Lunch
Lunch
[Cueball to the right and his Cueball-like friend to the left sits behind a table. Visible on the table between them are a loaf of bread, a glass with some liquid in it, an oblong box with a readable label and a small heap of small grains.] Friend: What're you having for lunch? Cueball: The usual—half a pound of cheese, white bread, a glass of tomato sauce, and some salt. Friend: Eww. Label: Cheese
[Caption below the panel.] Pizza seems way grosser if you imagine eating just the ingredients.

This comic pokes fun at (and makes literal) a common argument used to assert that certain foods are quite unhealthy or unappetizing by pointing out how much of a particular ingredient the food contains. The argument is sometimes presented as "Imagine if you ate each of those ingredients separately". In this case, a pizza is broken down into its core ingredients, shown in their actual quantities: A large block of cheese, a loaf of bread, a glass of tomato sauce, and a pile of salt. Cueball (on the right) proposes to eat each of these ingredients individually and in their entirety—an act that many people (such as his Cueball-like friend to the left) may consider absurd or repulsive. This proposal is meant to change the reader's opinion of the final product—instead of enjoying a pizza, the reader may instead be reminded of the concept of eating a block of cheese and a pile of salt separately, and choose to eat something else instead.
This argument is effectively a counter to the practice of cooking, which combines individual ingredients into a more palatable product. Just as 1609: Food Combinations points out that combining two foods can make them sound less disgusting, this comic shows how separating out a meal can have the opposite effect.
The title text refers to a vegetable pizza, which is generally perceived as healthier than a standard pizza. Randall points out here that although vegetables may add some nutrients to the meal, they don't magically reduce the other ingredients or their impacts. Additionally, the vegetables on a pizza may have been cooked in oil (or grease), or have absorbed the grease from the cheese as it melted, further impacting their potential benefits.
[Cueball to the right and his Cueball-like friend to the left sits behind a table. Visible on the table between them are a loaf of bread, a glass with some liquid in it, an oblong box with a readable label and a small heap of small grains.] Friend: What're you having for lunch? Cueball: The usual—half a pound of cheese, white bread, a glass of tomato sauce, and some salt. Friend: Eww. Label: Cheese
[Caption below the panel.] Pizza seems way grosser if you imagine eating just the ingredients.
