Lawmaker rejects pizza sauce as vegetable

May 15—Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) introduced a bill on Monday to stop the amount of tomato paste used on a children's slice of pizza from counting as a serving of vegetables in school lunches, arguing that the standard effectively qualifies pizza as a vegetable.

He said he hopes the measure can be included in this year's farm bill. Legislative language passed last year blocked stricter school nutrition standards proposed by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and allowed an eighth of a cup of tomato paste—roughly the amount used on a children's slice of pizza—to count as one serving of vegetables.