China's latest shocker: Cardboard in steamed buns

BEIJING - A system to monitor food safety will take effect during test events next month for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a government watchdog announced yesterday, even as a TV station aired an undercover investigation showing how shredded cardboard was used as a filling in steamed buns by a Beijing bun-maker.

The discovery of the tainted buns highlights the country's perennial 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 using inexpensive ingredients or unsavory substitutes.

In the report Wednesday night, China Central Television showed a shirtless, shorts-clad bun-maker in Beijing using cardboard picked up off the street to stuff his steamed buns.

A hidden camera followed him into a ramshackle building where steamers were filled with the fluffy white buns, called baozi, traditionally stuffed with minced pork.

It showed how cardboard was 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 were stirred in as flavoring, and the concoction was stuffed into the buns.

"It fools the average person," says the bun-maker, whose face was not shown. "I don't eat them myself."

Confidence in the safety of Chinese exports has fallen severely internationally, as the list of products found tainted with dangerous levels of chemicals grows longer.

China has taken significant steps to try to clean up its product-safety record in recent days, including executing the former head of its drug-regulation agency for taking bribes. It also has banned the use of a chemical found in antifreeze in the production of toothpaste.

This week, officials vowed that the Beijing Summer Games - a source of tremendous national pride - would be part of the crackdown on unsafe food.

The new food-quality monitoring system will begin Aug. 8, the start of a series of 11 trials for Olympic organizers to assess their transportation systems, technology and logistics.

"There will be continuous supervision," the government agency said on its Web site.