Alright… I can’t stay out of this one. The headlines state: Pizza is a Vegetable! In case you’ve somehow missed this disgrace, and don’t feel like clicking on the link above, US congress is all set to allow pizza to count as a vegetable serving for school lunches. Now, the headlines are a little misleading, pizza is clearly not a vegetable, it’s a “mixed dish” which may contain vegetables. Apparently this classification is not new, the change would have been to disallow it to be counted as a vegetable serving. The argument put forward by “food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes, and some conservatives in Congress” is that 2 tablespoons of tomato paste should count as a vegetable serving. The proposed standards would have changed the serving size to 1/2 cup, pretty much impossible to fit on a slice of pizza, thereby preventing the sale of pizza in schools as it would not contain a full vegetable serving. There are so many problems with this issue that I hesitated to wade into this debate. I’ll try to state them as succinctly as possible. First, I think it’s shameful that governments (yep, that goes for our own in Canada, both provincially and federally as well) allow food industry and lobby groups at the table when creating standards and policies. The decision about what foods to sell and provide children at school should be based solely on scientific evidence and common sense. These decisions should never be based on profit. Secondly, I do think that pizza can be a nutritious food, but redefining a serving size of vegetables (yes, technically, tomatoes are a fruit but that’s really not the issue here) does not make it healthy. Maybe if you piled on some other vegetables, used minimal cheese, and whole grain crust, and served it with a side salad or vegetable sticks then it would be a nutritious school lunch. The question is not: Is pizza a vegetable? The question is: Should we be setting children up for a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits in the name of profit?