Michelle Obama's campaign to get students to eat healthily has had an unexpected and rather humorous consequence.
As a result of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, children are creating their own black markets to trade and sell contraband condiments because the food tastes too bland, The Washington Free Beacon reports.
In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, John S. Payne, the president of Blackford County School Board of Trustees in Hartford City, Ind., discussed how children have resorted to these actions to make their food taste better, Irish Mirror reports.
"Perhaps the most colorful example in my district is that students have been caught bringing - and even selling - salt, pepper and sugar in school to add taste to the perceived bland and tasteless cafeteria food," Payne told the committee. "This 'contraband' economy is just one example of many that reinforce the call for flexibility."
He notes that students in other instances have avoided cafeteria food altogether by either bringing their own lunch from home or having a parent check them out of school to eat at a fast food restaurant or back home.
He even mentions that "whole-grain items and most of the broccoli end up in the trash."
Students have even taken to Twitter to voice their opinion on the food under the now viral hash tag #ThanksMichelleObama.
It's been noted that one million students no longer queue up for school dinners a year after the new standards were introduced.
