Pizza as a Vegetable

Last Fall, Congress passed a spending bill regarding regulation of school lunches. According to this article, it did 4 things: 1)Define Whole Grains, with the intention of requiring more of them in lunches,  2) require further study into Sodium content in school lunches, 3) prevented regulation of potato products such as French Fries, and most controversially, 4) allowing the tomato sauce on pizza to count as a serving of vegetable.

First of all, who can't define whole grains? It means that you use the whole wheat grain in the flour in baked goods. Easiest way is to use at least 50% whole wheat flour. I understand, though, why Congress wants a definition. Many might try to add a cup of whole wheat flour to a full gallon batch of dough, which isn't enough, and call it whole grain. Setting a minimum requirement, and defining EXACTLY what would qualify as whole grain is a good way to keep idiots from misusing the law.

Second, Sodium is bad in excess, but necessary for flavor. So, it's tricky to argue what qualifies as "unhealthy." One of the reasons so-called "Low Fat," "low-calorie" or "light" foods are ACTUALLY bad for you is they take out the fat, cholesterol, and calories, and replace all that lost flavor with extra salt. Using less of the full calorie version is actually HEALTHIER than using the full amount of the lo-cal processed crap.

Thirdly, say it with me now, POTATOES AREN'T BAD FOR YOU!!!! Potatoes are a very starchy vegetable that are actually good for you, providing fiber, protein, vitamins A, C, Calcium and Iron.  Now, fries are less healthy than baked because they're fried, which adds fat content. I would love to see a positive shift from fries to say, roasted potatoes, or baked potatoes, or even fluffy mashed.

The bill originally wanted to cut back on potatoes, peas, and corn; all starchy vegetables, to being offered just 2 times a week. I think that's a bad idea, because starch, carbohydrates, are important for health. Starches also convert to sugar, which the brain needs to function. School is a place where that's a GOOD thing. (By the way, the brain also needs Sodium) The problem in the lunch room is that often potatoes are served along with other starches such as pasta, bread, peas, corn, etc. In the desire to make lunches balanced, they offer one meat, one bread, one vegetable, and one dairy. And potatoes are wrongly identified as vegetables. Thus, a kid can have pizza and french fries, and wind up consuming way too much starch. What needs to happen is regulations need to redefine potatoes as a starch.

Finally, the big one, the one that has gotten the most bad press and the jokes made about it. Pizza, my friends, is the world's most perfect food. In one dish, you have ALL FOUR food groups. Starch from the crust; dairy in the cheese; meat from pepperoni or sausage, and vegetable from the sauce. Tomato paste, or tomato sauce, is ground up tomatoes. I once made a pizza with out sauce, and using chopped up tomatoes instead. It was delicious. Now, if you imagine chopping those tomatoes very finely to the point where they're almost pulverized, and you now understand how tomato sauce on pizza is a vegetable serving.
Now, this bill changed the amount that qualifies as a serving. It used to be half a cup, which is way too much for pizza; and now it's 2 tablespoons.

My issue with school pizza isn't that pizza isn't a vegetable, or nonsense like that, but rather that SCHOOL pizza is bad. It's not real pizza. The cheese on a rectangular slice reheated from frozen is questionable, the crust is probably not a yeast bread as it should be, and the sauce... may not really be tomatoes. It's about as processed as it can be. Now take the remarkably short amount of time it takes to bake a pizza from scratch, use whole tomatoes crushed into a sauce, add cheese, and perhaps some mushrooms and/or veggies, and you have a pizza I can get behind. I'd love to see THAT regulated by Congress. How about, "Tomato sauce on a pizza counts as a serving of vegetables, but only if it is indeed made from tomatoes?"

The backlash against this bill was very misguided, and focused more on the inconvenient timing of it (They passed it while they were NOT passing the jobs bill.) than the actual content. I think regulation of school lunches needs to happen, and the guidelines that define what is healthy need to be based on actual nutrition, not dietary fads. And to those who respond by saying that the "Guvmint cain't tell ma kids what to eat!" let me remind you that they aren't. They are telling schools what they can serve. You can eat whatever you like, but you really SHOULD be healthy. And if schools are the primary food providers for your children, when it really should be you, then schools should be responsible in giving kids the best nutrition they can.