Nguyen Hong, a resident of District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City, said she recently bought a 10kg roast pig in Nha Be district roasting facility which turned out to be diseased before being cooked.

“On the outside, it looks delicious. After a sacrificial ritual, the pig was brought in to eat. Only then did I discover it was covered in black spots and white grain-like nodules,” she said.

“Almost all pig traders are willing to buy diseased and long-dead pigs”, a pork seller in the city told Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper.

At a roasting facility on Phan Van Khoe street near the BaLy Kao bridge in District 6, the newspaper discovered unhealthy, dead or diseased pigs were all accepted here.

The aforesaid area is a hotbed of dodgy roasting facilities, to be avoided by consumers.

Pigs recently dead are immediately “upgraded” here and put on sale.

Those dead for several hours will be roasted right away if they arrive in early morning when the ovens here are in full swing.

If not at the right time, the pigs will be frozen to wait for early morning.

The newspaper also found that dishonest traders dabbed industrial colorings on the pigs’ bruises or rashes, besides applying a lot of strong spices to drown out the rotten smell.

Instead of colorings, others used malt which will fade away in 5-10 hours, leaving the pork’s spots visible again, Nguyen Thi Nhung, a veteran chef said.

Source: Nguoi Lao Dong – Translated by Hoang Bao