Ketchup is a Vegetable & Other School Lunch Oddities

Ketchup = vegetable is like Fast Food = Dinner. An oxymoron that is sadly too true for many Americans.

Completely agree - when schools are looking for loopholes like this just to keep cost down, something is wrong with our regulations.

When I was growing up, restaurant food was pretty much all that we ate. Hardee's, Outback, Olive Garden, Taco Bell...we ate out for dinner and breakfast pretty much every single day of the week. Needless to say, I never knew about nutrition or how to cook (honestly, I learned how to boil water in my 11th grade biology class). Most of the foods I cook at home are of the packaged variety: frozen chicken, rice-a-roni, the veggies that you steam in the bag. We always have a lot of fresh fruits, and some fresh veggies for salads, but nearly everything else is packaged. While it's not ideal, I'm proud that I'm at least taking the time to feed my family at home instead of relying on restaurants to feed us. It has been a huge jump going from eating out all the time to being a stay-at-home-mom who has to take care of three meals (& snacks!) every day of the week.

First of all tomato is not a vegetable. it's a fruit. so ketchup should be classify as a smoothie or a very thick fruit juice ;)

I love this post. I agree 100%, we have become so fixated on nutrition we have no idea what food is anymore. There are pills that squeeze in a full days serving of fruits and veggies - really? What on earth? How does this do anyone any good?

I have lost faith in American's reverting back to the "old" way of eating. Corporations have such a large financial stake in what people put in their bodies. I dont see them giving up easily. It bugs me but makes me more committed to local eating.

I completely agree!!! So often people focus on nit picking, and that's when some start trying to create loopholes to achieve their agendas. I think all these rules (while perhaps intending to protect child nutrition) make it really hard on the lunch ladies who would love to serve healthy food but can't meet the requirements.

As a fiscal conservative, I think Reagan was a genius with that idea. I also thank Amy Kafala for clearing up the hype that I have also always heard about the ketchup.

Yes! As a kid we always ate meals together as a family...and they never came from a paper bag or a box. I'm shocked at how some families are eating these days. We all have the same number of hours in our day, better planning can lead to family meal time.

I know exactly what you mean - there's a pin that reads "I love organic food, or as our grandparents called it, food" - which is somewhat an exaggeration, but my friends and I repeat that quote to each other all the time!

I totally agree that we are forgetting about food. I never even thought about nutrition growing up but we always had a homecooked meal of meat, veggies and a starch on the plate. It was always balanced and it was never processed. I think in today's busier world we are needing more pre-packaged meals and things that are easy to make. I fear that leads hyper-vigilance to what is the nutrition of those meals than realizing that a quick meal can be made at home of real food. When I have my children, I am going to teach them how to cook and what each food means to them and their bodies.

Yes, I most certainly think we have become hyperfocused on "nutrition" that we have forgotten that the healthiest food we can eat is actually food...unprocessed, straight from the ground/air/water/land food! It's so sad to me to see sugary cereals with added vitamins and nutrients, when if you simply skipped the cereal and had oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, you would have all the vitamins you need. This is a bit of a soapbox issue for me, but it is an important one and one I wish schools would support more.

Grrr. It looks like my first comment didn't take.

Ketchup actually has higher amounts of cancer fighting lycopene than a tomato (all canned tomato products do), which I always thought interesting. Not that I would go around calling ketchup a vegetable. I think every other nutrient is cooked out of it by the time it becomes ketchup.

I've said that a few times when we've had a less than nutritious lunch (like pointing out the vegetables on a pizza?), but it was interesting reading the origins of the phrase. Fortunately, it became more of a joke than a model for child nutrition!

I didn't grow up learning about food, so I have had to teach myself everything!!

I'm having a major "I feel old" moment right now. I totally remember this being an issue in the 80s (I couldn't have been any older than 7 at the time). It was quite the debate! Then again, I lived in a pretty hippy-dippy town at the time so it makes sense that there would have been more outrage.

I'm still flabbergasted that this was even considered. I know kids pout the stuff over everything, but how much ketchup would you have to eat to equal one tomato?! Not to mention all the processing that it goes through. Gross! It makes me wonder if they consider pickle vegetables... sure they're cucumbers (even whole ones sometimes!) but they're so preserved that I can't fathom considering it a substitute for a salad or a side of broccoli.

Thank goodness ketchup doesn't count as a serving of vegetables! I love it too - what's not to love? Sugar, salt and tomato, yum. I grew up with a garden also and have a garden in my backyard now. It's important to me that my daughter grow up with a garden and family dinners made up of mostly non-processed foods. It does bother me that french fries count as a vegetable for school lunches and that the crust of the over processed school lunch pizza counts as two grain servings. I don't think banning potatoes in school meals will solve the nutrition problem they have, they need to dig a little deeper on that one.

Why isn't food science a mandatory subject in elementary schools? Why don't PTA's start fundraising for a school garden? Kids are so impressionable that I think if they were exposed to the nature of where foods come from and had a hand in growing foods themselves, it would encourage them to want to make healthier eating choices... I think it's time parents start rallying for a curriculum change - am I alone in this thought?

Ketchup makes me gag.

That said, this is why I try to expose my kids to as much food as possible. They don't have to like everything and I understand some foods are an acquired taste, but they need to try. I am wondering, if as they age and have children over to play, I should try to expose kids to some of our more ethnic meals. Or if I should just serve ketchup. I think I know which one I'll do. ;)

I think there are too many kids today who don't know where their food comes from - it's easy to call ketchup a vegetable if you haven't ever seen a whole tomato! I grew up on a farm and we had a massive garden. I definitely didn't love everything that came out of it and I CERTAINLY didn't love weeding it, but I know where food comes from and I think I make different choices about food because of it. I am a suburbanite now, but I still keep a tomato plant on my deck in the summer and have been known to put a few onions in the ground.

I've always had a weird aversion to ketchup (and mayo!) so it would never cross my mind to make the jump to calling ketchup a vegetable. Now a nice fresh pico de gallo on the other hand...I could see that!

To me, food is simple, Simple non processed and wonderful. We ate Chicken, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, nuts. Food that did not have a lot done to them. Food in their purest forms. I know that this is hard to do all of the time, but when did we get so far away from the simplicity of food? Who even considered ketchup as being a vegetable? I think it is sad.

"I feel incredibly lucky that I grew up knowing food. We had a garden. My family were fishermen. I helped my grandparents make pickles and jams. I went to school with farmer's children." - This was me growing up as well. I am thankful for my raising and heritage, and that I am able to tell the difference between what is silly and where balance needs to come in. Great post!

I remember hearing the ketchup is a vegetable thing and was so glad to read that it never actually had happened!

Banning any one thing seems silly--I really liked the point made in the book about the kids needing to learn about food. So few kids nowadays grow up 'knowing food' like you did, Karen--in fact, I wish I had! :)

There is so much processed food and junk that I don't know if I would even classify what many people eat as real food. I think we have certainly lost our way when it comes to eating real foods. It's just such a difficult problem because processed foods are often cheaper and faster. In this time with all of the economic hardship, affording healthy food can be difficult.

It is such a complicated problem.

And more families should grow up like yours: with a positive experience with healthy food and an understanding of what real food looks like and where it comes from. Sometimes I wonder if there are too many kids out there who only know potatoes as fries and tater tots. I will tell you I am a fan of both, and I agree potatoes shouldn't be banned necessarily, but I think you're right.: balance is the key, at home or school. To be honest, I don't think I will ever be able to be 100% organic or even "healthy" at home, because it is hard to maintain and stay on a budget, but we get closer all of the time. But does that mean that I will deprive my kids of the occasional ice cream or fast food trip? NO! I think marketing has turned food into something it shouldn't be, but I just think it means that it is time for moms to stand up and do the job of making the decisions for our kids and with our kids so they can make them for themselves. There is common sense in eating real food and finding ways to make real, healthy food taste good.

This is exactly why I work my hardest on educating my HUSBAND along with my kids. You see commercial after commercial about the benefits of, say, added fiber in sugar cereals or Hot Pockets. He's even said "ketchup is a vegetable"...as a joke of course, but still! I feel like the more I explain to him the benefits of real food the more my children will learn. We started our first vegetable garden this year, which turned out pretty good, but didn't produce as much as I had hoped. It was the first year in that space, so I'm sure it'll produce next year. I try to remind friends and family that joke about a condiment being a vegetable that two tablespoons of a condiment does NOT equal to be a serving of vegetables. I've also noticed that there are so many people focusing on macros that they forget that a protein shake is not the same as a piece of chicken breast. Carbs shouldn't come from VitaTops all the time. All to often, I'm seeing more and more people, bloggers specifically, get their macros in through "nutrition" and not from "food".

I agree - we do get focused on the latest nutrition data, and forget a bit of our common sense. To echo Michael Pollan (and another commenter) - "Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I'd also add a dash of Maya Angelou - "when you know better, you do better." If I can cook real foods 90% of the time, I consider that a huge success. I am suspect of anyone who proclaims that they ONLY cook from scratch, never allow anything processed, and ensure that their kids only eat locally sourced, organic, whole foods (which are probably vegan, gluten free, and don't come within 100 feet of HFCS)....I think that maybe they should loosen their apron strings a bit.

I think that one problem is we forget that a well planned, good tasting, meal can be nutritious. Another thing is it can be a lot of work preparing "real" food every night. With so many fast options available it's easy to rely on them when you're schedule is packed with work, school, and extra curricular activities. I'm trying to be better about planning a meal that requires chopping, peeling, and cooking.

I have to say I love ketchup enough that I might get a serving of veggies out of it. Kidding! {kinda!}

I think it'd be a little wild to ban potatoes. But limiting tater-tots & fries would definitely be a good thing.

But if we ban potatoes, what will we put our ketchup on???

Seriously folks, it isn't potatoes that should be banned. It's fries, perhaps, or tater-tots (which are only partially potatoes anyway). Potatoes are healthy and delicious and an American classic food. More potassium than bananas and can be grown locally almost everywhere. Just stop processing and deep-frying them. As a kid, I'd rather have mashed potatoes and butter any day than french fries. I still feel this way.

As for all things in moderation, I totally agree with that. I'm just not so sure we know what moderation is anymore.

I agree completely with smilewithme All things in moderation. Ketchup as a vegetable is ludicrous as the pre-packaged version is loaded with sugar (or worse, HFCS) and other additives. A lot of what is being labeled as "evil" has more to do with how it's prepared or preserved and little to do with whatever it started out as. Banning potatoes? How about just serving potatoes that are prepared in a more healthy way instead of deep fried and slathered in melted cheese. Things aren't always black and white.

I think if you give your kids ketchup to eat on a lot of foods that they will forget what REAL food tastes like. All they will ever be craving is a salty, sugar, full of chemicals and crap condiment instead of broccoli or brown rice or beans or chicken.

I liked your line about balance above. I'm a big believer in all things in moderation. OK, yes, I'm fully aware that ketchup (and SO many other things) are not good to put into our bodies but yes, I give my kids ketchup and other processed foods. But in small doses. I wish I could say we're completely off the processed stuff, especially after reading Lunch Wars, but it's a fact that we're not. Certainly I'm more aware now and am making better choices for the family since reading this book (thank you). Also, rare is the occassion where I'm making something out of a box for dinner. I love going to my garden to grab fresh herbs or ripe veggies that I grew myself.

We have definitely forgotten what REAL food is... so much for shopping around the perimeter of the store. What stresses me out the most is that no matter what I do my kids will still be exposed to the "bad" stuff when they are in school or at a friend's house. I feel like I'm brainwashing them sometimes.

After reading the book, I went to my son's school and watched what he bought for lunch. His meal came with 4 tiny nuggets, a whole wheat mini roll , a sliver of watermelon and a whole section of his plate was ketchup! he literally could of bathed his nuggets in it! Gross! I asked him why he took so much ketchup and he said he didn't. The lunch lady put it there.