Vegetables are like porn because ... "We know ‘em when we see ’em"

At the risk of sounding like a maniacal libertarian that I am not (only a maniac, thank you very much!) the recent tomato/vegetable controversy is a reminder that when government takes it upon itself to define something for all of us, then somebody who stands to gain from it will work to maximize their own self-interest.

First this update:

the House voted 298-121 that a slice of pizza spread with two tablespoons of tomato paste should be counted as a vegetable, at least when it’s fed to schoolchildren. Obama signed the bill into law on Friday.

One might question the wisdom of our reps at Congress worrying about tomato paste when they can't seem to figure out anything about the budget.

But, why this tomato paste bill you ask?

“It was Schwan and ConAgra that were lobbying the issue,” says Margo Wootan, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “If two tablespoons of tomato paste counts as a vegetable, pizza is a reimbursable meal. Because the crust counts as a grain, the sauce is the vegetable, and the cheese and pepperoni have protein. But two tablespoons of tomato paste isn’t a vegetable.”

You can't blame the food industry--they do what they have to do.  It is a logical consequence to government having taken up the responsibility to define a food pyramid and what our school kids can eat.

BTW, what is a vegetable anyway?

Suddenly all vegetables, not just the zucchini, are pornographic: We know ‘em when we see ’em. I asked a spokesperson for the Food and Nutrition Service, the USDA body that oversees the school-lunch program, how they defined a vegetable. “When it comes to defining foods, we hew to the FDA’s standards.” But Janet McDonald, an FDA spokeswoman, told me that such fundamentals were out of FDA purview: “We don’t have a definition of vegetables. Probably it’s under the USDA.”

Hahaha!