Chicken Feet
© Alamy
Chinese police have reportedly seized 20 tonnes of out-of-date meat from a Vietnamese smuggling gang, including chicken feet that were 46 years past their sell-by-date.

During a raid conducted in May but only reported this week, police in Guangxi said they smashed an underground network that had been swamping the Chinese food market with substandard chicken feet, tripe and throat.

Among their stomach-churning discoveries were chicken feet that date back to 1967, a time when China was still ruled by Chairman Mao.

Li Jianmin, a local security chief, told the state news agency Xinhua that after smuggling the decades-old feet into China, the expired meat was treated with chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, "to kill bacteria, prolong the expiry date" and make the feet "look white and big".