McDonald's Japan halts sales of Chinese chicken items

as it switched to distributors in Thailand “to address the concerns of our customers”

That's good news. I never tasted a Thai chicken dish I didn't like.

The title of this story now has the Bare Naked Ladies' "One Week" song stuck in my head.

"Chickity China the Chinese chicken You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin' "

Which, incidentally could happen if that Chinese chicken made you ill enough.

I am just wondering how long it will be before countries impose an import ban on Chinese food products like they did with the mad cow beef scare? With China it seems that China just doesn't care and it seems like it's everything under the sun that they are exporting that breaks the rules from food to toys, electrical items, health care items, etc.

GOOD MOVE ob Mac Japan . . Isn't their CEO a woman ??? . . Way to go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So incredible amount of tainted meats for humans and pets! It is very understandable that so many pets get very sick and died when they ate such food made in China.

With China it seems that China just doesn't care

Yeah, their decision to remain silent and not arrest anyone in this scandal is sickening.

...oh wait, they strongly condemned it, and arrested five people almost right away.

I find it ironic that consumers of McDonald's would be concerned about what they put in their bodies.

When do we learn? I avoid all food products made in China. They are not clean and safe.

Point to last weeks mass bento poisoning at a sports festival, no one has been poisoned from Mc Nuggets. Every week there is a story about a school, hospital or miss labelling right here in Japan. Stupid to focuses on China when there are more problems with food here.

I'm a bit taken aback. There's real chicken n a Mcnugget?

Would it be completely naive for me to find all this surprising?

Learned a while ago, never buy any food product from China. You never know what you are getting. Now we have to worry about Chinese food products being sold in fast food chains. Guess we have to check with fast food outlet owners where they buy their products.

Japan's record on food safety leads the world?

Guess we have to check with fast food outlet owners where they buy their products.

If you are eating fast food in Japan, there is no need to check - they all source some of their food from China. All family restaurants as well.

While this occurrence is certainly a big deal, and quite disgusting, I have to say that it could have been a lot worse. The factory simply shipped meat that was past its expiration date. I think we've all had expired food from time to time and been none the worse for the wear. The fact that there has been such a large public outcry and that the factory has been shut down is a sign of how (relatively) capable the food-safety chain of command currently is--even in countries like China.

It's still freaking gross, though.

Never eat anything you have no knowledge from where it comes from. ;-)

The problem with the industrialized meat industry is that they treat the animals without any respect. They see them as merely things to grind up and press into familiar shapes. It was only a matter of time, and not particularly surprising, that they have started treating their human customers with the same contempt. It's like Sinclair's The Jungle.

CrickyJul. 26, 2014 - 10:31AM JST

Japan's record on food safety leads the world?

I think Japan is doing better than US. We need to learn some from Japan as far as products labeling. You can go to Oregon Right to Know website to see what we are doing against GMO labeling.

Back on topic please.

Japan uses the same Chinese distributors and the same Chinese producers as everyone else. Get off your Wafu high horses. This story and others like it seem to prove that point.

When do we learn? I avoid all food products made in China. They are not clean and safe.

So what on earth do you eat in Japan because most things contain products from China. Everything from edamame, gross processes food and nearly every chain here uses food from China - they might not tell you that but it is in there.

And if you trust Japanese labels, I have a talking dog to sell you.

forget about these burgers full of cholesterol you eat a nice pizza margherita

globalwatcher: "I think Japan is doing better than US. We need to learn some from Japan as far as products labeling."

Yeah, just ask Yuki-Jirushi, Mikasa, and Fujiya among others about that. ALL countries mislabel to an extent, but Japan is among the leaders who do it, and little is done when they are caught. You can bet that if anyone is found specifically responsible in China they'll not get the same "Just change the company name" they get in Japan, and the company as a whole will be bust. The saddest part is that they've been dealing with this company since 2002 and who knows how long such practices as we saw have been going on.

Not really sure who in their right mind would eat McNuggets or those awful chicken nuggets or chicken monstrosities at Family Mart anyhow. Hope the Thai chicken is safe and the employees honest.

I tried some McNuggets. Little gristly bits inside. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Just like sausages, wieners, frankfurters, etc, it's all made of gross ground-up leftover bits of animals. The sell-by date is surely secondary to that.

Japan uses the same Chinese distributors and the same Chinese producers as everyone else. Get off your Wafu high horses. This story and others like it seem to prove that point.

But, outside of Asia, countries and companies know to avoid Chinese food like the plague. This story and others like it seem to prove (the wisdom of) that point.

This isn't a Chinese problem, but a problem involving a company in China. Remember, that Japanese company with their "Peko-Chan" mascot that used expired dairy ingredients in their products, or the "Snow Brand" milk company that used dodgy ingredients in their butter? This isn't just happening in China.

This isn't a Chinese problem

I think this kind of thing is happening all over the world. China meat scandal still reminds me of one KFC in America years ago. One employee accidentally fell some fried chickens down on the floor and these were served to customers anyway. They did not see the employee picked them up and put them in the box far back but I eyewitnessed it fortunately, of course I did not buy such chickens. So I still don't feel like eating chickens since.