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[kaijyuu]

There are numerous funky laws when it comes to bringing fruit and vegetables across the country's border. Maybe they're afraid of people smuggling tomatoes across on top of pizzas.

[Zaerosz]

>tomato = fruit
>tomato paste = vegetable
>therefore pizza = vegetable

i don't even

[Heron TSG]

In the same bill, public schools were required to include french fries in their lunches at some point each week. So much for healthy lunches, I guess. Maybe if the schools use straight-up potato sticks?

[Bdthemag]

Well either way school lunches will be terrible regardless of how healthy they are.

[Flying Dice]

If the meat is grey,
Turn thyself away.
Ye who would partake,
Of that awful cake,
Must be aware,
Of pains you will bear.

Boiled, mashed, ground up,
Oh this paste and goo,
Upon this you sup,
This painful, evil brew.

I would go on, but I'm tired.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

So containing a vegetable product makes something a vegetable?

So if you eat a carrot, you're a vegetable.

Seems reasonable.

[Truean]

So containing a vegetable product makes something a vegetable?

So if you eat a carrot, you're a vegetable.

Seems reasonable.

Well, if you insist you're not an animal, and you're clearly not a mineral....

[RedKing]

So containing a vegetable product makes something a vegetable?

It counts as a serving of vegetables (previously the quantity of tomato sauce was considered insufficient to qualify). Kinda hearkens back to the Reagan administration's attempt to get ketchup reclassified as a vegetable, for pretty much the same reasons -- so schools can be cheapo on the food. (And as a kickback to the various food lobbies, like the potato lobby demanding that french fries be a staple, and the tomato lobby w/ the pizza thing).

It's really sad, because I remember my lunches in elementary school were pretty awesome. They actually cooked everything there, and there was a lot of local potatos, green beans, corn, etc. on the menu. Not a whole lot of processed stuff.

When I got to middle school, it was like "what the hell is this crap?" The only way you could eat a slice of the pizza was to grab a handful of napkins, lay them on the slice and try to squeeze as much of the oil out of it as you could first. Which would then leave you with a slab of dried out translucent material that vaguely resembled cheese. But at least it didn't give you the runs.

What really pisses me off is the political bullshittery that gets used to pass garbage like this. The Republicans railed about "nanny state liberals telling YOUR child what to eat, and taking away American staples like pizza and French fries". Yes, and they're also trying to cut down on the new American staple of children that look like Weeble Wobbles.   

[Truean]

Thank you RedKing. Truly, honestly. Thank you.

[Miggy]

Oh so this is where this discussion is. I was looking for it in the progressive rage thread, and was surprised to see it wasn't there.

Article I found on it

My favourite quote:

...Under a proposed rule, a vegetable serving of tomato paste would have to be a whole one half-cup serving, not two tablespoons, as it is now.

But, opponents of the rule argued, that would render a slice of pizza inedible. “It would basically be swimming in tomato sauce,” said Corey Henry, vice president of communications at the American Frozen Food Institute. “No school kid in his right mind would want to eat that.”...

[Virex]

What are they going to do next? Subsidize the growing of piza trees?

[RedKing]

Don't get me started on food and agricultural policy in this country. It's ridiculous. The same industrialization and corporatization that allows us to grow vast amounts of food is also killing us and distorting the marketplace in the way that is usually reserved for small Third World nations. Commodity farming is treated preferentially to diversity farming, with negative implications. Not only are all fruits and vegetables ineligible for Federal subsidy, but if you're a commodity farmer who also grows some fruits and veggies on the side, you cannot sell any of those or else you lose your entire Federal subsidy. In fact, if you even just grow too many for personal use or to give away, you can lose your subsidy.

FYI: The justification is that it's unfair competition. Non-commodity crops often have greater price volatility. If you're a subsidized rice farmer in Mississippi and there's a bad frost in Florida, it would make economic sense to maybe plant some orange trees because you know the sale price of oranges is going to be high because the Florida crop was hit hard. Doing so, it's argued, is unfair to the non-subsidized orange farmer in Florida. I understand the argument but the end result is insane. We're punishing people for growing more food and engaging in free enterprise that would actually help level out the prices by responding to a supply shortage. It's also interesting (and bitterly ironic) that the people lobbying the hardest to prevent more farmers from growing fruits and vegetables....are the fruit and vegetable lobbies. They want to maintain artificial scarcity to keep prices high.

I'll stop now, but this should be a Progressive Rage thread some time.

[Kogut]

In EU farmers are subsidised to produce smaller amounts of food.

[Sir Finkus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That is all

[RedKing]

In EU farmers are subsidised to produce smaller amounts of food.

EU ag policy is pretty equally f*cked-up. Such as supporting the banana industries in the French d'outre-mer and shunning bananas from other South American countries. My European politics professor (a German) had an awesome rant about the "damn French and their stubby little bananas" 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That is all

Hairway to Steven?