‘Canned Beef From Dead Bodies’ Hoax Message

According to this nasty and racist “warning” message, which circulates via social media websites and online forums, the Chinese have started to produce canned beef with their dead bodies and are sending the resulting products to Africa for sale.

The message, which has circulated in various formats for several years, warns you not to buy corned beef products from Asian grocery outlets in Africa. It asks that you send the information to all of your contacts so that they will be forewarned as well.

The warning features a series of images purportedly showing human bodies hanging in a butcher shop along with the tinned “beef” products that are supposedly the end result.

It hardly needs to be said that the claims in the message are utter nonsense. Of course, China is not producing tinned meat from human flesh. Nor is any other nation.

The body images used in the hoax message are derived from a 2012 PR stunt used to promote the video game Resident Evil 6.

At the time, video game developer, Capcom created a pop-up art installation called “Wesker & Son Resident Evil Human Butchery” at East London’s Smithfield Meat Markets.

Capcom issued the followings statement about the installation:

Once at the Wesker & Son butchery, members of the public will be invited to sample and purchase a dizzying array of edible human limbs including hands, feet and a human head, which will be available to buy directly from the shop. As well as these specially created products, gamers will be able to buy ‘Peppered Human & Lemon Sausages’ and ‘J’avo Caught Human Thigh Steaks’ along with some specially made pots of Red Herb and Green Herb. All proceeds from the sale of the meat will be donated to the Limbless Association, which provides information and support to the limb-loss community.

In addition to the pop-up human butchery and morgue, Resident Evil fans will be invited to attend two days of lectures at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Pathology Museum, which have been designed to explore some of the themes in the game and their links to real life.

Of course, the “butchery” was not actually selling human meat but rather pork and other meat products that had been shaped to resemble human body parts.

The tinned meat images used in the hoax message are just generic stock photos like the one used at the top of this report. Such images are available from a number of stock photo websites.