sauce-coated cardboard

Hey, America! The GOP is, yet again, looking out for you. This week, Congress took a break from voting to make sure none of your tax dollars will go to all those abortion clinics NPR wants to open in our national parks, to pass a federal law that only the nation that invented Febreze would tolerate.

They have affirmed that pizza is a vegetable. Yes, the tomato sauce on pizza is enough for American politicians to define it and allow it to be served as a vegetable in school lunch programs across the US.

Never mind that tomatoes are a fruit, and commercial tomato sauce has so much sugar in it that not only is it not a vegetable, but it should be classified as a dessert. ...

And poor Michelle Obama. The First Lady is working so hard to get kids to put down the Cool Ranch deep-fried tobacco dogs, or whatever it is they concoct with that meat substance pet food companies rejected that got sold to public schools. It is a Sisyphean task just to get these lunch programs to serve something, anything, fresh and healthy that hasn't been grown with Major League Baseball-style steroids. Why? Because we live in America, where people, who have been elected to public office, do not believe in climate science, but do believe pizza is a vegetable. I envy your tenacity, Flotus.

I knew big Pharma and the NRA had powerful lobbies, but apparently, the frozen food industry's "partially hydrogenated, tomato-ish sauce-coated, food-like cardboard substance" lobby is more influential than I had initially realised. And these big food giants have done wonders convincing us all fresh produce is insurmountably inconvenient and, like lemmings, we go along with it, buying pre-packaged versions of these clearly inedible options.

And it's not just vegetables. Fruit has also been ### as just too much of a nuisance to eat, so enter the frankenfooders to simplify it for us. Fruit Roll-Ups? They have brainwashed us into believing the burden of hauling around an apple or a pear had become so daunting, we needed someone to mix up fruit with some corn syrup and "Roll It Up".

See? Now we do eat fruit because it's easier. So you never have to experience that pesky fresh fruit juice squirting you in the eye or, worse, to stress out having to get up off the couch to wash it. You can just "unroll it". And it never goes bad. Ever. It's practically a miracle.

So, in a country where fertilised eggs are people and assembling burgers is a manufacturing job, and berries are better in the form of shoe leather, why not call a sugary fruit paste sauce that comes out of a can and is poured onto dough that comes out of a box, topped with cheese that's spelt Cheez and comes out of a Whiz, a vegetable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/18/pizza-vegetable-congress-says-so?CMP=SOCNETTXT6966

Only in America!

Oh my gosh.

"Ketchup is a vegetable" is back?!

Originally posted by finnegan
Hey, America! The GOP is, yet again, looking out for you. This week, Congress took a break from voting to make sure none of your tax dollars will go to all those abortion clinics NPR wants to open in our national parks, to pass a federal law that only the nation that invented Febreze would tolerate.

They have affirmed that pizza is a vegetable. Yes, the ...[text shortened]... mentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/18/pizza-vegetable-congress-says-so?CMP=SOCNETTXT6966

I don't need either the Guardian, or Michelle Obama to tell me what to eat, or what to feed my kids.

Actually, a well made pizza can be a very balanced meal. The stuff sold from vending machines is garbage. But that's what you get when you put the government in charge of feeding your kids.

When I was going to school, I carried a lunch box with what my mother prepared, even though the school lunch at the time was only 25 cents.

Originally posted by normbenign
I don't need either the Guardian, or Michelle Obama to tell me what to eat, or what to feed my kids.

Actually, a well made pizza can be a very balanced meal. The stuff sold from vending machines is garbage. But that's what you get when you put the government in charge of feeding your kids.

When I was going to school, I carried a lunch box with what my mother prepared, even though the school lunch at the time was only 25 cents.

You are an idiot if you confuse the notion of individual responsibility (which is not in dispute) with the question of making public services accountable for doing their job properly.

I suggest that schools have some responsibility to provide not only proper education about diet and health but also sensible options in the meals at their canteens. If I was aware that my kids were being given either no information about food and health or false information, and if I found that there were only unhealthy options available in their school canteen, I would argue that the school was failing in its duty.

When I realize further that local schools are handing out contracts to suppliers to sell unhealthy crap to my kids, including unhealthy soft drinks, sweets and snacks through vending machines, then I argue that they are making money at the expense of the kids in their care.

What I want from government (in this country and you should start wanting it in yours) is that it supports my wish to provide my kids with a healthy school environment that complements the work I do at home instead of subverting and undermining it. Discovering that my government (like yours) is in the pocket of the food industry and acting directly to harm my kids makes me very angry.

Anyone with kids knows it is an uphill struggle to persuade them to eat well. When all our efforts as parents are being undermined every day by the schools they attend then what chance do we have?

This is not about the state making our choices for us. It is about us holding the state to account for the way public servies are provided and wanting to see an end to sharp practice by which our kids become profit centres for a food industry that has no ethics whatever. And when our politicans turn out to be in the pockets of the same food industry, lining their pockets at the expense of my kids, I for one do not confuse myself with the delusion that the moral responsibility is mine.

Yes the republican party (the party of the frontol lobomtomized) has done it again. At least a few members broke the ranks of the inept. See link below for the vote.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2011-459

USA is doomed as long as folks vote these fools into office.

Originally posted by finnegan
You are an idiot if you confuse the notion of individual responsibility (which is not in dispute) with the question of making public services accountable for doing their job properly.

I suggest that schools have some responsibility to provide not only proper education about diet and health but also sensible options in the meals at their canteens. If I w ...[text shortened]... y kids, I for one do not confuse myself with the delusion that the moral responsibility is mine.

The idiots are the ones who trust the government to feed their children. That includes the food in the cafeteria, as well as the curriculum in the class.

Why are so many parents passing off responsibility to government schools, for food, for moral guidance?

And people here think that Ayn Rand's novelette Anthem is far fetched?

Originally posted by normbenign
The idiots are the ones who trust the government to feed their children. That includes the food in the cafeteria, as well as the curriculum in the class.

Why are so many parents passing off responsibility to government schools, for food, for moral guidance?

And people here think that Ayn Rand's novelette Anthem is far fetched?

Well, if children are going to have lunch then it's a lot more practical if the lunch is prepared at school rather than at home by the parents, no?

Of course you could also adopt the Dutch system and abolish school lunches altogether, and give the children a 20 minute lunch break.

Originally posted by kbear1k
Yes the republican party (the party of the frontol lobomtomized) has done it again. At least a few members broke the ranks of the inept. See link below for the vote.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2011-459

USA is doomed as long as folks vote these fools into office.

You didn't notice the number of did not votes among Democrats, and to boot you didn't mention what the vote was about, nor did the page you posted.

You may be a good chess player, but you've got nerve referring to anyone else as "frontal lobotomized".

The USA may be doomed regardless of who is voted into office. History shows that powerful empires never last long. No powerful nation has got or remained there by becoming a welfare state. When we stop judging matters from strictly the standpoint of a political party, one or the other, we may find the answers, and I'm not advocating centrism. Usually, that results in the worst of both worlds.

What that post had to do with the OP, I don't know.

Originally posted by normbenign
The idiots are the ones who trust the government to feed their children. That includes the food in the cafeteria, as well as the curriculum in the class.

Why are so many parents passing off responsibility to government schools, for food, for moral guidance?

And people here think that Ayn Rand's novelette Anthem is far fetched?

Nobody is passing off responsibility to anyone. No matter what service you employ - public or private - you expect reasonable standards and act when things fall short.

Your responsibility and mine is to be active citizens and politically aware. We appoint our government and it is our job to hold it to account. We elect politicians to act on our behalf and should be holding them to account.

We are entitled to set standards of what is acceptable from public bodies and services.

For most people, there is no choice but to send kids to school. We are right to demand reasonable standards of care and freedom from abuse.

What a jolly world American politicans can live in - no failing will make them unelectable because it is all the fault of the individual and nobody has a right to expect anything from their elected government and officials. Cynicism rules. You are getting what you expect!

The failing is in the voters who tolerate and apparently endorse this stuff.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Well, if children are going to have lunch then it's a lot more practical if the lunch is prepared at school rather than at home by the parents, no?

Of course you could also adopt the Dutch system and abolish school lunches altogether, and give the children a 20 minute lunch break.

That would make more sense to me. As I said in an earlier post, I carried a lunch box with the lunch my mother prepared, even when a school lunch cost only 25 cents.

I don't know what was impractical about that. My grandchildren are only in school about 6 hours a day. They are served a morning snack as well as lunch, and they eat breakfast at home. No wonder kids are obese.

This is a symptom of a wider problem, that of transferring individual choices and responsibility to the government. Where does it end? Or does it?

Originally posted by finnegan
Nobody is passing off responsibility to anyone. No matter what service you employ - public or private - you expect reasonable standards and act when things fall short.

Your responsibility and mine is to be active citizens and politically aware. We appoint our government and it is our job to hold it to account. We elect politicians to act on our behalf a ...[text shortened]... hat you expect!

The failing is in the voters who tolerate and apparently endorse this stuff.

I don't expect anything from government, save deliver the mail, and respond to real emergencies If only I could enforce that?

Originally posted by normbenign
I don't expect anything from government, save deliver the mail, and respond to real emergencies If only I could enforce that?

Interesting. And by which magical process do you hope this little planet of ours will offer a tolerable life to its teeming millions?

Originally posted by normbenign
I don't expect anything from government, save deliver the mail, and respond to real emergencies If only I could enforce that?

Heh, you think the mail service ought to be government-controlled?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Heh, you think the mail service ought to be government-controlled?

It is etched out in the Constitution. I think it probably could be improved privately.