TRENTON, N.J. – A New Jersey columnist is explaining why the state’s school cafeterias are failing food inspections, and how Michelle Obama’s “healthy” school food regulations play into the problem.

Recent reports by the Burlington County Times detailed a wide variety of health violations found by the county health department at 87 of 141 school food service sites since January 1, including growing bacteria, soiled lettuce, “insects and rodents” in food service areas, flies “breeding” in “dirty wet linens,” numerous other “critical violations.”

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In Bucks and Montgomery counties, inspectors detailed similar violations in 152 of 179 school kitchens, with 114 of them deemed “critical violations,” a category reserved for issues that cause “a high risk of spreading potentially dangerous food borne illnesses,” Bucks County Courier columnist J.D. Mullane wrote.

Mullane explained he has three school-age kids in local schools, and believes the problems stem, at least in part, from the first lady’s initiatives like Let’s Move! and its cafeteria component known as the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, which imposed strict limits on calories, fat, sugar, sodium and other nutritional elements.

“Ever since their school district adopted federal nutritional guidelines under ‘Let’s Move!’ I have heard nothing but bitter complaints about cafeteria food” from his children, Mullane wrote, adding that his oldest son contends the food “tastes like rocks and sticks.”

He continues:

The irony, as our Sunday story reports, is that nutritious ObamaMeals have the potential to increase health violations in school cafeterias. This is because “Let’s Move!” menus are heavy on fresh fruits and vegetables, and more meals are made from scratch. This not only requires more staff to peel, cut, chop and assemble each dish, but requires existing staff to do more. A local school cafeteria supervisor told us chopping and quartering 200 pounds of red bliss potatoes, which replaced old fashioned french fries, left his hands sore for days.

“If a school moves to more scratch cooking, there will be greater challenges associated with protecting the food that is served,” said Kevin Roberts, director of the Center of Excellence for Food Safety Research in Child Nutrition at Kansas State University.

There is nothing wrong with kids eating healthier meals. “Let’s Move!” is well-intentioned. In practice, it’s a fail, as schools across the country abandon it.

Hundreds of entire schools across the country have ditched the National School Lunch Program, and the federal subsidies that come with it, to eliminate the federal restrictions on school food that are driving down cafeteria sales. Since the federal restrictions went into effect in 2012, more than 1.2 million students have dropped out of the National School Lunch Program.

A federal requirement that every student take a fruit or vegetable, whether they want it or not, has also contributed to a $1 billion increase in food waste from schools annually.

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Mullane, and many other parents and school officials, believe Michelle Obama’s initive is failing, for several reasons.

“First, kids aren’t getting fat at school eating pizza and fries. They’re getting fat at home eating junk prepared by parents,” he wrote. “Second, healthy food that is quickly prepared tends to be less tasty. The late health guru Jack LaLanne gave this advice on how to eat healthy: ‘If it tastes good, spit it out!’

“Kids are spitting out their ObamaMeals, mocking their healthy cafeteria lunches by snapping pics of paltry portions of unappetizing dishes and posting them online.”

Mullane suggests parents avoid school lunches, altogether.

“So, how to avoid healthy ‘Let’s Move!’ school cafeteria food prepared and served under (sometimes) unhealthy circumstances? Easy. Have kids brown bag it from home,” he wrote.

“Any kid over age 7 is perfectly capable of preparing a simple school lunch, be it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or some prepared food, like Jell-O, chocolate pudding, fired Oreos, pork rinds and, for those who insist, something that tastes like rocks and sticks.”