Vegetarian kindergarten in China ordered to provide meat lunches after menu creates scandal and accusations of malnutrition
- The school drew attention to itself when an innocuous post praising its vegetarian menu for the children blew up on Chinese social media
- The resulting furore saw the local education bureau intervene and order meat back on the menu
The kindergarten, named Deyin School in Chengdu city, has broken national and local regulations on meals for preschool children by deliberately avoiding animal-based foods, said the local education bureau over the weekend.
The school provided milk and eggs but no other animal-derived foods such as meat and fish which is against the government’s nutrition guidelines for schools, the bureau said in a statement on Weibo.
It has been ordered to improve its eating plan and to make it more balanced, according to the statement.
The intervention by the bureau came after the kindergarten, where 49 children are enrolled, received fierce criticism for promoting a vegetarian diet for students and linking it to Confucianism.
The post that generated the controversy on WeChat entitled “Great. There’s Such a Complete Vegetarian Kindergarten in Chengdu”, went viral last week.
