> [ketchup] counts as a vegetable in school lunches... That is a myth. The truth is fairly complex but boils down to that one agency briefly proposed adopting

> [ketchup] counts as a vegetable in school lunches... That is a myth. The truth is fairly complex but boils down to that one agency briefly proposed adopting rules that might if adopted have allowed things like pickle relish to "count as a vegetable" in certain contexts. Ketchup was not explicitly listed in the proposed rule and the rule never took effect so we'll never know how local authorities might have used that bit of new flexibility. TL;DR: Ketchup has never counted as a vegetable. (Salsa, on the other hand...) More here: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2517/did-the-reagan-era-usda-really-classify-ketchup-as-a-vegetable http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2517/did-the-reagan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable