Potatoes and Fries

[Guest guest]

Hey now!

 

I did a google search to ketchup with the news on

this. Here is a story on it. Thinking of how the

government operates is so unapeeling as to make me

spudder.

 

While the idea applies to commerce and not nutrition,

it is still half-baked. It us the logic of the USDA

and makes it hard to root for them.

 

Muchpeace,

Jerry

 

Judge: French fries are a fresh vegetable

By IRA DREYFUSS

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Batter-coated french fries are a

fresh vegetable, according to the Agriculture

Department, which has a federal judge's ruling to back

it up.

 

But the department said Tuesday that the

classification applies only to rules of commerce, not

nutrition, and it doesn't consider an order of fries

the same as an apple in school lunches.

 

The ruling last week by federal District Judge Richard

Schell in Beaumont, Texas, allowed batter-coated

french fries to be considered fresh vegetables under

the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. Most

other frozen fries had been on the list since 1996.

 

Regulations under the law help to assure buyers of

commodities such as french fries that they are getting

what they ordered, said George Chartier, a spokesman

for the department's Agricultural Marketing Service.

Frozen fries are fresh simply because they don't meet

the standard necessary for them to be listed as

processed, and adding batter to the fries does not

change the classification, he said.

 

The commodities act does not apply to nutrition, where

batter-coated french fries are still considered

processed food.

 

The department does not plan to repeat its experience

in trying to classify ketchup as a vegetable in school

lunches, Chartier said. The ketchup-as-vegetable

proposal was put forward in the Reagan administration,

and the department dropped the idea after it found

itself not only opposed but laughed at.

 

The department's proposal to list batter-coated fries

as fresh under the commodities act provisions was

challenged by a Dallas-area food distributor, Fleming

Companies. The company is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy

reorganization, and the law requires creditors who

sold fresh fruits and vegetables to be paid in full,

while other creditors might get partial payment, said

Fleming Companies' lawyer, Tim Elliott of Chicago.

 

Fleming Companies plans to appeal, Elliott said. The

law was intended to protect growers of fruits and

vegetables, especially small farmers, and the ruling

misconstrues the act's intent, he said.

 

" It's unfathomable to me that, when Congress passed

this law in 1930 and used the term 'fresh vegetable,'

they ever could have conceived that large

food-processing companies could have convinced USDA

that a frozen battered french fry fell into that

definition, " Elliott said.

 

Although Fleming Companies sold the fries to

supermarkets, most are eaten in fast food restaurants,

Elliott said. The coating makes the fry crunchy and

adds flavor, he said.

 

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May the next person you meet see compassion in your eyes.