CN Chef's food decoration at Chinese pre-school poisons 233 children

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4n7wn8l58o

https://archive.ph/dAyL5

July 8, 2025
Laura Bicker


A photo provided by the kindergarten to parents show bright yellow corn rolls and stir-fried vegetables

More than 200 children are being treated in hospital with lead poisoning in north-west China after school chefs used inedible paint to decorate their food.

Eight people have been arrested after tests showed the food samples from a kindergarten in Tianshui City in Gansu province had lead levels that were 2,000 times over the national safety limit.

In total, 233 children from Peixin Kindergarten had high levels of lead in their blood after eating steamed red date cake and sausage corn bun.

The school principal asked the kitchen staff to buy the paint online, according to a police statement.

But after the children fell ill, officers had to search for the supplies which had been hidden.

The paint was clearly marked as inedible, the statement said.

One parent told the BBC that he was worried about the long-term effects of lead poisoning on his son's liver and digestive system.

Mr Liu took his child to hospital in Xi'an for testing last week after other parents raised the alarm. His son now needs 10 days of treatment and medication.

Chinese state media aired footage which it said was from CCTV cameras in the kitchen which showed staff adding paint pigment to the food.

Investigators found that the red date cake and the corn sausage rolls had lead levels of 1052mg/kg and 1340mg/kg respectively which both exceed the national food safety standard limit of 0.5mg/kg.

The principal of the privately-run kindergarten and seven others, including its main investor, will now be investigated on suspicion of producing toxic and harmful food.

It is not known how long the paint has been used in the food, but several parents told Chinese state media that their children have been complaining of stomach and leg pain and a lack of appetite since March.

An investigation was launched after they raised their concerns with the local authorities.

The mayor of Tianshui, Liu Lijiang, said the incident exposed shortcomings and loopholes in public food safety supervision and the city would draw lessons from the event.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

The principal, who is clearly God in an authoritarian state over the chefs he hired, tells them to use an unsafe ingredient, and they chefs won't say "no" because they are conditioned from birth by the CCP to obey.

Bugmen gon' bug.

 

[Fred Jones -Traplord]

I dont see anything wrong here, if anything those children should be saying sorry for throwing up lead contaminated food prepared by great school chef of CCP and by extension grand leader Mao or suffer further social credit score reductions

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

Those damn Chinese have it so good. When I was a kid we had to chip the paint off the walls and eat it to get the delicious lead.

 

[Oulun]

Journalists reached out to the chef for comment, he was reported as saying it was a joke he played, and, being smart, he "no eat [sic] the lead paint part."

 

[Magicicada_septendecula]

Chinese safety and quality control causing people to be sick or injured? Must be a day that ends in "y".

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

Man, makes you appreciate the shitty square pizza we had here in the US.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Man, makes you appreciate the shitty square pizza we had here in the US.

One such appreciator: @MembersSchoolPizza

That corn is horrifying.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Safe to say the first emperor of China was not a Han Chinese, but a blonde haired blue eyed white guy.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Well he did ask for the red paint.

 

[WonderWino]

So....the simpsons was right - lead paint: delicious but deadly

That said, why the fuck does it look like the chef stripped off the corn and somehow wrapped it around a hot dog? That shit rivals the werns toasterbortions. At least he never cooked anything in lead paint

Also, this isn't as surprising as you might think, using lead acetate and lead paint is common with some sketchy companies in china to produce certain foods faster like century ages. Word to the wise - never, ever, EVER, buy premade century eggs from any asian grocery store that orders their stuff from china. Theres a very good chance those eggs are full of lead acetate. Also be wary of questionably cheap ceramic cooking stuff in those sorts of places, lots of them use lead glazes that will leech lead into the food if anything is cooked in them

 

[RodgerDodger]

I worked for a Chinese (Taiwan) firm for a few years. They came in 3 flavors. The Taiwanese Chinese who were sane rationale people. The Hong Kong Chinese who were best described as differently normal. And the mainland Chinese who were completely dissfunctional lunatics. Of the "why the fuck would you do this?" Variety. Mainland CCP China is all Florida man, all the way down. Without Floridamans sense of morality ethics or self preservation.

 

[LeChampion1992]

I worked for a Chinese (Taiwan) firm for a few years. They came in 3 flavors. The Taiwanese Chinese who were sane rationale people. The Hong Kong Chinese who were best described as differently normal. And the mainland Chinese who were completely dissfunctional lunatics. Of the "why the fuck would you do this?" Variety. Mainland CCP China is all Florida man, all the way down. Without Floridamans sense of morality ethics or self preservation.

The mainland is basically two steps above India in societal trust, the coastal cities are rich but corrupt as fuck and Taiwan and everywhere else have normal and chill Chinese people.
The old joke is the best Chinese people are the ones not in China.

The principal, who is clearly God in an authoritarian state over the chefs he hired, tells them to use an unsafe ingredient, and they chefs won't say "no" because they are conditioned from birth by the CCP to obey.

Bugmen gon' bug.

Yep the sad part is people like this are always scared of losing face. Instead of telling the truth losing face is a bigger issue.

 

[Not an Hero]

Gotta start building up that heavy metal tolerance early for a life on the factory line. No place for pussies in the Worker's Paradise.

 

[Snekposter]

The mainland is basically two steps above India in societal trust, the coastal cities are rich but corrupt as fuck and Taiwan and everywhere else have normal and chill Chinese people.
The old joke is the best Chinese people are the ones not in China.

Yeah, the various diaspora groups absolutely hate Mainlanders. I know a guy in Australia whose father-in-law was originally Singaporean and the hate he has for the mainland Chinese is off the charts.

 

[Melee Bouquet]

Chinks deliberately add melamine to food products (milk, powdered eggs, and other protein containing foodstuffs along with pet food and livestock feed) in order to boost the apparent protein content. In 2008 they poisoned hundreds of thousands of people with melamine enriched dairy products including baby formula (sickened 294,000 infants and killed at least 6) and milk (300,000 children affected with 54,000 of them being hospitalized). The real numbers are much higher than what the CCP will officially admit.

People in other countries were poisoned too which led to recalls of items like White Rabbit candy, Koala’s March cookies and products from brands like Heinz, Cadbury, Lipton, and Nestlé. Additionally, melamine entered the US food supply via animal feed for pigs, chicken, and fish.

The globalization of the food supply has put everyone's health at risk and the FDA is ill equipped to keep us safe. Just remember this was all done on purpose; the melamine was added to products with an emulsifier so it would be harder to detect. It was not an accident or the result of negligence, it was a deliberate decision people made out of greed.

 

[Spasticus Autisticus]

Me Chinese, me play joke, me put Pb in your food.

That said, why the fuck does it look like the chef stripped off the corn and somehow wrapped it around a hot dog? That shit rivals the werns toasterbortions. At least he never cooked anything in lead paint

It looks like they used chrome yellow paint, which if so, means they didn't just get lead but a nice dose of hexavalent chromium as well.

 

[Jerri's Kid]

It looks like they used chrome yellow paint, which if so, means they didn't just get lead but a nice dose of hexavalent chromium as well.

The principal was just trying to use yellow paint to guide children to the food since there is no mini map or quest arrows.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

Wow the Chinese Century is sure impressive!

 

[Make Wraith Wraithy Again]

I don't think it's coincidence that india and china are close to each other... even in standards.