I am the healthiest person here.
I love pizza. It’s my comfort food. Yet I try to stay away from it because too much pizza is not a healthy thing. All that cheese, grease, and carb ladden dough. But it turns out that I was wrong all along. For you see, I had not considered the obviously true fact that a pizza slice, what with its one to two tablespoon of tomato paste or sauce, was a healthy vegetable. At least…. according to congressional Republicans.
The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.
The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less than that.
Is it the 1980’s again? Didn’t we already go through this with Ronald Reagan’s ridiculous “ketchup is a vegetable” idea? What is it with Republicans and school cafeterias. It is almost as if they want children in public schools to be unhealthy and obese.
Ketchup is also a vegetable (according to R. Reagan). I wonder how they classify teabags.
Kethcup as a veggie was a Nixon creation:)
Ketchup-as-veggie first hit the news in 1981 or 82. Maybe Nixon did something with it earlier, but I never heard about it.
The significance of the ketchup-as-veg goes beyond the usual Republican stupidity and cruelty. Reagan came into office promising three things: Cut taxes, increase defense spending, and balance the budget through spending cuts. Oh, and deregulation.
The massive tax cuts got done right away, then Reagan set his OMB Director David Stockman to go find the spending cuts to balance the budget. It was during this period that ketchup as vegetable was floated. Stockman went about it enthusiastically, but inevitably found that you can’t cut spending enough to balance the budget, no matter how hard he tried. At least not without cutting Medicare or Social Security – which even Reagan was afraid to suggest cutting, plus back then we had real Democrats defending the safety net. Or cutting defense, which was defended by Republicans.
Stockman eventually realized the absurdity of it all, and went public to explain it all in a famous interview with William Greider, in which he called Reaganomics a “Trojan Horse for the rich” or something like that. This was followed by the equally famous “trip to the woodshed” where Reagan told Stockman basically “Don’t ever say that again.”
The lesson is, you can’t balance the budget by only cutting discretionary spending. Reagan confirmed this in 1982 when he raised taxes back and signed the largest tax increase in history, largely sparing the rich though. This is when we started taxing Social Security benefits and unemployment benefits.
Today’s Republicans have learned that lesson and, with Obama’s help, have succeeded in turning off the power to the third rails of Medicare and Social Security, which are now on the table, along with ever-steeper tax cuts for the rich.
Actually now that I wrote all that I remember that Nixon’s favorite food supposedly was the bizarre concoction ketchup and cottage cheese. Maybe that’s what you were getting at.
I think Herman Cain is behind this.
It was in the news then…. you can look it up:)
That’s it! I knew that I made a mistake cutting pizza out of my diet when I was 320 pounds… and I’ve been missing it ever since!
Andy, I’ve seen you eat pizza. 🙂
Pizza w/green peppers,black olives and mushrooms! And anchovies! Nicobolis with fish! Its all about moderation. Its also about the next great debate on Delaware Pizzerias. Remember Marghariita’s on Main St.,Newark?
Best Pizza in Delaware: Porto Fino’s, New Castle
Best ‘boli: Nicola’s, Rehoboth
Why you guys slammin’ pizza, one of the few perfect foods?
Nicoboli in no boli , sir. ground beef? Really? Their pizza is pretty good, though. And I do enjoy the nickspinolli, as long as they remember to squeeze the spinach (which they only do about half the time). Grotto’s, believe it or not, has the best stromboli around here. Ham, capicola, pepperoni, and genoa with their cheese blend and ragu on the side.
I honestly can’t believe anyone eats that shitty loose meat sandwich Nicolas serves up. I wouldn’t eat one if I were starving and they were free.
ouch! quite an opinion you’ve got there! whatever dislike you have for their ground beef should certainly be compensated for in their cheeses. and if you don’t appreciate varied cheeses then you deserve Grotto’s. bon appetit numbnuts
Just teasing, eat whatever the hell you want.