So you may have heard that a new law was passed saying that pizza is now considered a vegetable, but to clear the air a bit, pizza itself wasn’t said to be a vegetable; the tomato paste in the pizza sauce was. This meant that Congress said that the tomato is a vegetable, and certain portions of it are treated to be a single serving of greens.
“An eighth of a cup of tomato paste is credited with as much nutritional value as half a cup of vegetables,”according to thewashingtonpost.com. Wait, why did they do this exactly? Change the definition of a veggie? A very obvious reason: to save money.
Now here’s the way this works: Public schools have a minimum amount of servings for each of the food groups, and each of them must be met in order for the food to be served. By bringing tomatoes into the equation and considering them to be a vegetable, it now adds to the needed amount of veggies in school, and provides less actual produce for students at lunchtime. So to meet the standards of the USDA and permit meals to be served in schools, students in middle and high schools must be given the minimum serving size of vegetables, at one cup per day in one meal, according to cde.ca.gov. With this law now in play with public schools, who knows, we may soon be eating meals with all tomato-based foods.
This greedy decision will now make schools serve less veggies and more tomato-filled foods! By saving just a little bit of money, Congress will ruin the diets of many students across America.
The lack of vegetables required for school lunches may only increase the amount of obesity in our society. This year, according to an article on Stop-childhood-obesity.com, 16 to 33 percent of American children and adolescents are viewed as obese, and as reported from an article in newscientist.com, 42 percent of all Americans will be obese by 2050. Nearly half of Americans will be living an unhealthy life!
In attempt to save the diets of children everywhere, the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) proposed new rules to try and settle this dilemma. They stated that they should be given money from the government to spend on healthier foods in public schools. This was eventually taken into consideration by Congress, but in the long run, they chose to cut costs now, which will lead to unhealthier Americans (and more costly health problems) in the future.
Do you as a student want to be served greasy and less-healthy foods? It is very obvious that Congress is thinking more about the present and not about providing healthy options for a healthier future generation.