What's an obesity epidemic? OR: How pizza became a vegetable.

[Kim]

FFFFFFFFFF-

Specifically, the provisions would:

Block the Agriculture Department from limiting starchy vegetables, including corn and peas, to two servings a week. The rule was intended to cut down on french fries, which some schools serve daily.

Allow USDA to count two tablespoons of tomato paste as a vegetable, as it does now. The department had attempted to require that only a half-cup of tomato paste could be considered a vegetable — too much to put on a pizza. Federally subsidized lunches must have a certain number of vegetables to be served.

Require further study on long-term sodium reduction requirements set forth by the USDA guidelines.

Require USDA to define "whole grains" before they regulate them. The rules would require schools to use more whole grains.

Burn it all down. We're done here.

I mean, the Republicans supporting this are turning into Captain Planet villains, if they weren't already.

Just.... how could you possibly think getting in the way of healthier lunches for students is a bad thing?

EDIT: For the sake of clarification, it's less that pizza is being defined as a vegetable, but rather that congress is allowing schools to say they've filled their vegetable quota by serving pizza, even though the amount of "vegetable" on it is negligible. It also allows schools to keep serving kids shitty french fries every day, thus filling their vegetable quote with yet another unhealthy food.