Losing the taste for China's delicacies (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

In the week that China executed the man once responsible for ensuring the safety of China's food and drugs, Fuchsia Dunlop, an expert on Chinese cuisine, finds tainted food has blunted her appetite.
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The Chinese economic boom of the last two decades has led to a surge in banqueting, and the boundless appetite of the new Chinese rich for this slimy creature has decimated its stocks in Chinese waters.

These days the supplies that grace the dinner table come from as far away as the Galapagos Islands off the South American coast.

If I eat one, am I contributing to the ruin of marine ecosystems all over the world?

It is a similar story with many other expensive delicacies, like sharks' fins, turtles and pangolins.

Chinese restaurants are the engine driving a global trade in endangered species. And in China, there is a thriving black market in all kinds of supposedly protected animals.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6897844.stm

The discussion of pollution and tainted food is further down. I had been wondering about what the effect of all this was in China. I remember wondering -- after all the news about Chinese food contamination broke in the US -- just how it was going to affect (US) Chinese restaurants and their suppliers. Fortunately, many ingredients in Chinese food can be grown in the US, though that's no guarantee they are, given that catfish and wheat gluten are being imported from China.

(OT - What cruel parents named their daughter Fuchsia? Any 12-year old could tell you how that's going to be mispronounced.)