Congress Calls Pizza A Vegetable The bill works against
standards set earlier this year by the USDA; standards that
would fill students’ plates with more fruits, vegetables, and
whole grains, and decrease their intake of sodium and saturated
fat, reports CNN. Under Congress' new standards, two tablespoons
of tomato paste would qualify as a serving of vegetables. Two of
the bill’s biggest supporters are the American Frozen Food
Institute and the National Potato Council. According to ABC, the
two groups spent a combined $440,000 on lobbying efforts. It’s
no coincidence, then, that frozen pizza and French fries are two
foods the bill is fighting to keep on the table. In a nation
whose second leading cause of preventable death is obesity, the
bill raises major health concerns. "If finalized, this
legislation may go down in nutritional history as a bigger
blunder than when the Reagan Administration tried (but failed)
to credit ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch program,"
said Margo Wootan, Nutrition Policy