CHICAGO – Students in Chicago’s public schools have had their fill of brown lettuce, soggy gray broccoli, and processed pizza and burgers served in school cafeterias in recent years.

Students in Michelle Obama’s home district are now lashing out over their nasty lunches with a website devoted to highlighting food quality issues and CPS’ contract with Aramark, the company brought in two years ago to take over the nutrition program, WBEZ reports.

Aramark arrived at CPS about the same time district officials worked with the federal government to provide free lunches to all students, yet despite the giveaway the number of students eating school lunch plummeted by 1 million the first year, and 800,000 in the second.

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A North Side high school student explained why: “Because the food is disgusting.”

“We want bigger portions, more nutritious food and (food) partly handmade from scratch,” Roosevelt High School Junior Shirley Hernandez told the news site. “It’s a human right to have decent food, not the lowest quality food.”

The situation prompted Hernandez and several other students in her honors civics class to tackle school lunch issues as part of a class project, and they’re already gaining attention with a new website and lunch boycotts scheduled for this week.

“I think it’s especially important for young people in Chicago – where we see so much corruption, cronyism and nepotism – that they learn how to make change within large organizations,” Roosevelt civics teacher Tim Meegan, who is leading students in their efforts, told the news site. “This is just one of many diverse tactics that we are trying to teach young people so they are fully equipped to participate as citizens in a democratic society.”

The student website – “The School Lunch Project: Culinary Denial” – details students’ gripes with school food, and Aramark in particular, and calls for significant improvements or permission to eat off campus during lunch time, WBEZ reports.

“Today, our lunch at Roosevelt is no better than the ones in Cook County prison.  In fact Aramark is the food service provider for both institutions.  Prisons only care about one thing when it comes down to meals- that it has enough nutrients for what the human body needs, it doesn’t matter if it tastes or smells bad,” the students wrote.

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“One online review of the prison food shows that prisoners get better food from Aramark than we do.  For example they have corn muffins, steamed carrots, green beans, also mac and cheese.  They also drink Kool-Aid.

“Meanwhile at Roosevelt we get the same thing all over again with two options, pizza or hamburger.  Often our milk and fruit cups are completely frozen.  The fruit is still being served even when it’s spoiled and the fruit cups become soggy and mushy.  Another example is sandwiches.  The sandwiches only have ham OR cheese, not both and the bread is stale. Prisons get more options we consider to be good.  This is why many students don’t eat the food and starve until they get home,” according to the site.

Students also pointed out that food currently served in schools is unhealthy, with chicken patties that contain fillers like soy protein, and preservatives. Fruit cups are frozen or mushy, pizza is loaded with grease, milk is often warm, hamburgers are discolored, tomatoes have bad spots, lettuce is brown and bug infested, and many students simply refuse to eat the food as a result, the students argued.

At least some school officials seem to agree.

“Great work, everyone!” Lisa Dallacqua commented on the student website. “I am a principal at Oglesby, and our food is gross, too. I keep apples and granola bars in my office because so many of my babies won’t eat the Aramark food products. I say product because I really don’t believe it is real food.”

“In our interview with RHS lunch ladies, we learned that the food was much higher quality 2 years ago and tasted much better.  The chicken was farm fresh and the pizza sauce was made from scratch.  Some of the lunch ladies have been at Roosevelt for 14 years or more.  There used to be four lines open, not two, and we had a lot more variety.  Our lunch ladies said the food is all processed now but before 1989, everything was made from scratch,” the students wrote.

In an effort to force the school district to address their concerns, Meegan’s civics students at Roosevelt organized a schoolwide lesson on lunch food for Wednesday, and upperclassmen plan to boycott the lunchroom later this week.

The students hope to take the boycott schoolwide, and to other schools, next Monday, WBEZ reports.

In the meantime, students continue to post their despicable lunches from numerous schools on the website’s “Lunch Gallery,” while students across the country do the same on Twitter with the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama.

Since federal regulations championed by the first lady first took effect in 2012, more than 1.4 million students have dropped out of the National School Lunch Program, and school food waste has skyrocketed by an additional $1 billion per year.

In other words, many students no longer eat school lunches, and those who do throw a lot of it in the trash.