By Kyle Olson
EAGnews.org

INDIANAPOLIS – The carnage shifted from the students’ lunch plates to school budgets after Michelle Obama’s lunch regulations were voluntarily implemented last year.

Officials in the Carmel Clay, Indiana school district told JConline.com they lost $300,000 last school year when many students rejected the menu changes and stopped purchasing school meals.

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Amy Anderson, the food service director for the school district, told the newspaper, “I’m a registered dietitian. I used to feel that I was an educator and part of the education system. I currently feel like I’m a food cop.

“I don’t get credit for the 98 percent of our kids who are within normal weight range. I only get slammed for the 2 to 3 percent who aren’t.”

She said the changes may “drive her into retirement,” according to the paper.

Students in another central Indiana district were equally displeased.

“Kids eat with their eyes. When they saw that smaller portion, that freaked them out,” said Jennifer Rice, food service director of Lebanon Community School Corp., where the popular Salisbury steak shrunk, the paper reported.

“I’ve been in the school district forever, and they all know me and they’ll go, ‘Mrs. Rice, we are hungry,’” the paper quoted her as saying.

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Lori Shofroth, Tippecanoe School Corp.’s food service director, said many students are throwing food away and it’s leaving a lasting impression.

“They’re teaching our kids with this meal pattern that it’s OK to throw away,” she told the paper. “We did a waste study on three different schools, and there was a huge amount of waste. That was just with produce, fruit or vegetables or milk.”