A Chinese dairy farmer has been sentenced to death for lacing her rival's milk supply with industrial salt, causing the deaths of three young children, state media report.

A local court in Pingliang city in far western China's Gansu province found Ma Xiuling guilty of deliberately adding nitrite to the milk of a dairy farming couple in revenge for some business disputes, the official Xinhua News Agency reported today.

Earlier reports said a month-old baby and two children younger than 2 died. Xinhua said 36 people were hospitalised.

The Gansu Daily newspaper said Ma's husband, Wu Guangquan, was sentenced to life in prison for purchasing the poison.

Both Ma and her husband have lodged appeals, Xinhua said.

 Not the 1957 Gershwin film starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire, but more along the lines of what Denmark has been using as a form of restaurant inspection disclosure (left).

Xinhua News Agency reports China's food safety watchdog plans to use cartoon faces -- smiling or unhappy -- to grade restaurants and delis based on the evaluation of their food safety conditions.

According to a draft plan compiled by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), the "smiling face" will represent excellent, the "straight face" means good and the "unhappy face" indicates average, according the draft which is currently opening for public opinions.

The grading will be based on evaluations on food safety factors ranging from environment, facilities, food materials, processing, to food additive and tableware disinfection, according to the draft.

Catering businesses scoring 90 and above will be rated as excellent, and between 75 to 90 will be classified as good. Those with scores above 60 but under 75 will be regarded as average.

The food safety authorities will conduct both from-time-to-time checks and evaluations on yearly basis. The draft said catering businesses will be required to placed the cartoon faces on visible positions to inform diners.

The plan has met mixed reactions among the public, with many suspecting if the proposal could be implemented substantially.

More than 220 people were hospitalized after eating lobsters in east Jiangxi Province, a local hospital reported on Friday.

Ruichang city residents who unsuspectingly indulged in a Thursday night lobster feast later suffered from diarrhea, vomiting, and some contracted a fever, said Gong Jinwen, a doctor who treated the sick at Renmin Hospital. Doctors speculate that E. coli could be the cause.

More than 4,000 people attended the lobster shindig, which was part of the city's government-sponsored lobster festival.

Maybe I’m losing something in translation, but Xinhua reports that experts in China have called for strengthening moral education to ensure food safety following a string of scandals in recent months.

Zhao Chenggen, an expert at the School of Government at Peking University, said on Wednesday that to promote moral education is conducive to urging food producers to place a higher value on public health.

Under the influence of moral cultivation, food producers could enhance their subjective consciousness to resist ill-gotten gains through adding toxic materials into food, he said.

"Moral decline in the food industry is more terrible than that in social communications," said another expert, Xu Yaotong, a professor of political science at the National School of Administration.

Premier Wen Jiabao said, "A country without the improved quality of its people and the power of morality will never grow into a mighty and respected power.”

Wen said that advancing the moral and cultural construction would help safeguard normal production, life and social order, as well as to eradicate the stain of swindling, corruption and other illegal conduct.