Pizza = Vegetable = Huh??

I will begin this post by officially declaring my landlords to be the most petty and greedy people ever to rent apartment space to other human beings. We now have to go to court on Friday morning because these people are appealing the decision that keeps us tenants from having to pay for the bed-bug extermination. Aaarrgggg! I am so frustrated and annoyed with this whole situation and I cannot wait to be out of this apartment and into the new place as soon as possible. We get the keys to the new apartment on the 26th which means that I will be lugging in boxes that afternoon :)  Never have I been so stoked to move.

On a different note, I feel that I have to comment on the huge issue that has ever nutritionist, dietitian or health conscious person fuming with frustration. The US congress passed a bill this past week stating that the mere amount of tomato paste on pizza will count as a serving of vegetables, therefore pizza is officially classified as a vegetable for school lunches. The new USDA guidelines to increase fruit, vegetable and whole grains and reduce the amount of potatoes and sodium in the schools was beaten out by instead deciding to make pizza a vegetable. A VEGETABLE!

The more I think about this the more enraged I become. What also gets me going a bit is that Mrs. Obama has become famous for her Let's Move campaign which focuses on fighting childhood obesity. I'm thinking Barak isn't getting much lovin these days considering he's the one running that country.... I guess this just shows who is really running the country these days. Big Food companies. Money money money. So if the new guidelines had been passed then it would have changed the laws to make it so that a 1/2 cup of tomato paste would have been the amount needed to be considered a serving of vegetables. This means that all of those pizza producers would have had to go back to their kitchens and substantially increase the quantity of pizza sauce on their pizzas, which would not only taste less than desirable, but also cost a lot of money to create and produce. Poor poor rich companies. I was just reading in the New York Times that these big deal food companies have spent over $5.6 million to rally against these proposed laws.

Bad tasting pizza + expensive pizza = no one will want to eat it = it won't be sold in schools cause the kids wouldn't eat it = kids might have to eat the other foods, such as fruits, vegetables and other more healthy options provided by the school = possibly healthier kids!

It is just really unfortunate that everyone is thinking about money and not the big picture in all of this; creating healthier children.

Maybe we need to start some intense reverse psychology on these kids.
Parent- "Honey, eat your vegetables?"
Kid - "What vegetables? All we're having is pizza?"
Parent - "That's right. Pizza is now a vegetable."
Kid - "But I hate vegetables!"
Parent - "Well, that's what we're having for dinner."
Kid - "Can I have something else instead? I don't like pizza anymore."  End Scene.

OR!

Parent- "Honey, eat your vegetables?"
Kid - "What vegetables? All we're having is pizza?"
Parent - "That's right. Pizza is now a vegetable."
Kid - "But I hate vegetables and this is delicious! Are other vegetables as good as this? Can I eat more vegetables please?"
Parent - "Of course you may."    End Scene.


Don't even get me started on the fact that tomatoes are technically a fruit.