So why does Senate Budget Committee staff director G. William Hoagland feel somewhat vindicated by new school lunch guidelines that allow salsa to be classified as a vegetable?
It goes way back to the Reagan administration, when as the young administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service, Hoagland was one of several people who signed off on those notorious rules that classified ketchup as a vegetable.
Administration critics, fueled by meat advocates who did not like allowing tofu to be considered a protein in schools and dairy folks upset by yogurt rules, threw rotten tomatoes on the plan. Hoagland said it was all an attempt to allow schools more flexibility, but it did not work out that way.
So when the salsa rules recently came out, Hoagland said, "I got a big chuckle out of it," adding: "My first reaction was to see ... if they had chunky ketchup. To me, salsa is nothing more than tomato paste with onions and green pepper."
Hoagland said he does not expect anybody to make a big deal out of it, joking that because Democrats occupy the White House, people will be less likely to accuse the White House of "shafting" kids.
But just in case people did not notice the new rules, the Senate Budget Committee GOP staff pointed them out in its weekly budget bulletin, with the kicker, "Only a few aging analysts will understand why the budget bulletin has taken note of this USDA decision." Now you know.
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