More food fakes: Beef in Shanghai might be pork?

Is there no end to the food safety issues we have to deal with here? Luckily, this new scare doesn't seem to actually be harmful. Unluckily, this means that officials are "passing the buck" when it comes to actually dealing with it.

From Global Times:

An additive that lends pork the taste and appearance of beef has turned up in Shanghai after media exposed restaurants in Hefei, Anhui Province, using it.

The beef extract additive is sold in Shanghai and used in restaurants to make fake beef, local media reported. Cooking raw pork for about 90 minutes with the additive gives the meat a beefy flavor.

A 500-gram bottle of the beef extract sells for 20 yuan ($3) and is enough to flavor about 25 kilograms of pork. Pork is about half the price of beef, which means potential savings of over 1,000 yuan per 25 kilograms of meat if the substance is used.

Unfortunately, since the additive is both legal and not dangerous in the amounts small enough to disguise pork as beef, nobody seems to want to do anything about it.

The Global Times said that they asked the Shanghai Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision for help with this matter, who told them to go to the Administration for Industry and Commerce. But when questioned, the administration argued that it should be the Food and Drug Administration's area of expertise. The Food and Drug Administration then shrugged when they came a calling and told them to ask the Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision. Heh.

Granted, this isn't quite as gross as the cat meat posing as lamb scandal, but we know quite a few people who don't eat pork for some pretty heavy reasons. If you're one of those... we're sorry, but it looks like, unless you're at restaurants where you personally know the supplier, it might be time to give up beef too.