DailyDirt: Serious Food Regulations That Don't Sound So Serious...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are plenty of cases where food regulations are reasonable safety measures, but sometimes there are serious government decisions that sound a bit ridiculous (eg. the Supreme Court deciding that a tomato is a vegetable in 1893). Here are just a few examples of more recent politically-charged food proposals.

• Pizza is not a vegetable, but just 1/8 of a cup of tomato paste counts the same as a half cup of vegetables, according to Congress. It's actually not that easy to directly compare the nutritional value of various servings of fruits and vegetables, but plenty of people simply see highly-processed foods as an unacceptable component of school lunches. [url]
• The USDA had a suggestion to try out a "Meatless Monday" recommendation, but it quickly backed off doing so. The proposal would have encouraged corporate and school cafeterias to offer a vegetarian meal on Mondays, but there were obvious objections from parts of the agriculture industry. [url]
• California's Proposition 37 would require labels on genetically modified foods -- and consumers will likely be surprised at the amount of GMOs in their diet. If it passes, the result of this vote could make GM foods a larger national issue. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: food, gmo, meatless mondays, pizza, prop37, regulations, usda, vegetable