COLCHESTER, England – Parents in Colchester are fuming after school officials snatched food they deemed “unhealthy” from students’ lunch boxes and forced some children to go hungry, while the cafeteria served cakes, chips and cookies.

Vikki Laws, parent of a Cherry Tree Primary School 6-year-old, told Express her daughter’s teacher removed a sausage snack from the girl’s lunch box recently, then returned the food to the lunch box at the end of the school day with a note.

“I asked her why she hadn’t eaten the sausage because they are her favorite thing in the world and she said she was not allowed to have them,” Laws told the news site. “We just found out when we opened the lunch boxes and the food was still there with a letter.”

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

A school spokesman told the East Anglian Daily Times the teacher’s actions were part of the school’s “healthy lunchbox policy” that’s aimed at complying with government regulations on school food.

“Our healthy lunchbox policy has been in place for some time and the majority of parents are very supportive of it,” the spokesman said. “The decision to take additional steps to ensure all pupils are adhering to the policy was taken following feedback from parents and as part of our continued efforts to make improvements to all areas of the school.”

“All school meals we serve comply with the government’s school food standards, as required by law,” he said.

Regardless, Laws said she doesn’t appreciate the school’s self-appointed food police, and returned her daughter to school with a “do not remove” note in her lunchbox. Another parent told the media her child wasn’t allowed to eat a scotch egg, which is apparently a deep-fried pork-wrapped egg.

The Telegraph columnist Xanthe Clay argued the ban on the traditional picnic food is ridiculous.

“A quick look at the nutrition for a Tesco scotch egg showed that one has 266 calories, 16.6g of fat, 0.8g of sugar and 0.9g of salt. An individual spinach and ricotta quiche — which I imagine would pass the school dinner inspection — has nearly 50 per cent more calories, 40 per cent more fat, a staggering five times the amount of sugar and 0.6g of salt. Yes, the kids need some veg too. Of course they do. But salt aside — and it’s still well within the 5g-a-day ceiling recommended for seven-to-10-year-olds — the scotch egg wins the healthy food fight hands down,” Clay wrote.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

“But let’s face it, it’s not really about the nutrition. What’s really galling is that these scotch eggs are part of our heritage, a fine example of a traditional British dish, allegedly invented by Fortnum and Mason in the 18th century.”

Law contends that school dinners often include pizza, chips, cakes, cookies and other desserts, which seems to defy its “healthy foods only” logic for rummaging through lunch pails. Besides, taking away any food deemed unhealthy doesn’t teach students what they need to know about healthy eating, she said.

“Some children are going in with packed lunches with energy drinks, bottles of coke, big bags of crisps and seem to be getting away with it,” she said.

“We are not against the school, though perhaps they went about it in the wrong way, we are all for healthy eating – the problem is with the government guidelines they are going by, which need to change,” Laws told the Daily Times.

“People need to learn to eat in moderation, not have things completely taken away. It should be down to the school to teach and us to parent, including choosing what our children eat.”

Ironically, that’s the same argument many parents are making about federal food regulations imposed on schools in America.

Since changes in the Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act took effect, more than 1.2 million students stopped buying school lunches, hundreds of school districts dropped out of the National School Lunch Program, and cafeteria waste increased by $1 billion annually. Those restrictions on calories, fat, sugar, sodium and other aspects of school food were implemented with the urging of first lady Michelle Obama.

Some American students who are still eating school food are now posting images of their unappetizing cafeteria offerings with the hashtag #thanksMichelleObama, while others have created parody videos or staged cafeteria walkouts to get their point across.