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Pizza a Vegetable? Congress Says Pizza Counts as a Veggie in School Lunches

Struggling to get five-a-day in your child's diet? Why spend time and energy slicing carrots into sticks? Forget about sneaking vegetable-based drinks disguised as fruit fusions into the lunch sack, too. According to the U.S. Congress, the lunch lady at school can serve up a full serving of vegetables to your child in a slice of pizza instead.

pizza a vegetable? You may have heard that obesity is rising among American children at an alarming rate. What you may not know is that strokes are occurring more often in children as well. According to a study published in "Annals of Neurology" in September 2011, boys are particularly at risk. The study authors, which compared the rate of ischemic stroke in children, adolescents and young adults between the years 1995-1996 and 2007-2008, found that the incidence of ischemic stroke has risen slightly less than 3% for girls between the ages of 5 to 14. However, the rate of incidence in boys in the same age group has risen 51%. (1) Not surprisingly, the scientists also found an increase in traditional risk factors for stroke in these children, namely significant increases in obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and diabetes. (2) In terms of specific numbers, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 12.5 million, about 17% of all children in the U.S. between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese. (3) Unfortunately, these alarming statistics aren't the only recent headlines that are tough to swallow.

Despite efforts from the Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to raise the bar on the quality of school lunches by limiting sodium and sticking to only two weekly servings of starchy foods like potatoes, Congress bit into portions of the spending bill that would put these efforts into action. It seems that Congressional members believe that such radical maneuvers undermine the American standard of (salted) meat and potatoes at every meal. Or, maybe it has to do with the number of votes they anticipate receiving after chewing on $5.6 million dollars worth of hype cooked up by food industry lobbyists. In either case, the agriculture spending bill finalized and approved just before Thanksgiving included a specific item that caused the heart of every nutritionist across the nation to skip a beat - a few tablespoons of pizza sauce equates to a full serving of vegetables. Of course, two things make up the reality that Congress continues to ignore: 1) The USDA says that the serving of tomato sauce that provides any health benefit akin to a vegetable (i.e., the tomato) is closer to a half-cup*, which would drown a single slice of pizza; and 2) children don't vote.

On the other hand, dear reader, you do vote. And we don't have to tell you that pizza sauce in number 10 cans served in school cafeterias are typically loaded with salt and sugar, right?

But, let's walk the fence and see the view from both sides for a moment. A slice of pizza now and then isn't going to make anyone keel over and isn't likely to disappear from the school lunch menu any time soon. Nor will French fries and hot dogs doused with ketchup and washed down with an artificially flavored soft drink, which, according to Congressional logic, would provide a whole day's serving of veggies. The bigger issue on our plates is whether the government is equipped or entitled to tell us that certain processed foods are suitable substitutes for natural, whole foods to nourish our kids. Until pizza and French fries grow on trees, "nah" is probably the best answer to that question. Other key players in this food fight that stand to gain include the American Frozen Food Institute, which calls the spending bill a "balanced approach to implementing new school meal standards "because it allows "nutrient-rich [frozen] vegetables such as potatoes, corn and peas" to stay on the school lunch tray. (4)

What's even more important to consider - especially at election time - is that some members of Congress have clearly chosen to put industry interests ahead of our children's health. As Margo Wootan, director of Nutrition Policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest put's it: "Congress should be supporting USDA and school efforts to serve healthier school meals, not undermining them." (5) Fortunately, you can teach these leaders a well-deserved lesson in nutrition, economics and civil government all at the same time with a flick of a switch at your local voting poll.

Pizza a Vegetable? Congress Says Pizza Counts as a Veggie in School Lunches

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