A slice of Pizza counts as a vegetable?!

IanExMachina

Apparently US congress blocked a proposal to make it so you needed to use over 56ml (1/4 cup) of tomato paste on pizza for it to count as a vegetable serving.

So a slice of pizza counts as a vegetable serving in US schools.

Which is pretty ridiculous.

(Also lots of lobbying it appears by food manufacturers.)

Links:

Guardian

Nytimes

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah, I heard about that.

And this is why you don't trust the government on matters that have nothing to do with government.

gentlemanorcus

IanExMachina

@INUH

How would you go about with school dinners then?

ClockworkUniverse

I dunno. Something other than "pizza is a vegetable," though.

RedEyedAbyss

I'm basing this on Canada's Food Guide, but food guides tend to be suspect anyway. I remember an earlier version insisted you eat 6-11 grain product servings a day and also that there was lobbying by meat companies to make their products seem more important than they actually are (hint: most of the world can't afford even 2-3 servings a day).

MillerCross

School dinners should fall under the school's jurisdiction.

Just sayin'

IanExMachina

I mean whilst the UK school dinners aren't amazing beacons* of healthy eating they would still never get away with pizza for a vegetable serving, especially after Jamie Oliver launched his healthy eating stuff.

*Fuck you Thatcher and your privatisation/putting the food prep out to tender.

^

Maybe in public schools, but in govt run state schools there should be a general govt standard.

Icalasari

^^^ I recall reading somewhere that the average person only needs a card pack sized piece of meat a week

ClockworkUniverse

Strictly speaking, it's not necessary to eat meat at all. What's needed are the nutrients in the meat. If you drink a lot of milk, for example, and thus get your protein from that, it's likely you don't need much meat. If you don't drink milk at all, though, you'd better be eating some meat.

Icalasari

^ I also recall hearing that without eating meat it is bloody difficult to get the proteins you need in the right amounts (you either get too little or way too much)

Mind you the proteins part I heard from my high school cooking teacher, and she was more obsessive than me over things like how fresh food was, so she could have just been exaggerating...

ClockworkUniverse

Milk and meat are the two main sources of protein. If you're a milk-lover, you can do without so much meat. Otherwise, it really is nearly impossible.

IanExMachina

I mean humans are omnivores and have been for about 2.5million years, so it is natural to eat meat and vegetables.

It isn't necessary as in this day we have access to many things that can replace what we get from meat. 

ClockworkUniverse

^Looking at that link, I'm reminded that there have been recent studies indicating that the amount of protein you ideally need per meal is actually closer to 30 grams.

MillerCross

Milk and meat are the two main sources of protein. If you're a milk-lover, you can do without so much meat. Otherwise, it really is nearly impossible.

Welp

that's a very...freudian statement.

MillerCross

Preferably, Batman.

glennmagusharvey

^^ Precisely.  The responsibilities and roles of government do not suddenly disappear when they are taken away from government.

Someone's gotta draw the line somewhere.

ClockworkUniverse

^^^Didn't say there was necessarily a good option. Just that a certain option appears to be a bad one.

glennmagusharvey

To be honest, as someone else once said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, basically.

Now, as for who ought to say what school lunches can contain...well, ideally, it would be the parents.  But on what scale?  Do local parents get to decide, or the state's parents, or the entire country's parents?  What about prospective parents, or parents whose children are not in the public schools, or parents whose children previously attended but do not currently attend those public schools?

Malkavian

Forzare

Why did I laugh so hard at that

RedEyedAbyss

"To be honest, as someone else once said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, basically."

That line was said by a conservative. And yes, this is important. I always interpreted it as a very conservative thing to say.

glennmagusharvey

They don't make conservatives like they used to... *sigh*  I'm a conservative at heart but all my political positions have been abandoned by conservatives in today's United States anyway.

That said, I love how "pizza is a vegetable" is now a meme.

Someone now just needs to make a TF2 video with Heavy saying "PIZZA IS VEGETABLE".

Ponicalica

«They don't make conservatives like they used to... »

Eh, Winston Churchill had a simple problem.  Give «fight Hitler» to any modern politician and they wouldn't fuck it up either.  Go see Churchill's position on what to do in India and you'll see why they kicked him out as soon as they could once WWII ended.

captainbrass

^ Churchill spent most of his career being wrong about stuff. Fortunately, the thing he chose to be right about was the most important issue of his century.

And a modern politician wouldn't fuck it up because of hindsight. At the time, appeasing Hitler was the mainstream view.

glennmagusharvey

Yeah, damn pizza is just veggies; sandvich has more meat.