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.

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

30 comments

  1. Those chefs must have eaten a lot of paint chips when they were kids.

  3. from the article:

    08 July 2025

    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.

  5. I know everyone’s mad about them having lead paint, but why were they painting food to begin with? My wall paint doesn’t have lead in it, but I’m still not dropping a straw in the bucket for a nice refreshing snack.

  7. At first I thought the chefs bought the paint from some shady site (that they didn´t know was shady) and thought it´s safe and edible, but no, the paint was hidden and clearly marked as inedible…

  10. Sounds deliberate to me.

    No one in 2025 thinks ‘paint food? Yeah, that’s a usual request’

    Sounds like the school principal wanted to injure kids – hates kids? Needed loads of absences to explain low scores? 

    There’s a motive here. 

    Those kids will be left with permanent injuries. I can’t even process the horror of that for the victims and the parents. Schools should be safe.

  11. Oh man, if this was in the US, everyone and their dog would be getting sued… but this is China, so they’ll probably just get executed.

  13. So besides lead paint, what’s a “bright yellow corn roll” supposed to be? Is it a dough pressed with a corn kernel pattern or what? What’s it wrapped around?

  14. I don’t like the Chinese government, but it is in such cases like these that they do give all criminals involved a proper sentence.

    If this happened in Europe only the School director would have received prison time and probably not a lot.

  15. Probably stupidity more than malice here. Instructions may have been to get food colouring not literal lead paint. I don’t know, hard to understand how else this could have happened since there isn’t a clear profit motive that would be worth the risk of poisoning kids. It’s not a tiny amount of paint. 

    There’s a good chance of getting executed in China for intentionally doing something like this. 

  16. Crap like this is deserving of the death penalty, those children are never going to recover what they’ve lost.

  17. Whenever I see this type of headline, my reaction is where’s the common sense?

  18. China is just on next level when it comes to food and poisoning lol

  19. China should really stop inventing another “food poison” /s

  20. Based on what I saw on the latest investigation it seems like the chefs were instructed by the principal, investor, and legal representative to buy paint and mix it in with the food….
    Can’t even.

  21. They probably saw some Tik Tok with colorful food and said let’s do this at our school! Social media has turned us dumber than dumb. Humanity has always been dumb, but social media has amplified it 1000-fold.

  22. Fools. Lots of Iron in old gym mats they should’ve used instead

  23. a few years ago the chinese mfr used lead paint on Thomas the train toys. The US company had supplied their own paint but the chinese plant switched paints to make it shinier. Huge recalls later and the chinese plant mgr hung himself in disgrace. Thomas trains never really regained market share after that

  24. >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.

    Jfc. Even the US still has a limit of 0.02mg/kg for its most lenient category. Literally 50,000 times higher than what we consider acceptable (for single-root vegetables like potatoes, it’s 100,000 times worse than our limit for everything else)

  25. Whenever someone says we have too much regulation in the US, point them to this shit.

  28. Why is everyone surprised? Food safety isn’t a thing in China. Look up gutter oil.

  29. “school chefs used inedible paint to decorate their food. The school principal asked the kitchen staff to buy the paint online, according to a police statement.”

    What kind of idiots will do such a thing? This cannot be murder because there is no motive. And the principal is in on this? Where did he go to school? The university of the ungifted and mentally challenged?

  30. China and poisoning children with lead-name a bigger all time duo

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