Congress said Pizza is a Veggie to Save Money On School Luches! o

DeafCaroline said:
I was watching supersize me last night and in the film, he was saying that there was a school for the more "difficult" teens and their lunch program consists of healthy foods, lots of veggies, all baked, not fried, no pizza, no hamburgers, no fries, etc. And that the teachers had noted students having much better attention span in class, much better grades, much better behaved, hardly any violence, and that the rate of obesity is very very low. Apparently the lunch meals didn't cost any more than what one would pay for the soda/junk food at other schools.

Healthy lunches are affordable, but fast food/soft drink companies make a lot of money from schools so they put a lot of resources in convincing school boards that the revenue they get from selling their products would help pay for better education and that switching to healthy lunch programs would mean less educational resources. It's messed up.
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I raised my daughter as vegetarian and she was very healthy , she did not miss one day of school for 2 years. I did not buy any junk food and that saved a lot of money for healthy foods
 
Didn't Ronald Reagan declare ketchup a vegetable in school lunches?
Anyway, carry on.
 
Beowulf said:
Didn't Ronald Reagan declare ketchup a vegetable in school lunches?
Anyway, carry on.
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Yeah. Wasn't he a Repub, too? Same as Congress that wants to declare pizza sauce a veg to save money on kid's lunches? Do I see a pattern?
 
PowerON said:
But tomato is fruit! Imagine, I mashed apple into sauce and replace tomato sauce! Maybe it taste much sweet!
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People often add sugar to tomato sauce to cut down on acidity but I think your idea of adding apple sauce is a much healthier idea. I will have to try out your dish next month.
 
Barbaro said:
Yep, I disagree with the way it was defined. That goes for cucumber,too. Once the seed is removed, and cooked, so it is a vegetable. Not really. My father is an agronomist/ scientist, and said that it is a fruit no matter what. Botanists have said the same thing. However, the court disagree with botanists and scientists that uh, tomato is legally a vegetable, not a fruit.
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Well, I really just don't see what the big deal is. Tomato is tomato. It doesn't change anything.
 
Foxrac said:
Ugh, K-12 schools are no college so I think that government has rights to tell kids about what they should eat or not eat to fight the obesity.

I rather to make own lunch for children than give $$$ for fatty school lunch.
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HUH!! I hope you're joking!! Pizza is not a low calories food! Why on earth would you want the government telling you how to feed your kids?? The government has no business telling parents how to feed their kids !
 
deafskeptic said:
People often add sugar to tomato sauce to cut down on acidity but I think your idea of adding apple sauce is a much healthier idea. I will have to try out your dish next month.
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I read somewhere that tomato sauce has more sugar than ice cream.
 
Well, corn syrup is made from corn. Ketchup is made from tomatoes. Beef is just condensed fiber from all the grass they eat. Saves us the need to buy Metamucil. And buns are made from wheat. Isn't that good enough?
 
I've read that most brands of tomato sauce are just tomato paste with corn syrup and water added.

I usually just buy a can of tomato paste and add my own water when I need tomato sauce. I freeze the left over tomato paste in an ice tray -- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste per section. IIRC, a six ounce can usually has about 12 tablespoons. (Most of my recipes usually are for 6 - 8 servings and 2 tablespoons of tomato paste plus water usually works.)

I have been able to find tomato paste without any added sugars.

Yeah, I can be a bit of a cheapskate. Why do you ask? :)
 
Re the OP, maybe Congress will be more concerned about what's in the school lunches if we ever get to the point where we have universal health insurance that is mostly funded by taxes also.

I try to buy most of my fruits and vegetables in bulk and that goes a long way to help keeping the cost down. I don't doubt that healthier foods are more expensive than foods that are mostly made up of processed grains stripped of fiber and sugars plus loaded with sodium to make it more palatable -- but I'm skeptical that any large business or govt agency couldn't manage to find a way to buy healthy foods in bulk to keep the costs down.

My guess is that DeafCaroline is right and that the poor nutritional quality of school lunches is probably due to lobbying by the food industry. I would guess that its less expensive to process and handle less healthy foods than more healthy foods. Gotta keep those profit margins up!
 
Jazzberry said:
Re the OP, maybe Congress will be more concerned about what's in the school lunches if we ever get to the point where we have universal health insurance that is mostly funded by taxes also.

I try to buy most of my fruits and vegetables in bulk and that goes a long way to help keeping the cost down. I don't doubt that healthier foods are more expensive than foods that are mostly made up of processed grains stripped of fiber and sugars plus loaded with sodium to make it more palatable -- but I'm skeptical that any large business or govt agency couldn't manage to find a way to buy healthy foods in bulk to keep the costs down.

My guess is that DeafCaroline is right and that the poor nutritional quality of school lunches is probably due to lobbying by the food industry. I would guess that its less expensive to process and handle less healthy foods than more healthy foods. Gotta keep those profit margins up!
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What a scary thought, government controlled diets and health care. :run:
 
saywhatkid said:
What a scary thought, government controlled diets and health care. :run:
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IMHO, health care is pretty scary right now. I think part of the reason health insurance is so expensive in the USA is because if you are not getting coverage through one of the 800 lb gorillas in the industry (Medicaid, Medicare or through an extremely large corporation as one of their employees) but have to pay for it as an individual -- you are screwed.
 
Jazzberry said:
IMHO, health care is pretty scary right now. I think part of the reason health insurance is so expensive in the USA is because if you are not getting coverage through one of the 800 lb gorillas in the industry (Medicaid, Medicare or through an extremely large corporation as one of their employees) but have to pay for it as an individual -- you are screwed.
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Yeah, and because obesity levels are at 30% in the US, plus factor in excessive drinking and smoking, we have perhaps 45% of Americans that choose unhealthy lifestyles. Somebody has to pay to keep these folks alive.
 
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