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Trying to get your kids to eat more veggies? Swap steamed broccoli for a few slices of saucy pizza and voilà, vegetable requirement met. At least the U.S Congress thinks so.
School meals subsidized by the U.S government are required to have a minimum of vegetables. A congressional spending bill released this week ensures that current lunch rules, which qualify two tablespoons of tomato sauce on a slice of pizza as a serving of vegetables, will stay in place.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture had proposed to increase the tomato sauce minimum to a half-cup. It also suggested that more whole grains be incorporated into school meals, and that starchy vegetables such as potatoes (read: French fries) be limited. The bill ignores the USDA's proposals, a move that critics say is to appease the food industry and to save money.
"What's really going on is that Congress is putting on a rather shameful display of catering to corporate interests, giving kids a real lesson in how politics works – and how, in the end, it's not really all about the kids," Valerie Strauss writes in a column for The Washington Post.
Oregon congressman Earl Blumenauer tweeted his reaction, likening the decision to a work of satire. "Congress says pizza is a vegetable. Is The Onion now writing legislation?"
Reports say that if Congress were to apply the USDA's recommendations, the $11-billion (U.S.) school lunch program would increase by almost $7-billion over five years. It's not the first time the U.S government has tried to reduce the cost of the program. In the early 1980s, under then-president Ronald Reagan, a proposal was made to classify ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables. The move would have cut a serving of real vegetables from the school lunch program, thereby saving money.
The bill is stirring up quite a debate but there is one seemingly obvious detail that has gone unnoticed: tomatoes are fruit, not vegetables.
What do you do to bump up the nutrition at mealtime? Or are you in the I get my veg through French fries camp?