WINSTED, Conn. – Officials at The Gilbert School have had enough of Michelle Obama’s school food restrictions.

The school’s head cook, Lynn Mudry, told board members in June that the federal restrictions on calories, fat, sugar, sodium and other aspects of school food are leaving students famished, and the situation is costing parents, the Register Citizen reports.

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“I feel like the kids need more food,” she said. “The food that comes from the hot lunch, that’s not enough. Kids are going there, they’re buying the lunch there, and then they come down to the grill side and they buy another lunch.

“So if they can just get enough food on their plate the first time, there’s no need for them to buy another lunch,” Mudry said. “It would help the parents – kids spend anywhere from $7.50 to $15 a day on food.”

Mudry’s concerns, which were reiterated by superintendent Anthony Serio, prompted board members this week to pull The Gilbert School from the National School Lunch Program, which forces schools to comply with Michelle Obama’s food regulations in order to secure federal subsidies for free and reduced-price lunch students.

The Gilbert School will join hundreds of schools across the country that have opted to forgo the federal funds to rework their cafeteria menus without government interference and provide nutritious lunches students will actually eat and buy. The move means The Gilbert School will lose about $133,000 in federal reimbursements, but Serio told board members it’s well worth it.

“We’re talking about a failed national lunch program that has not been able to satisfy the nutritional needs of teenagers. It has failed, and has been failing miserably for the last several years,” Serio said, according to the Register Citizen.

“We’re getting into a debate over $133,000 that may in fact be a projection, and could be made up … because of sales,” he added. “Why would you stay with a failed – and it is – national food service program, when you can try something different and we’ll see if it works?”

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Some board members at The Gilbert School’s July board meeting expressed concerns about making up the federal subsides, but the board ultimately approved the move.

“As discussed Wednesday, the school will address this loss of funds by increasing the amount of catering services it provides to the Gilbert Trust, offering catering to faculty, staff and parents, increased lunch sales, increased sales of a la carte items, such as french fries and calzones and offering staff and faculty the chance to order from a special lunch menu on a daily basis,” the Register Citizen reports.

District officials also said they plan to look closer at student applications for free or reduced-price lunches, which the school will continue to offer, any may require parents to submit a pay stub to verify eligibility for the program.

Mudry told board members 58 percent of students at The Gilbert School who do not participate in the free or reduced lunch program currently do not eat school lunches, which implies there’s quite a bit of room to recruit new students to the lunch line.

Mudry said she plans to keep the school’s lunch menu largely the same, and will work to mirror the intent of the federal food restrictions. Dropping the National School Lunch Program, however, will ensure she can serve students enough nutritious food to get them through the day.

“By not doing the program, I’m allowed to manipulate my menu,” said Mudry. “I try to keep it as close as the target, with the guidelines they want us to follow. But it allows me to add more protein… They’re still going to get all their fresh fruit, all their fresh vegetables. We’re not going to change anything. I just want them to have that protein.”

Bob Burrows, food services director for Bozeman High School in Montana, provided a very similar justification when his district ditched Michelle O’s lunches this week.

“We are going to move in the same direction to improve the health of our kids,” he told board members, according to KBZK. “We’re capable of possibly even doing a better job than what the federal guidelines require.”

Burrows said the federal lunch program pushes schools toward processed foods, so leaving the program will allow schools to serve foods like white rice, or locally sourced ingredients that are restricted by the federal food rules.

“It opens up the menu to a lot more possibilities, especially with fresh food and with local food rather than boxed and processed,” he said. “I think it’s good for the district, I think it’s good for the high school kids and I think it’s good for the community.”