Katie Katie Parsons is the creator of Mumbling Mommy and is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist. She works from her home office on the east coast of Florida. Most often she writes about life in a combined family of five children and what it's like being a full time work-from-home parent. Feel free to pitch guest post ideas or just drop her a line at [email protected].
Photo via savoryreviews.com

If you haven’t seen a similiar headline yet, members of Congress blocked a suggestion that the Obama administration made regarding school lunches. Obama and his nutrition experts wanted the rules to change so that schools could no longer count pizza as a vegetable.

Did you even know this was the rule? Yeah, me either.

The new rule would have stated that only 1/2 cup of a vegetable (like tomato paste used in pizza sauce) could be counted as a serving. The average pizza serving has only two tablespoons of tomato paste and let’s face it, schools aren’t serving slices heavy with spinach, broccoli and fresh tomato. Critics of the new rule voted against it (enough to defeat it), saying that the new serving size rule as it relates to pizza would be too costly and burdensome for schools.

C’mon now.

No one is asking schools to stop serving pizza, a popular and inexpensive staple of school lunch menus. The plan was simply asking that a 1/2-cup serving of vegetables be offered in addition since the pizza did not meet the vegetable requirement. But apparently, two tablespoons is “good enough” for our kids, a growing number who rely on school breakfasts and lunches for their only real meals as the prevalence of fast food for dinner continue to increase in many homes.

Is this really the ridiculous message we want to send to kids? How about parents who struggle with nutrition knowledge that work hard to instill healthy eating habits who hear about this?

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Category: Food

Tags: Katie