MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County School Nutrition Director Monika Griner is looking forward to the new rules on school meals. She thinks next year’s students will be too.

Three rules are being relaxed under a plan recently approved by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, Griner said, and all should allow school cafeterias to serve food that students will find more appealing.

“They’re not huge changes, [but] they are significant changes,” she said. “I think they’ll make meals more enjoyable for the students.”

First, the new rules back off from a 100-percent whole grains policy, which had produced baked goods that students didn’t like. Colquitt County participated in a USDA study that tracked what food students were throwing away, she said, and whole-grain biscuits and rolls were among the foods most commonly tossed in the trash.

Second, the new rules allow 1 percent fat in flavored milks, such as chocolate and strawberry.

“It’s a thicker based milk,” Griner said. “It’s got more flavor to it and more texture to the palate.”

Third, the new rules allow more flexibility on sodium limits. Sodium is in table salt, but it’s also used in virtually all processed foods, so the earlier mandates were hard to hit.

“We have been struggling to meet that goal,” Griner said.

And the sodium mandates came at the cost of flavor, she said.

The former rules were part of an emphasis on children’s health by first lady Michelle Obama during her husband’s administration. They were an attempt to combat rising childhood obesity, but Griner said focusing on school meals may not have been the way to do that.

“School meals traditionally have been healthy,” she said, and she suggested more activity (which was also one of Obama’s efforts) as well as more home-cooked meals would help obesity concerns more.

“Michelle Obama and the administration had lofty goals,” Griner said, “but the palate for adults and the palate for children are worlds apart.”

The new rules take effect July 1. Since school ends this week, Griner said, most students won’t see any difference until school starts back in August, but she may test some products during the summer feeding program.

Griner said the school system provides more than 14,000 meals a day to students throughout the county — breakfast and lunch — all at no charge to the parents because of a USDA program available to communities where a certain percentage of the children qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

She said she appreciates the support the community has shown the school nutrition program.