to sum up
Eating certain animals will attact penalties ranging from having your leftovers confiscated (the police will take them home and eat them) to life imprisonment for killing and eating a tiger. Eating a panda will get you the death penalty. It has happened.
Also a lot of the myths are caused by visitors misunderstanding what they see, by the media and by racists setting out to denigrate.
One visitor a few years back wandered away from me and saw a stall set out with dead rats. She rushed back and said, "How disgusting! They eat rats". The stall was selling rat poison and the dead rodents were beng used as testimony to the poison's efficiency. The rats were not for sale. She still went home and told the tale the way she saw it.
I think that's it. I'm off to eat a nice stewed Sichuan style braised rabbit head.