In USA schools, pizza is now a vegetable!
What did you eat for lunch when you were in school? Could you buy something _1_ to eat in the school cafeteria?
In America, President Obama's administration has been trying to introduce healthy food in schools to help fight the country's obesity problem. They wanted to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk, but a plan to _2_ school pizza has lost as Congress has now decided schools can continue to serve pizza because it is a vegetable.
Food companies, which _3_ frozen pizzas for schools, requested that pizza be classed as a vegetable because they wanted it included in school cafeterias, where children eat lunch. It is thought food companies _4_ about $5.6 million lobbying Congress to keep pizza in schools.
Congress has now decided that because pizza is made with tomato sauce, it is a vegetable.
This is a big success for the frozen food industry as Congress has protected the industry's _5_ to sell a very unhealthy food to school children.
People who support the selling of pizza in school say it is not the government's job to decide what children should eat.
Administration - the group of people who work with the President to run the country.
Obesity - the condition of being very fat.
Congress - the elected group of politicians in the US who are responsible for making the law, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives
Lobbying - trying to persuade a politician that a particular thing should or should not happen, or that a law should be changed.
Is pizza a vegetable? Share your thoughts in the comments section below:
