Ketchup

The things that go through a do-it-yourselfer's mind when she's in the kitchen....

There was all that hoopla in the 80s about the eeeeevil Pres Reagan wanting to classify ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch programs. Did he, or didn't he? Was it a misunderstanding that got blown out of proportion by the media that hated the President? Whatever it was with regard to politics, I thought something altogether different.

Anybody who's ever made ketchup realizes just how many (many many) tomatoes go into a batch of ketchup. It crossed my mind that people of Reagan's generation would know that. They had moms who made ketchup. They had moms who canned. They got sent out in the garden to fetch more produce for mom to put up. The young whipper-snapper reporters don't know where ketchup comes from. Yeah, sure, they know there's tomato in it. But do they really know?

I am fully aware that a tiny little ketchup packet on a hamburger does not constitute a "serving" of vegetables. But it seems to me that 1/3 cup of ketchup dipped up with fries at least provides some lycopene and vitamin C. If we can say that carrots cooked down to mush and tossed with butter and brown sugar is a vegetable; if we can call green-bean casserole a vegetable; if we can call jello salad or store-bought fruit-leather a fruit; then certainly we can call ketchup a vegetable.

In my house, a quart of spinach salad or a half-pound of steamed broccoli is what we call a "serving of vegetables." But if we're going to play the American Nutrition Game, then it just bugs me that people bash Reagan for calling ketchup a vegetable.