Pizza is now officially and legally a vegetable! Vegetarians can therefore now enjoy the goodness of ham, pepperoni, beef, chicken and other luscious ingredients totally guilt-free!!! Congress says so!
…seriously now, what the heck is wrong with your congress nowadays? My entire country is laughing at America now and I’d really like to know - what do the Americans themselves think about this?
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
What I’d really like to know is how Congress got it into their heads that this was a topic worth discussion. I’m fairly certain the founding fathers didn’t see this coming. As for what I think, (in the context of your statement) if you’re a vegetarian and your convictions are weak enough to be swayed by a decision that wouldn’t make sense to an infant you might as well drive down to Burger King and scarf some Whoppers. Because for now it’s just pizza but I’m sure burgers will follow soon. Especially in this country. Lol.
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
It came about because frozen food lobbyists didn’t want their funding cut to sell pizza to school cafeterias. I.e., instead of giving our children healthier choices of food, they rule that pizza is considered a vegetable.
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
In all fairness I’m pretty sure all pizza served in thr cafeteria when I was in school was 100% vegetables, even the so-called “hamburger” and “pepperoni” ones 
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
I often wondered if the Pizza served in my elementary, middle and high school was even considered real food at all, because the crust was always stiff as cardboard(most always said it was cardboard for lunch that day), and the toppings were non existent. Usually you were lucky to get 4 pieces of what they called Sausage(some grey colored meat), and the cheese was so thin and slimy, it looked like something that came out of the nose when sick.
It simply amazes me how Congress has time to debate crap like this, yet can’t find the time to somehow reduce the unemployment numbers and figure out that tax cuts is not the answer to unemployment
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
I never ate the horrible square pizza my elementary school had for lunch every Friday. It was disgusting.
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
I used to eat delivery pizza so much that I would actually get hungry at work when I walked by the piles of unfolded carboard boxes because of the smell.
Really.
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
Then technically, legally speaking, only pizza sauce could be served at cafeterias - sans base, cheese and toppings. The ruling is obviously meant to apply to whole pizzas.
And i know it’s meant to cater to the wishes of the frozen food industry…but seriously? You want to make an omelette, you got to break some eggs. You’re never going to please everyone. So the choice boils down to this: Cater to the reforms the administration is seriously trying to make to reduce obesity, or give in to greed for extra funding.
This is one reason why i personally hold lobbying (and lobbyists) in utter contempt.
But yea anyway, the title of the thread was meant to be sarcastic, in case anyone didn’t get it :P. I was actually wondering much of what was being said here - how in the world does congress have time to debate this stuff with a collapsing American economy and a fiscal crisis over the pond? Oh and as one of my friends pointed out, technically you can include 2 tablespoons of tomato paste in anything and call it a vegetable. Classic plus ça change with the legislature gleefully undermining all the good the executive tries to do.
(as a side note, i can foresee that 5 years down the road, the Republicans (or tea party?) will look at increased or constant overweight ratios and lambast Obama’s policy for failing while cutting jobs, increasing taxes etc, and conveniently ignore the fact that they currently control congress.)
Speaking of over the pond, however, the EU is just as bad: Turns out that nowadays people can no longer claim water prevents dehydration.
Seriously…
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
But there is the main issue. Not one elected official even bothered to read the bill before they voted on it. I emailed my elected officials about it, and they all told me the same thing, that part of the bill was omitted by their staffers when they got the “breakdown” of the Agriculture Bill. So basically, the elected clowns in DC voted on a cliff notes version of the bill and never read the bill, which is the main reason why the US in in the situation they are in now.
There is nothing the US can do about the rising rate of obesity in the US regardless of how many laws they pass and how many foods they ban. If people are not active, even eating low fat foods will make you fat if you do not excercise
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
True, eating pizza doesnt cause obesity - but an excess of carbohydrates does exacerbate the effect of a sedentary lifestyle. Allowing subsidies for pizza doesn’t help.
Maybe congress passed it just to move on, but seriously, is that the right thing to do? They’re making a law here, one which will essentially undermine and undercut the impetus driving the entire programme. Aren’t congressmen expected to actually read the laws that they are passing, and raise any questionable provisions for debate? That’s the whole idea that undergirds democracy, the idea that enough people discussing and freely contributing to debate will be able to come up with solutions with minimal weaknesses. Democracy’s proper functioning demands that the elected representatives have a proper, clear view of the facts (what lens, representing their views, they look at it through is another matter) before passing laws that will bind all the people in the electorate. If they do not, you do not have a democracy, you have an…‘idiotcracy’ would be the best word I can invent. If they didn’t spot this kind of issue because they didn’t scrutinise the bill carefully, someone could pass a law that, say prevents afro-americans from owning farmland. Sure, the Supreme Court would strike that down instantly, but imagine the backlash such a bill would cause!
Moving on to a bigger issue can’t be an excuse for passing bad laws. If there’s a bigger emergency coming up, postpone the passing of the law, but don’t pass something that hasn’t been thought through clearly - for the sake of your country’s international image, if nothing else. This is a small thing, but sparks the question - what sort of other idiocies have been passed into law because the congressmen weren’t doing their jobs right?
The point that LMS raised about the ‘cliffs notes’ thing is even more disturbing. Not a single congressman with common sense actually had one of their staff read the entire bill and point this out? Either 1) the entirety of congress is grossly negligent, 2) the entirety of congress is bought over, or 3) a combination of the above.
Seriously, has American democracy become a matter of who has the deepest pockets nowadays?
Anyway, LMS - that’s not strictly true, the government can actually do something about rising obesity rates, by encouraging healthy lifestyles, compulsory phys ed and extra training for overweight schoolchildren, and very importantly providing healthier food for their students. Its also not just about weight; general health is also affected by excessive intakes of salt and fats. I know it’s possible as my government managed to pull it off somehow - our childhood obesity ratio has remained at 12% for the last 3 years, compared to about 32% in the US.
My personal theory about it is that we develop a taste for healthier food when we are children, which carries over to our adult years. I personally cannot eat fast food more than twice a week maximum, and most often eat it only once a week. Quite a lot of my friends are the same too. Though culture may play a part in it, i believe culture can be changed from the bottom-up or top-down, if enough effort is put into it. Undermining such efforts is irresponsible and counterproductive, and probably is the reason why no progress has been made.
Re: Vegetarians of America, REJOICE!
Err… I would say no, we don’t walk more often. In fact, I walked a great deal more when I was in the US on holiday than at home. We have a fairly good bus service and virtually everywhere is within 400-500 metres of a bus stop, so I really think we walk less. Though to be fair less people drive, since owning a car is expensive due to government taxes.
We generally have 2 large meals, lunch (12 Noon - 2pm) and dinner (6pm-8pm). I don’t know if that makes a difference? But our large meals are comparatively smaller than large american meals - maybe 2/3 the portion. We also tend to eat a lot less fried food (more often it’s stir-fried instead) and more vegetables. And use a LOT less salt; I loved eating at Denny’s in the US but the clam chowder soup nearly killed me. I felt I was drinking brine, and I didn’t add any extra salt. Our food tends to be more savoury than salty.
Another possible factor could be I live in a hot and humid tropical climate, but I seriously don’t think that plays a big part since everyone tends to retreat into air conditioning in the heat of the day…