Is pizza a vegetable? New bill would make it official

(CNN) - The idea of a well-rounded school lunch may skip the "wellness" factor and skip straight to the "rounded" - in the form of pizza.

Congress unveiled its latest short-term $182 billion spending bill late Monday, which among the legislation, would deny funding to the new - and healthier - school meal nutrition standards the Department of Agriculture proposed earlier this year amid growing concerns of childhood obesity.

The new USDA standards included increasing the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk while decreasing the amount of sodium, saturated fat and starchy potatoes. If passed, the spending bill would keep French fries on school lunch trays and allow a serving of pizza to be considered a vegetable if it is spread with two tablespoons of tomato paste.

"If finalized, this legislation may go down in nutritional history as a bigger blunder than when the Reagan Administration tried (but failed) to credit ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch program. Pizza should be served with a vegetable, not count as one," said Margo Wootan, Nutrition Policy Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in a statement.

The House and the Senate are expected to vote on the bill later this week before sending it to President Barack Obama.