Eat your vegetables kid!
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:24 pm
The land where pizza is one of your five-a-day… because it is covered in tomato paste
A school lunches Bill going before Congress aims to reclassify the junk food due to the tomato paste on the dough.
A spending bill released late Monday reverses previous school lunch standards proposed by the Agriculture Department limiting the use of potatoes and allowing tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable
Despite lacking significant nutritional content, this thin coating would be enough for pizza to go towards a daily count of fruit and vegetables.
The move has been derided as a cost-cutting drive so the U.S. government will not have to spend so much on fresh food for school lunches. Subsidised school meals must include a certain amount of vegetables.
A congressional committee is pushing for the move and to keep french fries on school lunch lines in a fightback against an Obama administration proposal to make school lunches healthier.
The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year which limits the use of potatoes and delays limits on sodium and a requirement to boost whole grains.
The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable.
Food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes, and some conservatives in Congress say the federal government shouldn't be telling children what to eat.
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee said the changes would 'prevent overly burdensome and costly regulations and to provide greater flexibility for local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1eC0M1lUp
