Pizza is a Vegetable

About

“Pizza is a Vegetable” is a catchphrase satirizing a bill put forth by United States House Republicans that would categorize tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.

Origin

On November 14th, 2011, The Associated Press^[15] published an article about a spending bill put forth by House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee that would attempt to undermine efforts by the Obama administration to improve the nutritional value of public school lunches. The article revealed that part of the bill would protect the status of tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.

The spending bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The department’s proposed guidelines would have attempted to prevent that. The changes had been requested by food companies that produce frozen pizzas, the salt industry and potato growers. Some conservatives in Congress have called the push for healthier foods an overreach, saying the government shouldn’t be telling children what to eat.

On November 16th, a thread titled “Congress declares pizza a vegetable” reached the front page of Reddit^[6] and accumulated over 1,200 up votes within a week. The earliest known image macro was posted by Redditor Wings144 the following day titled “Scumbag Congress…”^[7]

Legal Precedence

According to Wikipedia^[3], since tomatoes contain seeds they are botanically considered a fruit but the United States Supreme Court ruled in the 1893 Nix v. Hedden decision that tomatoes should be considered a vegetable for trade purposes. During this time taxes were required for all vegetable, but not fruit, imports and the Supreme Court ruled against the Nix family’s attempt to recover back duties paid to the Collector of the Port of New York.

Spread

On November 18th, 2011, an “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore” derivative was posted to Memebase^[9] and a compilation of macros were posted to FAILblog.^[12]

A thread on the Body Building^[8] forums featuring pizza vegetable related images was posted on November 20th, 2011. Derivatives can be found on Tumblr^[10], FunnyJunk^[11] and Reddit.^[13] A Facebook^[14] fan page for “When I was your age, pizza wasn’t a vegetable” has 73 likes as of November 21st, 2011.

Controversy

On November 15th, an article was published on Education Week^[2] that reported child nutrition advocates claimed the bill was a sellout to companies that sell food to public schools.

Collectively, child nutrition advocates say, the changes amount to Congress bending to the whims of food manufacturers and growers at the expense of children’s health.

On November 21st, The Washington Post^[5] published an article criticizing the claims that Congress declared pizza a vegetable and defended the bill.

Schools lunches are still measured by federal regulations for calories (no more than one-third of daily recommended value) and fat content (less than 30 percent of the meal), which limits how much pizza students can be served. A cafeteria worker can’t just pile a slice of pizza on a plate and say she’s serving salad.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for “pizza is a vegetable” climbed dramatically in November of 2011 immediately after the bill was released.

External References