Banned chemical added to mutton
By Wang Qingchu |
October 27, 2011, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A banned food addictive is used regularly in mutton by breeders in Yanwo Town, the largest sheep-breeding center in east China's Shandong Province, and the mutton has been sold to 17 provinces and municipalities.
Lean meat powder, chemically known as clenbuterol and which can lead to cancer, heart disease and early puberty, is fed to sheep rampantly at more than 1,000 sheep farms in Yanwo of Lijin County, The Beijing News reported yesterday.
"You just make a phone call and the drugs will be delivered to your home," several breeders told the newspaper.
Urine samples of sheep are collected before they are sent to slaughterhouses to look for traces of the banned drug. Regulations state that sheep that test positive for lean meat powder are to be buried or burned, Gao Heling, director of the local Animal Husbandry Bureau, told the newspaper.
But the sheep that failed the test were simply returned to breeders, the report said, citing butchers at slaughterhouses.
Breeders feed sheep with glucose to help them excrete the toxic drug. Then the urine test comes up negative, according to the report.
Several thousand sheep were found having been fed the banned drug in tests at the end of September, several butchers confirmed with the newspaper. After eating the lean meat powder, each sheep can grow an extra 2 kilograms of lean meat. According to Li Jianguo, a local farmer in Yanwo, he and his neighbors each bought 300 sheep and fed them the same food. His neighbors earned 10,000-20,000 yuan more than he did because they used the banned drug while he didn't, the report said.
Checks on clenbuterol were tightened nationwide after tainted pork was exposed in central China's Henan Province by China Central Television in March. It was discovered that all pig farms in Mengzhou City in Henan, one of China's biggest pig-breeding areas, used the lean meat essence.
Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co Ltd, a Henan subsidiary of a leading pork processor, was slaughtering pigs fed the banned drug.
More than 980 suspects have been arrested for producing, selling and distributing the poisonous drug since the crackdown was launched, said the Food Safety Commission Office of the State Council.
Lean meat powder, chemically known as clenbuterol and which can lead to cancer, heart disease and early puberty, is fed to sheep rampantly at more than 1,000 sheep farms in Yanwo of Lijin County, The Beijing News reported yesterday.
"You just make a phone call and the drugs will be delivered to your home," several breeders told the newspaper.
Urine samples of sheep are collected before they are sent to slaughterhouses to look for traces of the banned drug. Regulations state that sheep that test positive for lean meat powder are to be buried or burned, Gao Heling, director of the local Animal Husbandry Bureau, told the newspaper.
But the sheep that failed the test were simply returned to breeders, the report said, citing butchers at slaughterhouses.
Breeders feed sheep with glucose to help them excrete the toxic drug. Then the urine test comes up negative, according to the report.
Several thousand sheep were found having been fed the banned drug in tests at the end of September, several butchers confirmed with the newspaper. After eating the lean meat powder, each sheep can grow an extra 2 kilograms of lean meat. According to Li Jianguo, a local farmer in Yanwo, he and his neighbors each bought 300 sheep and fed them the same food. His neighbors earned 10,000-20,000 yuan more than he did because they used the banned drug while he didn't, the report said.
Checks on clenbuterol were tightened nationwide after tainted pork was exposed in central China's Henan Province by China Central Television in March. It was discovered that all pig farms in Mengzhou City in Henan, one of China's biggest pig-breeding areas, used the lean meat essence.
Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co Ltd, a Henan subsidiary of a leading pork processor, was slaughtering pigs fed the banned drug.
More than 980 suspects have been arrested for producing, selling and distributing the poisonous drug since the crackdown was launched, said the Food Safety Commission Office of the State Council.
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