for quackery, mostly); and now, because the markets have opened up (Read: Because we've indentured ourselves to Chinese banks), China is literally risking killing its customers for commerce.

from my diet. Causes inflammation processes in the body. Reading stories like this make it alot easier to give it up, it's hard when you live someplace that consumes a gazillion lbs. of pork every year.

But that's it.

Sure, they were headed for the slaughterhouse, where hopefully they would be dispatched without much or any suffering. But this force feeding of waste water seems especially cruel to me.

my god they have learned well from us corporations havent they, they have taken it to a new level.

you'll be feelin' just fine
ain't nothin' quite like sittin 'round the house
swillin' down those cans of swine

Sounds like those farmers took Primus a little too literally...

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/fwwatch/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6119

We deserve the right to know where our food comes from so we can avoid enriching countries and corporations which profit from cruel treatment of animals.