MERIDIAN, Idaho – The uprising against the federal government’s school lunch overhaul continues to grow as more school districts drop out of the program or officials voice their displeasure about the new “healthy” mandates.

“Last year, the pizza tasted like cardboard,” Jean Dean, Meridian schools nutrition services supervisor, told the Idaho Statesman.

Kids didn’t think too much of the whole-grain macaroni and cheese or pinto beans, either.

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The paper claims demand is down after the feds “rushed in” new requirements championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, including reduced meat portions and a bigger emphasis on legumes.

A mother of a football player called Dean to complain her son wasn’t getting enough to eat. But because the mandates from bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., she might have better luck by calling the White House.

Things aren’t much better in Watertown, New York.

“Waste-wise, yeah, there’s waste,” food services director Craig Orvis told the Watertown Daily Times. “There’s always been waste. I don’t think there’s more waste. It’s just more highly priced waste.”

The newspaper reported that because demand was down, the Watertown district – as well as several neighboring districts – raised prices to blunt the impact of financial losses.

A business administrator in one of those districts, South Jefferson, told the newspaper “we were actually breathing a sigh of relief” because the district lost “only” around $25,000. Because of the losses, Business Administrator Joseph Eberle estimates the food service program will be “out of cash” in another year.

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But budgets aren’t the only things that are starving.

“They’re famished when they come home,” Donelle L. Thompson, the mother of three children who attend LaFargeville schools, told the Daily Times. “They’re starving. And they’re required to take a serving of fresh fruit whether they’ll eat it or not, which I find really wasteful.”

“All they’re doing is making them go home and eat more,” another parent, Sarah M. Cox, told the newspaper. “I think if you want to lower obesity, you should have different choices, not less of the same choices.”

One school official defended the federal program.

“It’s really sad that people will pull out [of the federal program],” Jill Lucius, director of nutritional services for Fitchburg, Massachusetts schools told the Sentinel and Enterprise.

“You have to tell (kids) why this is good for them. It really is about the educational piece, too. It takes time. We can’t do it overnight.”