Photographs taken last Monday show residents picking over a garbage dump littered with food products like cream chocolates, chicken feet, and tea eggs. As some residents begin collecting and hoarding the food, others are seen eating it on the spot.

The expired food was thrown out by a local food retailer in the city’s Hankou area after being hit by local flooding.

Some residents are seen loading up carts and vans with expired food taken from the garbage dump. Reports say interest in the discarded food was so high that some Wuhan residents came out after sundown to continue scavenging.

The scavengers told a reporter at the scene that the expired food was going to be repurposed into pig feed. However, reports go on to say that the expired food was instead resold to other Wuhan residents.

The People’s Daily reported that only a small amount of expired food had been thrown away at the garbage dump, and that only a small minority of Wuhan residents were scavenging the throwaway food. The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) is said to have performed an inspection of local markets for the expired food, but has not found any evidence of it.

The People’s Daily also reported that expired food is now being destroyed in Wuhan before being discarded.

In 2014, the SFDA vowed to crackdown on the illegal sale and disposal of expired food, claiming to revoke the licenses of violators that would be put on a “blacklist”.

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About a hundred parents descended on the Haiyang Yingcai Experimental School in Yantai on Monday to protest the school’s alleged use of pig and chicken feed to prepare meals for its schools.

The scandal spread when photographs shared online showed the cafeteria’s unpalatable food being prepared. One showed an opened bag of chicken feed with a chicken outline stenciled on the bag.

The school explained that nothing is wrong with its food. Eggs suspected of being rotten by the parents were explained to be “tea eggs”, while the opened bags of chicken feed were explained away as not being used as part of the students’ lunches.

While a government investigation is pending, the photos of the food suggest that it is may not be suitable for humans or animals.

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Over the last two years, the smugglers sold seafood worth 230 million yuan ($34.5 million) to markets that included Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, reported the Qingdao Customs District.

According to CCTV, some of the seafood actually originated from Fukushima, one of 12 Japanese prefectures from which seafood imports are banned due to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear reactor incident.

Chinese authorities became suspicious of the high-end seafood products being sold at heavily discounted rates. The seafood shipments were also listed as originating from Japan, Russia, and the USA, but were entering China from the southwestern province of Guangxi.

The smugglers went to extreme lengths to evade taxes and avoid quarantine, said Li Fudong of the QCD Anti-Smuggling Department. The long, circuitous route began in Hokkaido, Japan before being transported to Guangxi and Shandong Province. In some cases the seafood entered China from Vietnam in order to deflect attention. Along the way, the smugglers changed the packaging and altered catch dates.

A man named Wang who headed a seafood import and export company in Shandong was targeted as the chief culprit by authorities. Although the importers were stationed in the provinces of Fujian, Guangxi, and Liaoning, Wang operated his business year-round from a US-based location with transactions that involved underground money exchangers.

Wang was arrested upon entering China on June 24. Other members of the smuggling ring were rounded up in Shandong, Fujian, Guangxi and Liaoning.

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The father, a 46 year-old man named Feng, noticed that his hot chocolate had a strange taste, which he later described as Sprite. A second sip caused his tongue to go numb and his throat to burn.

Things went from bad to worse after Feng approached restaurant staff. After showing them the contents of his cup, the McDonald’s employees had the following conversation right in front of him:

Employee A: Is that hydrogen peroxide?
Employee B: No, that looks like disinfectant.

Feng and his son were immediately taken to hospital for emergency treatment. A doctor found them to have suffered damage to the liver, gall bladder, spleen and stomach. Although Feng was eventually released with non-life-threatening injuries, his son remains in hospital for observation.

The McDonald’s restaurant manager confirmed to the Chongqing Evening Report that an employee had mistakenly put disinfectant into a hot chocolate beverage thinking that it was hot water.

The local Food and Drug Inspection Agency is investigating.

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The newest fake food safety issue to hit China is fake jellyfish, and what makes this story so different is that it is wholly created in a vat from a chemical concoction.

Recent police arrests suggest there may have been 10 tons of the concoction on sale in eastern China over the past year.

Three suspects were arrested and 150 kilograms of fake jellyfish were confiscated by police in Huzhou, Zhejiang on April 22. The bust led to another three suspects being arrested in Changzhou, Jiangsu where one ton of fake jellyfish were seized.

The fake jellyfish are thought to have been sold around the Suzhou area.

The criminals created the fake jellyfish using a combination of sodium alginate, calcium chloride and aluminum sulfate. Officials say the fake jellyfish is not safe for human consumption due to have elevated levels of aluminum, hindering intelligence and memory.

One of the suspects arrested in Huzhou, a man named Yuan, confessed that he knew he was risking public health by selling fake jellyfish. And yet, Yuan said it took less time to manufacture fake jellyfish at half the cost of producing authentic ones.

Here’s how you can tell the difference between real and fake jellyfish:

Fake jellyfish (seen on the left) is completely translucent and odorless. It has a very tough texture; a strand of fake jellyfish is difficult to tear apart using one’s hands.

One the other hand, real jellyfish (seen above to the right) has a subtle white and yellow color with a fishy smell to it. Its meat has a brittle feel to it when bitten, somewhat like a crisp cucumber. Real jellyfish makes a crunchy sound when eaten and provides a “satisfactory” mouth texture.

It’s for this last quality that jellyfish is prized as a popular Chinese delicacy. Like abalone or shark fin, Chinese favor these foods for their “mouth feel” alone, having been prepared in broths or sauces that give it its taste.

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The fine comes after the CCTV consumer rights television show, “3.15”, discovered that a number of restaurants registered with the delivery service were unlicensed and storing food in unsanitary conditions. Many restaurants relied on rusty utensils and equipment, and the kitchens were full of dirt and oil stains.

The show revealed that a small group of men were responsible for supplying food from five different restaurants registered on Ele.me, all using the same cramped ten square meter kitchen space. Kitchen workers were filmed ripping bags of food open with their teeth, or using their fingers to taste the food.

Five of the restaurants were closed by Shanghai authorities for failing to have the necessary certifications.

Ele.me’s CEO, Zhang Xuhao, apologized for the violations. “We must admit that Ele.me has not fulfilled its obligations in overseeing food safety. The management and I accept full responsibility in this matter. We hereby offer an apology to all our clients that have supported us, as well as apologizing to all the businesses that may have been affected by this.”

Last year, Alibaba reportedly invested $1.25 billion in Ele.me, thereby becoming the company’s largest shareholder. At the same time, Alibaba has faced quality assurance issues of its own, following allegations that 40 percent of its online goods are counterfeit.

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As seen in a short video that has since removed from Facebook, two teens approach Chinese pedestrians on the streets of Amsterdam. After asking them, “Do you want milk powder?”, the teens throw the formula at them, and run away laughing.

Identified as Romme Terbeek and Kenzo Hanter, Chinese media have speculated the prank is related to Dutch discontent over Chinese proxy purchasers.

Distrustful of Chinese brands following the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal, many Chinese parents have taken to buying imported infant formula. The huge demand has led to Chinese proxy buyers importing milk powder from countries all over the world, contributing to shortages in countries like Australia and the Netherlands.

This isn’t the first time Chinese proxy buyers have made news in the Netherlands. Last November, an ugly brawl was captured on video in which three Chinese people were fighting over limited supplies of milk formula outside a Rotterdam supermarket while bystanders tried to break them up. According to Chinese media, all three were professional proxy buyers.

Chinese netizens were upset by the prank, with some advocating lethal retaliation. One person said, “The Chinese are simply too honest and sincere. (We) should stab that son of a bitch a couple of times.” Other netizens reminded the world at large of China’s enormous economic power. Another person said, “If we don’t buy your infant formula, how will you get by?”

However, there were Chinese netizens who sympathized with Dutch locals, acknowledging the burden the Chinese market is placing upon the world. One person wrote, “If China is such a great and powerful country, then how come it can’t produce it’s own milk formula? Oh, my goodness!”

Here’s the video:

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According to the National Food and Drug Inspection Bureau, the 35 restaurants have been accused of using poppy seed capsules or one of its variants such as papverine, morphine, codeine, noscapine, and thebaine.

Poppy seed capsules (shown above) are most frequently used in hot pot, noodle soups, and lobster sauce. In addition to its potentially addictive properties, the additive is said to make food “tastier”.

Shanghai restaurants and stores caught in the crackdown include Jiaxin Restaurant, Youqin Food Store, Dongjikai Restaurant, Shengxian Restaurant, the popular Zhouheiya franchise, and a Nanjing steamed bun eatery on Gulian Road in Jinshan District.

Beijing restaurants accused of using poppy seed capsules include Huda Restaurant; the Diannan Fuxi Eatery in Liangxiang, Fangxiang; Baoheju Restaurant in Dongcheng District; Rong Roast Chicken in Xicheng District; and the Zhenbao Restaurant chain. Other restaurants named in the crackdown include locations in Wenzhou, Zhejiang; Loudi, Hunan; and Weifang, Shandong.

In February 2014, a Foshan restaurant was raided after a number of men testing positive for morphine complained that they never used the drug, and suspected the food they ate at a local restaurant. A search of the restaurant’s kitchen discovered a bottle containing opium, morphine, poppy pods, and other illegal additives.

Poppy seeds are not uncommon in Guangdong or throughout parts of China, and had been traditionally used in dishes until recently banned. In Chongqing, it had been routinely used in hotpot dishes. Some mala tang (麻辣烫) and marinated foods also use poppy seedpods for extra flavors.

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The 14,000 square-meter facility will supply China’s growing demand for beef, and will be able to clone animals with specialized abilities, like sniffer dogs or race horses, as well as be able to save critically endangered species from extinction.

BoyaLife chief executive Xu Xiaoshun emphasized the historic nature of his company. “We are going [down] a path that no one has ever traveled,” said Xu. “This is going to change our world and our lives,” adding that such “extremely important” technology could possibly help the giant panda from being an endangered species.

The facility plans to begin by providing 100,000 cloned cow embryos a year, eventually reaching 1 million in phase two. The cloned cattle are expected to lower the cost of beef, which has tripled in price between 2010 and 2013.

However, there are questions over whether the Chinese public, which has faced a number of food scandals, will eat cloned beef.

“Beef from cloned cattle is safe to eat,” said Northwest A & F University veterinary medicine professor Zhang Yong, while Xu was heard telling reports at a conference call, “I can tell you, cloned beef is the tastiest beef I’ve had!”

With animals having been cloned in China for 14 years, a Shenzhen-based company called BGI was creating cloned pigs at an “industrial level”, reported the BBC last year.

Last April, a global outcry was raised when Chinese scientists attempted to edit human embryos’ genomes as a way to prevent or cure genetic disorders.

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This may seem like a strange practice for people who can walk into a store and buy milk in a box, but Chinese consumers have been shaken by a continuing series of food scandals. Even though it was a while ago, many haven’t forgotten about the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal in which products laced with melamine resulted in hundreds of thousands of victims, including the deaths of six infants.

For that reason, Chinese consumers are focusing on food safety, and prefer imports over domestic products. The fears have grown so much that some Chinese even import rice from Japan.

But is drinking milk straight from a cow safe? Is it healthier, even? That depends on whom you ask, and in which context.

The US Food and Drug Administration says all milk for consumption should undergo pasteurization, a process in which heat kills off harmful bacteria like E-coli, Listeria and salmonella that cause foodborne diseases. The FDA quotes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in saying more than 1,500 US citizens became sick from drinking raw milk between 1993 and 2006.

However, there’s another way of thinking that suggests raw milk is healthier to drink specifically because it hasn’t undergone pasteurization. The Farmer’s Almanac said that the process of pasteurization also kills off many of the “good bacteria” in milk that helps drinkers with digestion and boosts their health.

Furthermore, pasteurizing milk also breaks down many of the proteins it contains that would have been used as antibodies used to fight off disease and infection. The Farmer’s Almanac also said that raw milk, due to the bacteria it has that are removed by pasteurization, can be consumed by people who are lactose-intolerant.

But there is one thing that raw milk can’t provide that processed milk does have, and that’s Vitamin D, an essential nutrient for children. Raw milk drinkers must take Vitamin D supplements, or get them from elsewhere.

And while it’s always great to cut out the middleman, there’s always the question of the quality of the source of the milk, which in this case spends its days in a Chinese city. While milk sold in stores is regularly inspected, we can’t be sure of the health of these two cows and their milk which is being sold freely on the streets.

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