Poll: US Congress thinks Pizza is a health food.

[Normandyfoxtrot]

The main reason in the US is how much pressure its on school cafeteria to cut down on cost my local high school's entire cafeteria staff was 8 to serve nearly fourteen hundred students. At that ratio anything requiring more than a toss in a frier or oven isn't possible. Though at this point our local school has resorted to serving the same meal for two to three days to cut down on cost.

 

[ecoho]

Basically there is a fight in congress now to keep things like french fries and pizza on the menu of school lunches for children. The reason for this is because the Obama administration is trying to get unhealthy food off the menu. So the special interest groups want the small amount of potatoes used in french fries and the tomato paste used in pizza to count as a "vegetable". Tell me escapist (especially non-Americans), what do you think about this?

Here is an article on the subject:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/congress-fights-obama-administration-attempts-to-make-school-lunches-healthier/2011/11/14/gIQAUkSvMN_story.html

ok first off too much healthy food is just as bad as too much junk food. second i dont know about you but i ate pizza every friday in school and never got over weight but then i was alowed to play tag and you know run around at school.

 

[BlackWidower]

Eh, why not!? When I think of unhealthy food I think of candy. So as long as they're not eating that, I think we're good. Just make sure they get their needed vitamins and minerals and there's nothing to worry about. Once digested, all food is the same. So relax.

 

[Kiju]

Well, when you think about it...

Pizza consists of a lot of healthy things: cheese, bread products, vegetables, and meat (usually).

The only thing making it unhealthy is the grease and the oils in the sauce. Unless I'm missing something...

 

[FaceFaceFace]

Cafeteria food is crap anyway. I always brought my lunch. Can't control that, can you Congress. Didn't think so. (Watches as regulation is put on from-home lunches)

 

[sibrenfetter]

As a European I sometimes wonder, why are Americans so fat? Do they not care, do they not know about all the serious health and mental issues that come together with obesity? Then I read the comments above where people actually state that pizza can be a health food, especially when leaving of pepperoni?! If you think pizza can be healthy, you need to seriously reconsider your general food intake. Even if you make a pizza with wholemeal flour, hardly any light cheese, only vegetables, and eat half of it (as that should be more than enough for lunch), even then it would fall in the unhealthy range of foods. Quite frankly I am quite shocked by how many people would agree to pizza being a health food. But keep this in mind: Pizza is not healthy food. You can pretend it is, you can lie to yourself it is, all in order to not having to deal with overeating. But in the end it changes nothing of the fact that pizza is unhealthy. And even if you don't care and you want to stuff your own face, you serve it at schools, setting your own children on the path to obesity as well.

 

[sibrenfetter]

Well, when you think about it...

Pizza consists of a lot of healthy things: cheese, bread products, vegetables, and meat (usually).

The only thing making it unhealthy is the grease and the oils in the sauce. Unless I'm missing something...

No disrespect but you have a lot to learn:
Cheese: extremely fattening, 40 to 50% fat
Dough: Especially white flour dough, very fattening (the carbohydrates bind the fat making it easy to be stored by the body)
Meat: Very fattening, even the "light" versions

These ingredients are all well known to be major contributors to becoming fat. The oils and sauces are of course also important, but make no mistake that the real health issue comes from a ton of cheese and meat on a baked bread product. That's enough calories right there for nearly the rest of the day.

 

[LHZA]

Everything in moderation. Healthier foods should be introduced to school lunches, and there is such a thing as healthy pizza. Shouldn't be an everyday thing though. French Fries do not count as vegetables.

 

[Kiju]

Well, when you think about it...

Pizza consists of a lot of healthy things: cheese, bread products, vegetables, and meat (usually).

The only thing making it unhealthy is the grease and the oils in the sauce. Unless I'm missing something...

No disrespect but you have a lot to learn:
Cheese: extremely fattening, 40 to 50% fat
Dough: Especially white flour dough, very fattening (the carbohydrates bind the fat making it easy to be stored by the body)
Meat: Very fattening, even the "light" versions

These ingredients are all well known to be major contributors to becoming fat. The oils and sauces are of course also important, but make no mistake that the real health issue comes from a ton of cheese and meat on a baked bread product. That's enough calories right there for nearly the rest of the day.

Except for the fact that they're recommended products.

I think the thing is though, is that while yes they are, that's also cutting out a lot of different foods that cafeterias can serve for a cheap price. Vegetables are good and all, but they go bad fairly quickly, and not many kids actually want to eat them. So if schools sell nothing but vegetables, that's probably going to cause an increase in sack lunches, and thus lost funds for the schools.

That paragraph above sounds like a bit of bullshit, but I imagine it's true to some degree. I guess my point is that while yes, that's a lot of fat and calories to burn through, but for a child, they'll most likely burn through it in a couple of hours.

Calories are always a problem, but what people almost always fail to realize is that it's not calories that lead to fattening, it's what you do with them. If children eat their lunch, then sit in a classroom for the rest of the day, then go home and sit to do homework before going straight to bed, then yes, it's going to make them fat. But children should be out playing, burning through those calories so they stay healthy. Fat is just calories that have been stored by the body for later use, but if there's no calories to store, then lo and behold, there's little fat gain.

 

[aashell13]

We shouldn't be deciding things like this at the federal level: besides causing government to force a one-size-fits-all solution on the whole country, it makes the process vulnerable to corruption by special interests. Deciding what's on the menu at school should be the exclusive privilege of the school board, who are accountable to the local voters and whose sheer numbers make lobbying more difficult.

On the topic of pizza being healthy: a very silly thing to say, but sadly it seems that all congress can bring itself to do lately is say silly things.

School districts feed students crappy food because it's cheap: communities demand low taxes, law and advocacy groups demand free or very inexpensive school meals: this puts school administrations between a rock and a hard place. From administration's point of view the best way out is to provide the cheapest food they can, which usually entails low quality.

 

[DaJoW]

Here we got pizza 2-3 times per year, and french fries eeven less than that. I'd heard some American schools served pizza on a regular basis but some saying "best day of the week" is kinda scary.

Pizza, french fries, "tater tots" (whatever that is) and similar greasy stuff seem to have very little place in a school cafeteria.

 

[AmosMoses]

Pizza is neither here nor there. Depends on the pizza, depends on how often.

However, fries are made from potato and potato does not count as a vegetable for the purposes of nutrition. It's carbs (unless you're eating the skin as well) and that's about it.

Pasta is not a vegetable either.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

While you can get healthy pizza (I happen to be in love with a spinach/light cheese/whole grain thin crust pizza that is delicious and is less than 100 calories a slice) that is not what they're serving at schools. The food at my school was so greasy it made me nauseous, so when I did have to buy lunch I ate soggy salads or sandwiches with barely anything on it but soggy lettuce. The healthy food they do have is inedible, but what actually tastes okay makes you sick and it horrible for you.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

I don't think there's anything wrong with pizza and french fries in school lunches. I think there's something wrong with pizza and french fries in school lunches as often as they are.

Making all of the food in school lunches "healthy" all the time is silly. Also, before any reform like this went through, I would very much like to see what alternatives are available to schools: there's the problem of poorly funded schools attempting to feed a lot of children (which can be hard, and these are both fairly cheap options that are easy to make a lot of) and the question of what it gets replaced with (are schools just going to replace pizza and french fries with junk food that happens to be less stereotypical or are they actually going to replace it with decent food).

 

[Sovereignty]

Pizza is a far healthier option then most of the other fare on the cafeteria menus. Not to mention it's probably the most eaten product (and cheapest) on the school's menu.

Cutting french fries, sure. But if you cut pizza you're an idiot. People just don't realize you can't simply ban things to ensure that kids don't get fat.

Remember when they swore soda machines were the reasons all the kids were big? How great that worked eh?

 

[ResonanceSD]

I thought that was the general view of food over there. Dr Nick's diet, in other words.

 

[WaderiAAA]

Well, eating healthily does correlate with good concentration, so the rule would probably improve the American school system. On the other hand there is te question of freedom and whether you should encourage people to eat healthily rather than remove the option of eating unhealthy food. I can see why in the political climate in the US this bill would be opposed. Though speaking as a teacher to be, I would personally like to teach in a school in which the students eat properly. In my country, there is not that much of a problem with fast food, but more of a problem with students skipping breakfast entirely.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

thats just... but tomatos are a fruit not a vegetable.. what the.. america makes my head hurt with the logic it runs by

Funny you should mention that; it's "American logic" that made Tomatoes a fruit in the first place. The definitions weren't as clear 100 years ago as they are today, and it was actually an American court case in which a tomato farmer (successfully) tried to dodge a new tax on vegetables that decided it.

There were no salads. It was just a choice of two entrees, choice of two sides, and a bread. You could manage to get no fruits or vegitables.
It was baad, though my home state has a terrible school system in general.

Fair point. I suppose living right next to Washington, and in a generally high-value area, raised the standards somewhat. More taxes collected = slightly better stuff. Not to mention, we didn't have to deal with the good ol' fashioned suth'n comfort foot that befouls a large portion of the population. I don't know about you, but while deep frying a chicken and covering it in sausage gravy may taste delicious, it sure as hell isn't healthy.

Speaking as a Southernor, if you're topping your fried chicken with sausage gravy (which is made from sausage drippings), you're doing it wrong; it should be chicken gravy, which is made with a small portion of the (now chicken flavored) oil you're left with after frying the chicken. Also, I wish we got stuff that good in the cafeterias down south; the food is just as bland and boring here as it is anywhere else, if not more so, since the budgets are so tight.

Besides, even down South fried chicken is rarely eaten, because we know it's terrible for you. The average family might pick up a box from the local deli (or a restaurant) about once a month, and they may go years without having it home made. That last part is because it's a pain in the butt to make, making it makes a huge mess in the kitchen, and most people don't even know how to do it these days anyway. Even those that do probably only make it once or twice a year on average. Home made is usually worse for you, too -- not because of the chicken itself, but because Southern cooks are much better than deli workers at finding new and inventive ways to make vegetables unhealthy.

PS: Please don't try to write in accents that don't belong to you; it looks really weird to those of us who actually hear them on a daily basis.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

They could put vegetables on the pizza. And replace the greasy pepperoni with a leaner meat. Problem solved.

But french fries counting as a vegetable is ludicrous. Potatoes have almost no nutritional value by themselves, and deep-frying them removes most of it anyway.

You sure about that? The Irish used to live off the stuff. Lots of of vitamin C, potassium, B6. Quite a bit of protein too.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=potato

The problem with fries isn't the nutrients so much as doubling the calories and adding saturated fat.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=french+fries

You might be thinking of iceburg lettuce. That's more or less fancy water.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=iceburg+lettuce

---

I saw a bit of this documentary where these parents didn't want to pay $1.50 for broccoli because the store had 3 2L bottles of Pepsi on sale for the same price. They were like, "we can bring more for the family if we get the Pepsi. Why should we choose between diabetes medicine and good food?" I wanted to shake them and shout "it's sugar water, dammit! It costs pennies, has no nutritional benefit, and it's the reason why your pancreas is shot in the first place!"

Some people.

 

[Zyntoxic]

ok... as a weight watcher I'll just give you some weight watcher mathematics.

accoarding to their current system of ProPoints a normal sized grown up woman should eat about 35 points per day, and you recieve an additional 49 points per week to spend on special occasions and special treats, and this is only to maintain current weight not to lose or gain weight.

most fruits and vegtables are considered free as long as eaten in moderation and to maintain a good blood sugar level, and as long as the person still uses his/her daily budget.

1 normal sized egg is 2 points

12 grams of crisps or potatoe chips is 4 points

165 grams of fries is 14 points

1 normal sized pizza is usually around 43 points, even the veggie ones falls on about 40 points


so when eating pizza the entire daily point budget disappears and 41 points remains of the weekly bonus budget, and a normal person should eat at least 3 noraml meals and 2-3 "snacks" so say that a person eats that pizza for lunch and a normal meal should be around 10-14 points, so the person eats a breakfast worth 12 points and a dinner worth 14, that removes another 26 ponts from the remaining weekly bonus, and for the sake of being nice let's say that the person only eats fruit for her snacks.
she now has 0 daily points and 15 weekly points and 6 days remaining before getting a new weekly bonus, and there is enough pints left that the person could eat 96 grams of potatoe chips, a normal bag in sweden veries between 200-300 grams.

so sure, you can eat pizza every once in a while, if you are careful for the remaining 6 days of the week.
if you ask me it isn't worth it, one pizza is not better than being able to allow one self many smaller pleasures the whole week instead

I did make pizza my self once and managed to get it down to 18 points, but that wasn't nearly as good as a normal pizza.

as for the points recommendations for a man, the weekly bonus is the same, and I think it was 39 or 40 daily points, not entierly sure, that's why I counted with female measures instead, in either case, those are children and should eat substantially less than either a grown up man or woman, so I wouldn't recommend either fries or pizza on a healthy lunch menu for children.


*disclaimer: this is a pretty huge simplification, in the end the ammount of saturated/unsaturated fatty acids, sugar and salt comes into the equation of what is healthy or not, and the budget given excludes exercise, but the numbers given are correct for both the foods and the ammount of points that "should" be eaten by a normal sized adult woman.