AR-News: China's Carnivorous Eating Habits Become Food for Debate

[jim robertson]

China's Carnivorous Eating Habits Become Food for Debate
Although international health advocates welcome the government's ban on 
eating and trading of wild animals in southern China's Guangdong province 
and elsewhere, they say a greater challenge lies in changing traditional 
attitudes that consider nearly all living things as frying pan fodder. 
China's appetite for animals spans generations. In poor areas, residents 
have adapted their diet to whatever staples they can find, including cats, 
and even rats. Wealthy Chinese seek out bizarre and expensive dishes — from 
peacocks to pangolins, a scaly relative of the anteater — for their novelty. 
Others eat animal organs for their perceived medicinal benefits. (07/05/04) 
LA Times

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“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long 
before the world runs out of oil.” - Sheikh Zaki Yamani, former Saudi 
Arabian oil minister