The tainted milk / baby formula incident is the one that most readily comes to my mind [0]. That and the soy sauce made from human hair.
I can not verify the above claim from an internet search. But does anyone know why the protein in hair might be more beneficial as a supplement than other forms of protein ?
The majority of L-cysteine is obtained industrially by hydrolysis of animal materials, such as poultry feathers or hog hair. Despite widespread belief otherwise, there is little evidence that human hair is used as a source material and its use is explicitly banned in the European Union.
Makes sense too, since ~50 billion chickens are slaughtered per year, the amount of poultry feathers available for processing probably dwarfs the amount of human available.
[0] http://www.naturalnews.com/032718_L-cysteine_commercial_brea...
Yum! I'm not sure the truth is all that much less disgusting than the myth.
Here is the episode about l-cysteine (in Dutch, parts are in English, not sure if watchable from outside NL): http://keuringsdienstvanwaarde.kro.nl/seizoenen/2014/30-1187...
One of the suppliers actually confirms that human hair is being used in production, and being sold to bakeries around the world. While European bakeries claim to only use the l-cystein from animal sources, this video tends to show otherwise.