More than 50 middle school students in Oregon were fed pretzels that were seasoned with crushed oven cleaner last fall, according to a newly filed lawsuit.
About 37 pretzels coated with Alto-Cham concentrated oven cleaner — an industrial-strength caustic chemical made with sodium hydroxide — were served during sixth-grade lunch at Fowler Middle School in Tigard, a suburb of Portland, on October 20, 2025, according to a nearly $1 million lawsuit filed last month.
More than 50 students ate all or part of the impacted pretzels, according to Tigard-Tualatin School District records obtained by Fox 12.
I’m not overall a fan of wearing gloves when cooking, but rather I rely on handwashing (because gloves need to be changed every time you’d otherwise need to wash your hands anyways and nobody has good gloves habits in kitchens).
Using fingers to sprinkle the “salt” would give pretty immediate feedback to the cook.
I can’t imagine all the bad stuff that would happen eating lye. awful.