BOWIE, Md. – Officials at Prince George’s County Public Schools invited a local news station to eat lunch in an attempt to quell a barrage of complaints about under-cooked, unsafe cafeteria food.

Students at Friendly High School and others in Prince George’s County have posted images of under-cooked multi-colored burger patties, moldy bread, hollow chicken nuggets and other unappetizing lunches to social media in recent weeks, sparking public outrage.

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“Criminals are getting better food than we are,” Tamara Perry Friendly senior told Fox 5 last month. “You’re giving us something that’s not healthy, that can possibly cause us to die and it’s just unacceptable.”

The student complaints have resulted in numerous media reports, including coverage by EAGnews.

Schools CEO Kevin Maxwell said the district is in the midst of reviewing the complaints to confirm the pictures came from Prince George’s County schools, though he acknowledged officials have identified at least one issue with moldy bread, according to Fox 5.

“It should not have been served and we have made that clear and we’ve taken the actions that we think will make sure that doesn’t happen again,” he said.

To smooth things over, Maxwell invited the television station to sample a school lunch during National School Lunch Week, and a reporter sat down with students for a meal at Benjamin Tasker Middle School.

Maxwell said changes in the federal food regulations championed by first lady Michelle Obama have been partially to blame for some of the district’s problems.

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“You used to be able to get bread and have it delivered and (it) lasted a long time because of the preservatives,” he said. “My assumption is that we have some shorter cycles of delivery. We probably have some storage issues that are a little bit different.”

Maxwell also made the excuse that the dozen-plus pictures of nasty lunches posted online “represent a really, really tiny percentage of the number of meals, the number of items that we serve” to the district’s 128,000 students daily.

“I wish I could say 100 percent, but the absolutely vast majority of meals we serve are good, nutritious, there’s no issues with them,” said Maxwell.

Fox 5 reporter Lauren DeMarco wrote that she “sampled turkey lasagna, French fries and a fruit cup,” and opined “It wasn’t five-star restaurant quality, but typical cafeteria food.”

DeMarco also spoke with students, who countered Maxwell’s assertions the food issues are minor and infrequent.

“I’ve seen mold on a burger once,” one student said.

“You go to eat the chicken patty and it’s like hollowed out,” said another.

A third student told Fox 5 the food is not only gross, the cafeteria workers are rude.

“The pizza, half of it was cooked and the other half wasn’t,” the student said. “I asked to get another one and they were like, ‘No, you have to pay for this and get out of line.’”