Illuminating answer on how ketchup got labeled a vegetable. One can see that labeling the fries a vegetable is at least tangentially relevant to some party benefiting in corporate bankruptcy. I’m interested in seeing if I can use the expression "ketchup sandwich program " for extremely tokenistic, trickle-down government programs like the “Cash for Clunkers” aid to car dealers. Is there any evidence that Heinz and/or other ketchup makers lobbied for or suggested such classification of ketchup or profited from it? Thanks
Welcome to the SDMB, Counselor1. In this forum when someone asks a question about a column, it’s common to place a link to that column in your post. That can be as easy as pasting the URL in the post, and the software will turn it into a link - like this:
No problem. You’ll know next time! Welcome and enjoy your stay!
Rico
CCC Moderator
Well, the Congressman who had the most connection to the ketchup industry at the time was undoubtedly Senator H. John Heinz III (R-PA). He was less than impressed by Reagan’s plans. Link to New York Times article on the subject. I’d find another metaphor if I were you.
The whole Ketchup is a vegetable scheme was cooked up by the Reagan administration as a way to cut the cost of that evil communist plot: The School Lunch Program.
There is some entangling of interests in the school lunch program and agriculture. After all, if the government is shelling out dough, people want to make sure they’re in line. Putting the program under the Agriculture Department which is way too friendly with the Agri-Business sector adds more fun.
The government use to guarantee the price of many farm products in order to keep a floor price. It was suppose to protect the farmers from finding out that they’d get less money for their produce than the market was willing to pay. For example, the government would guarantee the price of milk to be say $1/gallon. If the whole sale price of milk dropped below a dollar, the government would buy the surplus for a $1/gallon. What it did was guarantee that no matter how much a farmer produced, they’d get money for it. Thus, the government got a big wad of surplus food.
All those government purchased goods had to go somewhere, and they went to the School Lunch Program. The main goal wasn’t healthy nutrition as much as “what’s in the government storehouse we’ve got to get rid of?” It was mostly second rate goods that were overly processed and high in fat. American cheese, white flour, lard, whole milk, etc. And that’s what the kiddies got.
Now, it wasn’t all bad for the kiddies because the government had to ensure that the kids ate from the FOUR FOOD GROUPS (which actually were determined by the Agriculture Department to ensure that no farm product was left out). Well, one of the four food groups was vegetables and fruits. In fact, this was a Congressional mandate, so the administration had to make sure that the kids actually had vegetables to eat.
But heck, veggies are expensive, and normally not available as agricultural surplus. Therefore, the government actually had to purchase these products. And, do we want the type of government that takes care of its citizens? Of course not!
Well, the Reagan administration was attempting to cut spending… I mean fat… out of the budget, and it was either the school lunch program or the F15 fighter jet. And, the F15 fighter jet is just sooo cool! (Vrrrmm, Vrrrm. Here take this commie! Pow! Pow! Oh sorry got carried away). So, the idea was to cut the school lunch program.
There were two problems with this: Some congressional members actually were bleeding heart liberals who wanted to feed poor people (easy to ignore). Even more came from farm states that depended upon the subsidies the farmers got (much harder to ignore). Congress simply wasn’t going to change the rules!
So someone thought. Hey isn’t a tomato a vegetable? And if tomato soup can count as a vegetable for the school lunch program, why not ketchup? Even better, a serving of ketchup is a single tablespoon. Therefore, you could feed these kids their “one serving of a vegetable” by simply giving them a McDonalds size packet of ketchup! This would not require a Congressional vote. All it took was an executive edict to declare ketchup a vegetable.
By the way, it wasn’t that the Agriculture Department was going to simply state that from hence forth, ketchup is a vegetable. It’s not the way bureaucracies function. Instead, the Agriculture department made some minor modifications in the definition of what exactly is a vegetable and the serving size. I believe the modified definition would have reduced the amount of vegetable matter in a vegetable dish to (I believe) 60% and that the total number of ounces in a serving size was eliminated.
The rule change was picked up by the public, and it seemed that a packet of ketchup might have fit the definition of a vegetable under this rule change. For all we know, the intent of the rule change were made to allow something like a 40% noodle based “vegetable casserole” to be counted as vegetable. In fact, the Reagan administration denied that the rule change would have allowed ketchup to be a vegetable.
Now there are conspiracies a foot, but nothing that involves invisible cabals controlling our government like Bela Lugosi did in Glen or Glenda (Pull da strings! Pull da strings!)
One of the issues is that the Agriculture department has two agendas: To promote the use of agriculture in the United States, and to regulate the said industry they are promoting. This is somewhat like the old Atomic Energy Commission which both promoted nuclear energy and regulated it at the same time, and we know how well that worked out.
The Agriculture Department was founded by Abraham Lincoln who wanted an agency to help the farmers use the new technology that was then coming to market. It was later given the job of regulating agricultural products since it seemed to be in that area anyway.
To me, the Agriculture Department has long outlived its usefulness in our highly urbanized and industrialized country. I’d personally get rid of it and split its responsibilities between the Commerce department (which helps promote all American businesses) and the FDA (which regulates all other food and drugs).
Of course, to do that, you have get a bill through the U.S. Senate. The top 12 most populated states contain over 60% of the U.S. population, but only get 24% of the vote in the Senate. The other less than 40% of the population live in the farm heavy interior and get 76% of the vote in the Senate. If you want something done in the U.S. government, you’ve got to give the hogs in the Mid-West something to squeal about. And, these piggies aren’t going to give up their power in the Senate anytime soon.
Of course, it isn’t only the people-lite/dirt-heavy states that want the U.S. government involved in the agri-business either. Back in the 1970, there was a major problem with the rise of food prices. Nixon didn’t want to lose an election due to people not being able to afford food, so he got Earl Butz to help push the industrialization of agriculture. That greatly lowered food prices, while merely destroying our environment and creating some friendly behemoths like Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) and Corn Products Corporation (CPC) which now have a firm grip on on our food supplies.
See how it all makes sense!
A tomato is a fruit anyway. A berry actually.
Botanically, the tomato may be a fruit. But legally, in the United States, it’s a vegetable, for some purposes at least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden
The only thing I would like to add to Qazwart’s synopsis above is to point out that a recurring criticism of the school lunch program from cafeteria worker is that American schoolchildren, apparently ungrateful for all the things the agri-business sector does for them, often refuse to consume milk and vegetables, so to some extent having actual vegetables is a moot point.
Well, maybe there was a point of including ketchup as a vegetable after all. Give the kids a big bowl of ketchup, and they might actually eat their veggie. As the old saying goes: You can lead a horse to water, but he’s going to eat the dessert first and leave the broccoli.
Two points about this:
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[li]Vegetables at School are Yucky. At least they were when I was there. My mom would make vegetables, and I ate them – even chard and artichoke. But, the school vegetables were from cans, then boiled in water until they became a salty mush.[/li]
Fortunately, some schools systems (notably Berkeley) have enacted a program to get kids to like vegetables without covering them in chocolate frosting. They have a school garden where they grow vegetables. This gets kids excited about vegetables. Then, the kitchen staff uses fresh, seasonally appropriate vegetables and cooks them correctly. The vegetables come out crisp, and the kids learn to eat not only the vegetables, but to try them with a whole variety of spices. This is done in conjunction with classroom education. I don’t know how this would translate to other school districts. For example, in New Jersey seasonally appropriate would be turnips that you’ve stored in your root cellar over the winter. (I hate those people who live in California who insist that everyone should eat locally. Sure, it’s easy to do when your entire year is one friggin’ growing season.)
[li]Parents don’t make kids eat vegetables: Let’s face it, most homes don’t eat vegetables on a regular basis, and they get short shift in the typical cookbooks and cooking shows which concentrate on main dishes and desserts. If kids don’t eat them at home, they’re not going to like them at school. When families do have vegetables, they’re something like frozen brocolli boiled and slathered with a few pounds of cheese.[/li]
Families need to know how to select fresh vegetables and how to cook them besides boiling them. As I said, most people never learn and there are very few cookbooks that concentrate on vegetables. Heck, even vegetarian cookbooks concentrate more on main dishes and desserts than greens.
One cookbook I love is Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop. The book is divided into sections for each vegetable. Each section tells you how to select that vegetable, when it’s in season, and basic cooking instructions. These are followed by about a half dozen or so specific recipes that are usually pretty simple. I had another one called Green on Greens that I didn’t like as much. Its recipes depended too much on sauces to pour over the vegetables.
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