Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

It seems as if those engaged in food fraud just want to keep escalating their game. First we were horrified by horse meat and fake tuna, then dog meat, but now it’s gotten worse. Much worse. In China, the food fraudsters have take things to an entirely new level by mixing rat, fox and mink meat with gelatin additives and passing it off as lamb. You may want to avoid that food cart next time you’re in Shanghai. From The Washington Post:

BEIJING — Chinese police have broken up a criminal ring accused of taking meat from rats and foxes and selling it as lamb in the country’s latest food safety scandal.

The Ministry of Public Security released results of a three-month crackdown on food safety violators, saying in a statement that authorities investigated more than 380 cases and arrested 904 suspects.

Among those arrested were 63 people who allegedly ran an operation in Shanghai and the coastal city of Wuxi that bought fox, mink, rat and other meat that had not been tested for quality and safety, processed it with additives like gelatin and passed it off as lamb.

The announcement came as China’s top court on Friday issued guidelines calling for harsher punishment for making and selling unsafe food products in the latest response to tainted food scandals that have angered the public.

The supreme court said 2,088 people have been prosecuted in 2010-2012 in 1,533 food safety cases. It said the number of such cases has grown exponentially in the past several years. For example, Chinese courts prosecuted 861 cases of poisonous food in 2012, compared to 80 cases in 2010.

“We cannot tolerate it any longer. We must punish the criminals severely, or we cannot answer to our people,” Pei said.