- LOS ANGELES -- Think
of fresh vegetables and you think of fields of crops, or perhaps rows of
supermarket shelves brimming with luscious, colourful variety.
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- But thanks to the US department of agriculture, American
consumers will no longer have to bother with such healthy fare. A little-noticed
ruling by the department reclassifies french fries as fresh vegetables.
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- Arguing that the process of coating or battering a vegetable
does not change the end product, the department has ruled that a chip is
as fresh as, and indeed not that different from, a waxed lemon.
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- The change, introduced last year after pressure from
the US chip industry, will come as a relief to parents who weary of the
daily battle to persuade their offspring to eat fresh vegetables.
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- The ruling came to light this week after a Texas judge
ruled against a lawyer who challenged the reclassification on behalf of
a bankrupt vegetable distributor. The judge, Richard Schell, agreed with
the agriculture department that the term "fresh vegetables" was
ambiguous.
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- Lawyers for the department had argued in court that chips,
far from being a processed food, were in fact still fresh.
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- "While plaintiff argued that batter-coated french
fries are processed products, they have not been 'processed' to the point
that they are no longer fresh," the agriculture department's lawyers
argued. "It is still considered 'fresh' because it is not preserved.
It retains its perishable quality."
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- The change was first proposed in 2002 after lobbying
of the agriculture department by the Frozen Potato Products Institute.
The amendment to the perishable agricultural commodities act, which was
drawn up in 1930 to protect fruit and vegetable growers, goes beyond potatoes
to include most battered vegetables as well as products such as caramel-coated
apples.
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- The reclassification will be welcome news to the french
fries industry, with consumption having dropped in the US. In 2001, consumers
ate an average of 13.3kg (29.4lb) of frozen potato products, down 2.4%
from 1996.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1239835,00.html
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