Chicken fans may be shocked to know that the tasty-looking poultry they love eating might have had their skin altered to look yellowish with a mixture of kerosene and chemicals.

Animal health authorities in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday busted an illegal poultry slaughterhouse in the outlying district of Hoc Mon, where unquarantined chickens are treated with such a combination to turn the white skin yellow.

Vo Van Diep failed to present any quarantine documents for the 310 chickens pending butchering at his facility, according to officers under the city’s police department that fights environmental criminals.

The slaughterhouse was also found operating illegally as Diep does not have a business license.

The owner admitted to environmental police that he had sourced the poultry from the southern province of Tien Giang and doused them in a “special mixture of liquids” to make them look tastily yellowish before selling them to the market.

The mixture consists of a black chemical powder Diep bought from a market in District 5 and kerosene, he said.

The illicit slaughterhouse sold 100 to 200 such chickens to the market on a daily basis, Diep said.

Consumers in Vietnam are thus advised to buy meat from trustworthy sources as many cases of dirt meat have been detected by local authorities lately.

While the Hoc Mon poultry slaughterhouse may make chicken fans think twice before enjoying their favorite dish, those who love eating pork will be shocked if they know how pigs are slaughtered at illegal facilities in the southern province of Dong Nai, where Ho Chi Minh City eatery owners source pork and poultry.

At such unlicensed abattoirs, swine are killed and butchered right on the dirty floor by topless men who tend to use their bare hands to turn the animals around and 'wash' them with their bare feet.

An illegal facility can slaughter up to 60 pigs per night and the pork, with no safety and hygiene certificate, will be distributed to downtown Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City, where they will in turn go directly to markets or the kitchens of industrial parks, schools or eateries.

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