WASHINGTON, D.C. – As more schools drop out of the National School Lunch Program, USDA officials are scrambling to defend the recent “healthy” overhaul.

Deputy USDA Undersecretary Janey Thornton, one of the administration’s primary point people for the school lunch regulations championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, tells the Kentucky Health News “most” schools are complying in the state.

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The news service reports:

Thornton said “recent studies show there is not greater food waste than previously,” but that doesn’t mean that directors don’t always need to work on decreasing waste. She suggested that maybe a half-cup portion of vegetables could be broken into small bites of three vegetables or fruits to equal one-half cup, not just all of one thing the student doesn’t like.

But the Washington Examiner reported Monday that 83% of the nation’s schools have seen an increase in “plate waste,” citing a poll from the National School Board Association.

“Asked about the complaints that some students, particularly high schoolers, are going hungry, Thornton said that if the students are eating what is available to them, ‘the calorie count now is more than the recommended calorie count before this went into effect,'” the Health News reports.

But there have been widespread reports of decreases in caloric counts and students going hungry because they’re active and are not receiving enough sustenance.

Compounding the problem, the rules ban offering kids “seconds.”

School leaders in Storm Lake, Iowa are “frustrated” because they’re forced to throw out unserved food.

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“The rules for school lunches say ‘no seconds,’ and some students remain hungry while pans of hash browns and scalloped potatoes with ham are left to be thrown away,” the Pilot Tribune reports.

The Health News story concludes:

One of the biggest challenges reported across the country is that students don’t have enough time to eat their lunch; it takes longer to eat fresh fruit and vegetables than it does to eat processed food.

“We don’t want to teach kids to inhale foods because that is part of our problem,” Thornton said in the interview. “When you eat so fast, you don’t realize when you are full. This is a challenge not just in Kentucky but nationwide.”

 All told, the USDA seems to have a glut of excuses and is fasting from solutions.