This just in: Pizza is a vegetable, sayz US congress

House protects pizza as a vegetable. (I googled around to check it's not a hoax because it sounds truly ridiculous.)

(Reuters) - The House of Representatives dealt a blow to childhood obesity warriors on Thursday by passing a bill that abandons proposals that threatened to end the reign of pizza and French fries on federally funded school lunch menus.

The scuttled changes, which would have stripped pizza's status as a vegetable and limited how often French fries could be served, stemmed from a 2010 child nutrition law calling on schools to improve the nutritional quality of lunches served to almost 32 million U.S. school children.

That's some mighty fine lobbying work right there. I'm getting a whiff of sulphur. That's beyond corrupt and going well into evil territory.

"Our concern is that the standards would force companies in many respects to change their products in a way that would make them unpalatable to students," Henry [spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute] said.

Won't somebody think of the children!!!1!

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Wednesday that U.S. school children would still see more fruit and vegetables, more grains, more low-fat milk and less salt and fat in meals despite the language in the spending bill.

"First of all, we can assure parents of school-age children (that) USDA will do everything it can" to improve the nutritional quality of school meals, as required by the 2010 child nutrition law.