France: Six people are in custody in Vendée and Loire-Atlantique for eel poaching, with around 300 kilos of illegally harvested eel larvae found. The investigation follows previous operations against eel poaching, including a significant seizure in February.
1/2
About a hundred gendarmes and agents participated in raids at several sites, leading to the discovery of eel larvae, a protected species due to the highly regulated fishing. Due to its high selling price, poaching is common, with the goods being sold on the black market.
2/2
You think you're just eating "cheese"?
Think again.
90% of the American cheese on store shelves right now is made with a lab-engineered fake rennet called FPC — fermentation-produced chymosin.
And it was originally developed and patented by Pfizer in 1990. Yeah, that Pfizer.
Here's how they did it: They took the gene for chymosin (the key clotting enzyme from a calf's stomach), spliced it into Aspergillus Niger — black mold — using CRISPR gene-editing tech, then let the mold ferment in giant vats like some dystopian bio-reactor. The result? A synthetic enzyme that's cheaper, faster, and more consistent than the real thing.
Big Food loved it. No more baby calves. No supply limits. Just endless, uniform cheese bricks rolling off the line. FDA called it "substantially equivalent" to real rennet and gave it GRAS status with zero long-term human safety studies — just a 90-day rat trial. Sound familiar?
The worst part? This stuff isn't even listed properly.
On ingredient labels it hides behind ...