By Sophia Safford
Peas, peppers, pickles, and pumpkins. These are all food items that we commonly refer to as vegetables. But according to legislation passed by the House of Representatives, pizza is now a vegetable as well.
This legislation was passed in response to a proposal by the Obama administration to make school lunches healthier by getting rid of, or at least making healthier, unhealthy items like pizza and French fries. The measures of the House of Representative’s bill include blocking the Agricultural Department from limiting starchy vegetables (corn, peas, and potatoes) as well as allowing the USDA to count two tablespoons of tomato paste as a vegetable.
The passage of this bill is essentially a victory won solely by the American Frozen Food Institute, who lobbied Congress to ensure that their frozen pizzas and French fries would continue to be sold daily in schools across the country.
When this news first came out, I found myself perusing news websites like CNN and the Huffington Post incredulously. Here we are, a nation where one in every three children is overweight or obese, and instead of making strides to become healthier, our Congress is encouraging kids to eat processed garbage so that frozen food corporations can keep making money.
They are even claiming that the products that these corporations sell, like pizza and French fries, are healthy and contain important vitamins and minerals. Sure, a slice of pizza may contain one gram of fiber and five percent of your daily value of calcium, but it can also come at the cost of thirty grams of fat and, in some cases, an outrageous number of calories. Conversely, a cup of broccoli roasted in olive oil can be tasty and provide your body with a powerhouse of nutrients. Simply put, there are much better ways to reach these vitamin requirements, but the underlying issue remains that our Congress is catering to mammoth food companies like ConAgra and Schwann Food Co.
When asked why these companies did not want to comply with the school lunch dietary changes presented by the Obama administration, a spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute said, “Our concern is that the standards would force companies in many respects to change their products in a way that would make them unpalatable to students.” This comment disgusts me, because one of the major reasons for obesity in our country is that so many Americans find greasy, starchy foods to be “palatable.” Maybe these companies should focus on “retraining the American palate,” so to speak, to actually enjoy healthy, fresh foods, rather than perpetrating the consumption of foods that Americans today find “palatable.”
It’s time that we stop catering to the wishes of big businesses and place the health of the nations’ children as our top priority. Tricking our youth into believing that pizza, or French fries for that matter, can be a vegetable is only making the issue of obesity grow.
Please note: The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the school, Administration, advisor, or newspaper staff.
