Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?

The title of this post was heard often in America in the 1940s and 1950s. It was part and parcel of a radio show, "Twenty Questions".  Some of our Congressmen have figured out that since pizza is neither animal nor mineral, it must be vegetable. You would agree, would you not?  After all, most pizza does have tomato sauce and tomato is a vegetable.

Whether pizza is a vegetable or not is a very important question to those who supply food to our schools. A lot of that food is subsidized by the federal government and, because of this, our Congress has to grapple with this complex question, as to the degree of vegetable that makes pizza eligible for payments from us. The Agriculture Department, the agency that sets school lunch standards, says that you need a half-cup of tomato paste to turn pizza into a vegetable; very few pizzas have this much tomato paste. Ergo, pizza is not a vegetable.

Congress is also interested in making sure the schools can serve as many starchy foods, such as french fries, as often as they want.  Surprisingly, a group of retired generals, called Mission: Readiness, thinks Congress is wrong. Mission:Readiness has called poor nutrition in school lunches a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service.