PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia Public Schools recently interviewed students on their thoughts about school lunch, and the brutally honest responses aren’t very surprising.

“The cheese is fake. The pepperoni is fake. It’s just bad!” Geliz Torres, a seventh-grader at Amy Northwest Middle School, told The Notebook, the district’s blog.

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“It’s not enough most of the time,” Carver High School of Engineering & Science sophomore Cyan Fireall said. “Sometimes we get a little bit of food, and it will get me through my next three classes, then I am like, ‘I need to eat again.’”

“Sometimes, it’s just food you wouldn’t want to eat on your own. I wouldn’t eat it myself and I wouldn’t prefer for nobody else to eat it. That’s why I bring my lunch every day,” Nia Caldwell, Fireall’s classmate, told The Notebook.

The student responses echo complaints from students, parents, and school officials over the years since strict nutrition regulations were imposed on schools participating in the National School Lunch Program at the behest of former first lady Michelle Obama in 2012.

Across the country, hundreds of schools have dropped out of the federal program since that time as students have refused to eat the unappetizing “healthy” food, a reality that plunged may district food programs into the red.

In total, well over 1.4 million students stopped eating lunch at school. Meanwhile, those who had no other options continue to pick through their gruesome meals and many simply toss out what they won’t eat, leaving schools to deal with a $1 billion increase in food waste – much of it tied to regulations that mandate students take a fruit or vegetable whether they want it or not.

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In recent months, the House Freedom Caucus, the School Nutrition Association and others have called on Congress and the Trump administration to “Make Lunches Great Again” by repealing or modifying the changes ushered in by Michelle Obama, EAGnews reports.

Philadelphia students are providing the perfect reminder about why the current rules aren’t working.

“Sometimes the food doesn’t taste real,” Amy Northwest seventh-grader Teryn Dark told The Notebook.

“It’s a very different kind of taste,” Carver High sophomore Siaka Lemailloux said. “If you were to come in here … and had the lunch, it would be different from your average lunch.”

The district blog points out that Philadelphia schools qualify for the community eligibility provision of the NSLP, which means all of the district’s students receive free breakfast and lunch, whether they can afford it or not.

And, as the Philly Voice points out, there are a few students who actually like some of the school food, sort of.

“I like the corn dogs and the cheeseburgers and the salads because they taste enticing,” seventh-grader Shanaya Samuels said.

“In the past years the food used to be terrible, but now, they’re experimenting with this stuff called salt and pepper,” Carver High senior Jordan Buie said. “They’re using spices now.”