Poll: US Congress thinks Pizza is a health 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.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

snip

As a vegan I have no interest in proving the inherent safety of oily meats and cheeses, but that doesn't sound right. Can we substitute Weight Watchers? brand metrics for real numbers?

Let's say an adult needs 2500 calories a day. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/1_1_1-eng.php
Pizza, 1 serving, is 384 calories by itself. Either WW is off, or using something else for their metrics besides calories, or... wait. Are you talking about a whole pizza?

Yeah, I could see that taking up a day's worth of "points."

 

[Zyntoxic]

snip

As a vegan I have no interest in proving the inherent safety of oily meats and cheeses, but that doesn't sound right. Can we substitute Weight Watchers? brand metrics for real numbers?

Let's say an adult needs 2500 calories a day. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/1_1_1-eng.php
Pizza, 1 serving, is 384 calories by itself. Either WW is off, or using something else for their metrics besides calories, or... wait. Are you talking about a whole pizza?

Yeah, I could see that taking up a day's worth of "points."

good question!
well, their system translated into usual calory numbers has been cause to pretty heated discussion when it comes to the weight watchers sysmtem of ProPoints, since with calories vegetables and fruit also have a value while with their system it does not, and there is some kind of way to translate ProPoints to Calories but, to be honest i don't know the equation for that.
their motivation for vegetables and fruits being free is that when eaten it takes so much energy for the body to break down that the energy won also becomes the energy lost. but those are not into depth details, that are somewhat simplified to make it more understandable for the avarege member.
the values used to calcluate the ammount of propoints in something is the ammount of the food in question (say per 100 grams) and how much protein, fibres, carbohydrates and fat it is per portion

the reason I used weight watcher propoints is that I have found it to be a very good way of illustrating high and low values of food on both short and long terms.

and yes that is the value for one whole pizza.

the numbers may be a little off since I use the swedish data base, and in sweden italian pizza is more common rather than the american pan pizza, I found pan pizzas as well and the number is still about the same, but that referes to the ones served here in sweden, and from what I understand they are way smaller than the ones usually served in american resturants.

either way, not a perfect system, but easy to use to put thing clear context.

 

[Voodoomancer]

Pizza can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on what you put on it. Silly argument.

 

[DanielBrown]

I'm not exactly intrested in what Americans eat in their schools, but I've heard it's unhealthy as hell compared to what we get in Sweden. Nothing beats my old school though. Every student got a card with a 50SEK(about 10$?) spending limit every day, then we got to eat in whichever of the restaurants the school had signed with.

Our options were; hamburgers, pizza or kebab.
Every. Day.

There was a place where you could get sallad, but screw that when you can get pizza.

 

[Lyiat]

Wonderful, first the Internet Blacklist Bill, and now we're being told what we can and can't eat. I'm getting a tad concerned on where this country is going...

 

[Wintermoot]

POTATOES AREN'T A VEGETABLE!
seriously how stupid are these people?! and if they want to have kids eat more fruit and veggies just serve a tasty salad or free fruit (like banana,s and apples)
or have kid,s pack their own lunch.
PS
Pizza isn't that unhealthy only the stuff you put on it but you can,t use it as a vegetable replacer.

 

[Versuvius]

Wasn't Jamie Oliver trying to fix this issue and he was forcibly removed from schools by cops, laughed at and generally shat on? Huh.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Because this will help America's 'fat' image.

 

[xitel]

Snipped for length

Just so you know, I'm aware of how you're supposed to eat fried chicken. I'm speaking based on the stuff that I see every year when I go to NC to visit relatives. And yes, I know not all of the South is like that, it's called stereotypes for comedic effect. I mean, good lord, if I actually believed the stereotypes I'd have to assume the entire southern half of the country is on fire because of all the explosions and monster trucks. As for the typed accent, it was a half-assed attempt to get the idea across at 3 in the morning, so sue me

 

[emeraldrafael]

Inherently Pizza isnt unhealthy. You get carbs from the crust, calcium from the cheese, protein from the meat, and any vegetable/fruit servings you put on there. You can very easily make a healthy pizza with the right cheeses, meats, and vegetables.

now whether or not kids will eat it is another story.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

they'll probably do what my school do.
we order a dominoes to the front gate, pick it up and has teh noms. but school food is crap, so get rid of it all you want 'merca.

I haven't been in a public school since elementary... how many years ago? I didn't eat the school lunches, but I do recall that you really didn't have a choice in the matter of what you got to eat. I'm all for them getting rid of french fries, but if they'd load a thin crust pizza with broccli, spinach, or other vegitables, it should be a definite option for public school meals. Not all pizza = Dominoes.

better than the uber-floured cardboard with red coloured nothing-sauce type shit my school offers.

 

[MammothBlade]

-nom nom-

Sure is. Completely healthy, those damn health freaks got TOLD. It has CHEESE on it, cheese is good, and when combined with the rest of the ingredients it turns you into freaking superman. Anyone who thinks pizza is "junk" food has not eaten junk.