"Potatoes serve both as vegetables and as staple food for our children," Li said. "It is oversimplified nutrition."

Each month, Li's students, whose families were too poor to pay boarding costs with cash, brought 20 kg potatoes, 12.5 kg flour, 2.5 kg millet and 0.4 kg edible oil to the school's kitchen. Food served as payment for their education.

The cook used the items to make potato and steamed bread-based meals. Students only got to eat pork for festivals or exams.

"In this way, our children largely look thinner and shorter than urban children of the same ages," said the principal.

The situation alarmed county officials. In June 2005, while on an inspection tour, Wang Shudong, the newly appointed party chief of Jingle County, was astonished at the flour and potato packed kitchen of Diao'ergou Primary School.

"We cannot step aside as on-lookers," said Wang. "When parents can not afford to improve their children's nutrition, the government must act boldly."

At the end of 2006, Jingle County initiated the "one free egg per day" program. County officials donated 40,000 yuan and 100 kg of eggs on December 31. It was enough to supply one free egg to 340 boarding students at Kangjiahui High School for a year.

Local enterprises and residents responded to the move. In less than 10 days, sufficient funds were raised to supply eggs to 4,079 rural boarding students throughout county in 2007.

The county government then earmarked 200,000 yuan in 2007 and 300,000 yuan in 2008 for the project. Local enterprises and residents donated 800,000 yuan.

With enough funds at hand, the county ordered top officials at all levels to assume personal responsibility in ensuring a timely supply of fresh eggs to all 45 rural boarding schools in the county.

Each school must record the egg consumption of every student. For variation, some schools would fry eggs one day then poach them the next.

Over the past two years, a total of more than 7,000 rural boarding school children benefited from the One Egg Per Day program.

The efforts to improve nutrition in Jingle County are working. According to a random health survey in four rural schools, conducted by the county's disease prevention and control center in2008, 90 percent of children have improved their hemoglobin index, and markedly reduced upper respiratory tract infections and diarrhea.

"I am moved to see my two grandsons so happy to eat eggs at school," said Li Chunyuan, a 75-year-old farmer from Diao'ergou Village.

Jingle County is going one step further. All rural primary and high schools opened one course on health and nutrition each week. In 2007, administrators bought instruments to measure children's physical conditions, body height and weight.