A baby boy in China has a whole new reason to resent his parents till the day he dies after they turned him into a salad.

In set of photos going viral across the Middle Kingdom, a set of culinary-inclined parents gave "baby vegetables" a whole new meaning when they put their baby in a salad bowl and threw in some lettuce leaves for show, Anne Geddes style.

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Clearly off-put at becoming a dinner table centerpiece, and perhaps a little unsettled at the the fact he is surrounded by a smorgasbord of good fixin's, the little tyke is seen to be frowning furiously at the treatment before accepting his fate drifting off into a nap a few seconds later.

"He tried to get up, but he was too young to get up himself," mother Qu Yuan said. "We laughed so hard before taking him out."

After snapping off a few shots, Qu quickly whisked her bundle of joy into less eatable surroundings. Baby and salad were none the worse for wear, and it is assumed, for lack of contrary evidence, that dinner went on as scheduled.

"Salad baby" is now a veritable star on Chinese social media and forums, with Western outlets picking up on the trend this week. "Cabbage Patch Doll" was perhaps the most inevitable — and painful — of the comments. However, pun-loving pundits positively went ga-ga, advising the boy to "romaine calm" and all would be well in the end. Others stood in for the child, and demanded, "Lettuce out!"

Others were a little more facetious. One commentator at the Daily Mail, whose readership is notoriously impolitic, wrote: "Greetings. I am from the future. It is bleak. Salad baby destroyed all hope for humanity." 

Expect a continuation of this story once the teenage angst sets in.

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