Lunar New Year delicacy - faux synthetic (fake) sharks fin made of gelatine and vegetarian alternatives to prevent cruelty

Sharks fin soup has been a highly sought after delicacy of Chinese and Asian gourmets for centuries. In recent years, many educated and younger generation are foregoing sharks fin dishes for special occasions such as wedding banquets or family reunion dinner on lunar new year's eve.  Some restaurants have volunteered to take sharkfin off their menu and set a good example.

Japanese innovation of making gelatine strips that look and taste like sharksfin have been around for several years now. Though the latest refinement of the technique of the producing fake sharksfin was launched in 2007, the synthetic stuff has been around for decades, just never popular or in high demand. They are increasingly being used in sushi making and adopted to many restaurant dishes such as soups and stir fry omelette. They are even easily available in chilled packets from Asian grocery stores or international sections of specialities supermarkets. The synthetic sharksfin are only a tenth of the price of the real thing.

Yet some uncaring affluent folks who want to flaunt their wealth and status with ostentatious goods are willing to fork out a high price for the "real" sharksfin. They disregard the cruelty and ecological damage just to satisfy their fastidious palates and appetites.

In reality, many culinary experts and chefs have admitted that a small proportion of fake sharksfin is added to the genuine expensive ones which have become very rare. Apparently it is not illegal unless the customer specifically requests for genuine sharksfin.

So you may ask, what is the big deal about converting totally converting to fake sharksfin and give the sea creatures a break and living space.

The only cons of fake sharksfin is that it dissolves more easily in hot water and there could be religious or health objections as the gelatine is believed to be extracted from pork bones.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/06/shark-fin-soup---a-cultural-war-environmental-nightmare-and-multi-million-dollar-business/

http://current.com/green/85660721_environmentalists-rejoice-seals-dismayed-new-fake-shark-fins-made-from-pork.htm

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Fake_fins_eye_saving_sharks_Chinese_wallets_999.html


More Food for Thought : Alternatives to Sharksfin and Meat

Vegetarian friends make a tasty soup using mung bean or sweet potato vermicelli (glass noodles) and fibrous "sharksfin" green melon with soy bean stock.

So you see, there is no excuse insisting on sharksfin. It's high time to save the sharks and stop the cruelty.

China's latest Hormone Milk Scandal Update

Following the major upheaval over domestically manufactured melamine tainted milk powder in 2008, recent news reports are not more platable to consumers. 

China's Health Ministry orders probe into milk powder hormone claims. 

Parents and doctors in Hubei were reported earlier this month voicing fears that milk powder produced by Syrutra had caused at least three infant girls to develop prematurely.

Ministry spokesman Deng Haihua said at a regular press conference that food safety authorities were already testing samples of milk powder made by Syrutra, a dairy company set up in Qingdao, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, in 1998.

Causes for sexual prematurity of children were complicated and could be caused by a wide range of factors, and experts had no way to definitely determine if food or environmental factors were involved yet, he said.
Deng said a 2008 regulation banned sales and reproduction of products made from livestock under the influence of drugs, or those failing to pass health and quarantine inspection standards.

He said estrogen hormones were forbidden in milk powder products and the Ministry of Agriculture had formulated test procedures for estrogen hormones and had provided them to Hubei authorities.

Syrutra's stock prices at Nasdaq fell by almost 27 percent on Monday.
The statement said it was "unscientific and unreasonable for some media to blame premature puberty on the milk formula."

Syrutra's claim was backed by some experts.

Yao Hui, deputy head of the endocrine department of Wuhan Children's Hospital, said among the latest cases treated for the condition at the hospital, three of the four children had never eaten baby formula made by Syrutra. The other baby used to eat Syrutra formula, but switched to other brands last year.


Unlike the melamine case, dairy companies would gain no commercial benefit from adding hormones to its products, Monday's Beijing Times quoted Wang as saying.

But that did not make the milk formula hormone-free, Wang said, adding the substance might have entered the food chain when cattle were reared by farmers.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-08/10/c_13438812.htm

Owing to the benefit of its quick modernisation, surely China could learn from past mistakes and skip the scandals that plagued the USA milk industry in the last century.

The Birth of America’s Dairy Industry

During the early years of commercial dairy production in the US, most dairies were in cities - and they were filthy. Stables held up to 2,000 cows that were fed the waste residues from grain used in nearby liquor distilleries and breweries. The milk produced by these urban dairies was known as “swill milk,” which would later be referred to by historians as “white poison.”

Because of the close relationship between alcohol production and swill dairies, some of the first reformers to call for stricter standards in the dairy industry were the anti-alcohol temperance groups. These early reformers pushed for the importation of “country milk” into the cities, taking advantage of new railroads and other transportation improvements. v Milk was transported into the cities by rail, but because it was transported without refrigeration, it was no healthier than swill milk.

The High Price of Factory Farmed Milk

With each passing year, more small to mid-sized dairy farmers go out of business. Worn down by production costs that always go up and income that is unpredictable at best, dairymen and women who have been in the business for generations are calling it quits, and are selling off their herds to corporate operations or selling their land for development. Others have tried to adapt by getting big instead of getting out—increasing production through the use of artificial hormones, antibiotics, and highly-concentrated feed, and moving cows off pasture and into large confinement facilities.

Meanwhile, consumers are buying low-quality milk that is potentially harmful to their health. The only winners in this system are the dairy corporations that are willing to go to great lengths to cut costs and increase profit, regardless of the consequences for consumers, animals and the environment.
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/dairy/

Breeding, Artificial Hormones and Feed

Because it’s cheaper to produce more milk from fewer cows (smaller herds require less space, feed and other inputs), the corporate dairy industry aims to maximize efficiency by increasing the amount of milk that each cow produces. As a result, the use of breeding, feeding inputs and new technology led to a quadrupling of the average amount of milk produced per dairy cow between 1950 and 2005.

With the invention of artificial insemination, farmers have been able to take tight control over the breeding and genetic makeup of their dairy herds. Using this technology, a single bull may sire tens of thousands of cows, thus minimizing the diversity of the dairy cow gene pool.

Not only are cows bred to produce maximum quantities of milk, their feed consists of fat, energy, and protein-rich grains to increase milk production and replace the energy lost by giving off such large quantities of milk. However, since cows are naturally grass-eaters, they develop digestive problems when they feed on primarily grains like corn and soy. xxi But perhaps the most drastic measure that dairies take to boost milk production is the use of artificial growth hormones such as rBGH - said to increase per-cow milk yield by 10-15 percent.

All of these practices do not only result in health problems in cows, they may also be dangerous to humans that consume their milk.

Food Safety - Chinese authorities must clamp down on unsafe

Food hygiene and safety have beeen serious concerns in a massive country where some immoral and ignorant businesses have exploited loopholes and cause detriment to human lives.  A country can only be strong if its citizens are of good health - both physical and soul.  What is the point of showing off achievements in technology, economics and space when harm is done to the people on earth.


It may be theoretically and scientifically plausible to make of recycled human protein waste but to use hair in food is yucks!  The rumour about extracting amino acids from human hair for fermenting soy beans to make soy sauce has been around for a while. It was not until recently that the authorities have stepped up efforts to close down such factories and punish the perpetrators. Other negative publicity have been made of fake eggs and plastic milk.  In the latter, the victims are babies! More action needs to be done and quickly to prevent more innocent people from falling sick.

Interfax reports that media exposure has forced the government to respond to a scandal about soy sauce that was being made from human hair:

"The Chinese government has shown an unusually high level of concern as a result of a bold media exposure towards a scandal in which human hair was used to make soy sauce. The government has now ordered an immediate inspection of all domestic food seasoning plants before the end of January.

China Central Television (CCTV), the state television station, first raised public worries over the quality of domestic soy sauce by uncovering a substandard workshop in central China's Hubei Province, where piles of waste human hair were found. The hairs were treated in special containers to distill amino acid, the most common substance contained in soybean sauce.

Human hair is rich in protein content, just like soybean, wheat and bran, the conventional and legally accepted raw ingredients for the production of soy sauce."

http://www.danwei.org/internet/soy_sauce_made_from_human_hair.php