pretty nasty on several levels

[Guest guest]

Main ingredient in Beijing street buns: cardboard

Updated Thu. Jul. 12 2007 9:41 AM ET

 

Associated Press

 

BEIJING -- Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and

flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient

in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state

television said.

 

 

The report, aired late Wednesday on China Central Television,

highlights the country's problems with food safety despite 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.

 

 

State TV's undercover investigation features the shirtless, shorts-

clad maker of the buns, called baozi, explaining the contents of the

product sold in Beijing's sprawling Chaoyang district.

 

 

Baozi are a common snack in China, with an outer skin made from wheat

or rice flour and and a filling of sliced pork. Cooked by steaming in

immense bamboo baskets, they are similar to but usually much bigger

than the dumplings found on dim sum menus familiar to many Americans.

 

 

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.

 

 

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 the 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 showed up and shut down the operation.

 

 

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure

that just ain't so.

- Mark Twain