BS: Cardboard Hamburgers

Subject: BS: Chinese Hamburgers
From: Mickey191
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 12:04 PM

Just on CNN: The latest news on Food in China. They're making hamburgers without meat. YUP! Cardboard is the main ingredient & added to the mix is some sort of industrial solvent to soften the cardboard.

These people are really inventive. One wonders at the sheer waste of doggie droppings. Wait a minute--just realized--there are no dogs in China. Right?

I've been enjoying huge canned strawberrys for a while now-delicious. Last night I checked the label. Ah So! From China. Anybody want a can?

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 12:06 PM

Lo Fat?

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Bert
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 12:14 PM

Sounds like what Wimpy used to sell.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Wesley S
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 12:16 PM

Pssst.. McDonalds has been offering them for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 12:31 PM

Mickey, I can't find a link to the story. Would you oblige? Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 12:58 PM

Not to worry, China just excuted it's food head. I'm wondering about what's happened to the body.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 01:15 PM

I found the story, thanks (AP):

"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."

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Mickey191
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 01:34 PM

I heard this on CNN about 10 mins. before my post. Fatty pork was not mentioned.

Good One Barry!

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 01:42 PM

In the words of Emeril Lagasse, "Pork Fat Rules!"

Indeed, the delicious (if less-than-healthy) properties of pork fat very probably make those paperboard burgers taste passably OK..

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: frogprince
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 01:51 PM

So, are we importing them yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: pattyClink
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 04:30 PM

Don't tell any Cajuns about this, if they find cardboard floating in the bayou, they will be steaming it with some Zatarain's!

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 04:43 PM

A "full quote" on this is posted at the tail end of the "I Read It In the Newspaper" thread.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 09:11 AM

A few loosely correlated thoughts:

Meat pies!
Of such a size,
And chocked full of meat!
For she'd gotten her meat from -
Sweeny Todd the Barber!

Where's the beef!

She gave the crank one heluva yank
And Donderbeck was meat!

I'd like my hamburger billboard-sized!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 12:04 PM

Here's the story in the other thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Raedwulf
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 01:31 PM

In Victorian times, dog turds were a valuable commodity. Essential in the tanning industry & there were those amongst the poor who specialised in collecting them. Alas, I forget the precise term...

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Michael
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 05:01 PM

They were called 'Pure Collectors'!!(Well you wouldn't want impure shit would you?)

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Mickey191
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 05:29 PM

There is no end to the great things one can learn on Mudcat. Gives me an idea for a new thread.

Thanks, Raedwulf.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 07:21 PM

Bert, where did you have Wimpy's Hamburgers?

I went to a couple in Germany in the early 1970's when I had a hankering for a hamburger, and they weren't as bad as the McDonald's I went to in Europe.

I took my 6-month-old son and my in-laws to Wimpy's in Bremerhaven. The kid needed a diaper change, so I changed him on the seat of the booth where we were sitting. He sprayed - on the people in the next booth. I didn't know he hit anybody until my in-laws told me after we left the restaurant. I still don't know if I'd go into a Wimpy's again, even though the kid is almost 35 years old now.


-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 10:21 PM

According to one link I read, they (the "dog dung" collectors) were called 'pure finders' and there was a steady trade among the London poor. So much so that instead of the collectors being old women, eventually it became men in the trade. I would guess that means that it had become lucrative enough that it became man's work. (Cynical? Not me.)

I had never heard of this. Urine, on the other hand, is a well known commodity.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 10:31 PM

Please, not on my hamburger!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 12:36 AM

The Chinese are not noted for innovation. You've all been eating food made of cardboard, which is actually wood pulp, for years.

From Food products containing microfibrillated cellulose :


A food product containing microfibrillated cellulose is prepared by mixing together an edible liquid which swells cellulose, a food additive and fibrous cellulose to form a liquid suspension. The suspension is repeatedly passed through a small diameter orifice in which the mixture is subjected to a pressure drop of at least 3000 psig and a high velocity shearing action followed by a high velocity decelerating impact. The process converts the cellulose into microfibrillated cellulose and forms a stable homogeneous suspension of the microfibrillated cellulose, liquid and food additive

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Dickey
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 01:34 AM

Nothing wrong with more fiber in the diet.

Remember rabbit poo tea? Back in the wild west days, it was supposed to cure a hangover instantly.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 02:02 AM

Well, I must frankly admit I thought the first post in this thread was a troll.

But Civet Poo Coffee, Kopi Luwak is a $600/ lb delicacy. It comes from coffee beans in the fruits eaten by Palm Civets and passed through its gut. The partial digestion of the coffee beans results in a rich mild flavor.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Michael
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 04:28 PM

Ebbie:-That's just taking the piss.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Greg B
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 11:39 PM

Look--- am I supposed to eat a fiber-rich diet or not.

Make up your minds, will you?

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 12:06 AM

The Chinese are trying to kill us. First our pets, then our children with lead paint on their toys, now this.

Buy South American.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: autolycus
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 07:02 AM

Greg - like with everything, there is 'fibre' and there's 'fibre'.

As a non-meat eater, I'm saying nothing, except that I'm saying nothing.


(Don't know the meaning of the word 'smug')







       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 03:25 PM

"As a non-meat eater, I'm saying nothing, except that I'm saying nothing."

So, you could eat the hamburger then . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: autolycus
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 02:35 PM

Peace. As I say, there's fibre and there's fibre.

Please keep up. (I mean that in the friendliest possible way, cos from your postings, I like you [and I don't care who knows it] )






       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 03:49 PM

Apologies for a long paste, but "corrections" seldom get read as links.

China detains reporter in food scare story

TV station apologizes after report of vendor selling pork-flavored cardboard

Reuters
Updated: 7:58 a.m. CT July 19, 2007

BEIJING - 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 flavoring.

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 citywide inspection of steamed bun vendors in the wake of the report had found no such cases, the paper said.

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

China's quality watchdog chief, Li Changjiang, warned media in an interview on state television that they must be responsible in reporting food safety issues and tell the truth, though he did not deny there were some problems.

"The media and those who work in the news should focus on professional morals and also honesty," he said.
The government has accused foreign media of hyping the story and of inaccurate reporting, saying problems were limited to a few, rogue companies and were not systemic.

"The Chinese government welcomes domestic and overseas media to supervise food quality on the basis of fairness and accuracy," the watchdog quoted Li Yuanping, head of the food import and export bureau, as saying on its Web site.

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

'Illegal products are being sold'

A Shanghai company which makes the well-known "White Rabbit" candy on Wednesday hit back at the Philippines for banning the sweets' sale and distribution because of harmful substances.

Counterfeiters were to blame, the company insisted.

Separately, Deputy Agriculture Minister Yin Chengjie was quoted as telling a meeting that though less chemical residues from drugs were being found in animal products, the veterinary sector had a problem with poor quality and overuse of drugs.

"The industry still has some outstanding issues," he said, according to the ministry's Web site. "In some areas illegal products are being sold."

The deaths of patients in Panama from mislabeled 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.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 04:19 PM

John-

It's easy to get sucked into believing anything when it come to food and drug quality in China.

Do you suppose that we'll find out that our major pharmaceutical companies have actually engineered the adulteration of Chinese exports?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 04:41 PM

I would certainly believe that the pharm industry may have "helped publicize" problems with Chinese products, but there appears to be quite enough in the way of problems that China needs to address to suggest that no "created fables" are really necessary.

An "overeager" TV reporter certainly is a "plausible" explanation in this case, as the method described in reports (which may not have been complete as was shown on TV) looked to me like it would likely have produced a lethal product.

(Re media vs truth: Does any one know anything about the PBS report I caught a fragment of last night about the BBC being forced to suspend all "phone in" programming due to rampant fraud in a number of them? No details at any of the news web sites that I've found.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: mrdux
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 05:46 PM

here's a link to the story on the BBC phone in story

LONDON, July 18 (UPI) -- The BBC suspended phone-in competitions Wednesday after the British network's probe revealed programs, including fundraising events, faked winners.

On each occasion, the "winning caller" was a member of the production team posing as a viewer, The Daily Mail reported Wednesday. Some of the shows featuring the sham winners included charitable fundraisers "Children In Need," "Comic Relief" and "Sports Relief."

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:07 PM

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop...

i.e. someone uses this idea as a way to make money, only using less pork fat.

And of course, the 'third' shoe, when that is reported.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:46 PM

This story is already 30 minutes cold and I'm feeling very hungry!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 08:46 PM

This gives me an insight into our High School mystery meat challenge and what may have been in shepards pie.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 10:46 PM

Soylent Green?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: John Hardly
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 07:51 AM

The jig was up when people started noticing that they could read their hamburgers -- things like, "THIS SIDE UP" and "FRAGILE", complete with address labels and the occasional bits of filament tape.

It's like that old Steven Wright line: "When they ship styrofoam, what do they pack it in?"

When they ship cardboard hamburgers, what do they package them in?

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 09:16 AM

i am starting a band and this is a great name,THE CARDBOARD HAMBURGERS,thanks. Another possible is TSUNAMI OF SWEAT,what do you reckon?

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 12:08 PM

Anyone read 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman? One of the four horsemen of the modern apocolypse, famine, is the owner of a chain of burger joints that contain no nutritional value whatsoever. People die of famine while feeling full all the time. Wonder where the Chinese got their idea?

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: Mickey191
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 09:21 PM

GUEST ibo, I like TSUNAMI of SWEAT! It has a certain air about it.


Dave, Sounds like a good book.
My cousin is warning all who will listen that Bush has arranged in the near future, a delivery of FREE VITAMINS (pronounced as the English do--no long I).
The Mailman will be the enforcer. We must swallow in front of him - threat of job loss will make him obey. Then when everyone has succumbed to the toxins- It's the mailman's turn.

These vitamins will be delivered to the Blue States only.

Subject: RE: BS: Cardboard Hamburgers
From: JennyO
Date: 14 Aug 07 - 12:01 PM

Spam alert - hover over the link in the 11.53am post and you will see it is not what it seems.