The House of Representatives dealt a blow to childhood obesity warriors by passing a bill that abandons proposals that threatened to end the reign of pizza and French fries on federally funded school lunch menus.<\/div>\n
The scuttled changes, which would have stripped pizza\u2019s status as a vegetable and limited how often French fries could be served, stemmed from a 2010 child nutrition law calling on schools to improve the nutritional quality of lunches served to almost 32 million U.S. school children.<\/div>\n
The action is a win for the makers of frozen French fries and pizza and comes just weeks after the deep-pocketed food, beverage and restaurant industries successfully weakened government proposals for voluntary food marketing guidelines to children.<\/div>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an important victory,\u201d said Corey Henry, spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI). That trade association lobbied Congress on behalf of frozen pizza sellers like ConAgra Foods Inc and Schwan Food Co and French fry makers McCain Foods Ltd. and J.R. Simplot Co., the latter best known as a supplier to fast-food company McDonald\u201ds Corp.<\/div>\n
\u201cOur concern is that the standards would force companies in many respects to change their products in a way that would make them unpalatable to students,\u201d Henry said.<\/div>\n
Other AFFI members include H.J. Heinz Co., General Mills Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc.<\/div>\n
The school lunch provisions were a small part of a mammoth bill that provides money for all parts of the federal government. The House sent the bill to the Senate for final Congressional approval.<\/div>\n
\u201cThey started out with French fries and now they have moved on to pizza,\u201d said Jared Polis, Colorado Democrat, who lamented the government\u2019s subsidy of unhealthy diets through school meals. \u201cPizza alone (without side dishes) … common sense, it\u2019s not a vegetable.\u201d<\/div>\n
Calls to Minnesota-based Schwan and its external public relations firm and ConAgra were not returned.<\/div>\n
![\"Pizza](\"http:\/\/www.lifeofbrian.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/pizza-carrots.jpg\" "\\"Pizza")
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