After the recent declaration by members of Congress that pizza served throughout the nation's school lunch programs should be considered a vegetable (because of the negligible amount of tomato paste in pizza sauce) despite efforts of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act also passed by Congress last year requiring schools to provide more fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, California schools continue to lead the nation in focusing on the health of children by providing exceptionally clean food for students and not including pizza on the list of vegetables.

Late last month, Sam Kass, the Senior Policy Adviser for the Healthy Food Initiatives program, and the USDA's deputy under secretary, Dr. Janey Thornton, visited Edgewater High School in Orlando, Florida to participate in pilot efforts of Michelle Obama's Chef's Move to Schools program.

Despite efforts to increase the nutritional value of food offered to students in moves such as the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, retail giant, Wal Mart's bold initiative to phase out trans fats by 2015, and the USDA's latest announcement of their pledge to upgrade the nutritional profile of school meals, students are still pushing trans fats on each other and their communities by way of Girl Scout cookies that have been marked as containing "0 grams trans fat" since 2007.

Once a safe haven from unidentifiable cafeteria slop, students could subsist on Cheetos, Twix Bars and Cherry Coke, without leaving school grounds, and still insisting they ate "lunch," thanks to the vending machine, which became popular staples on school grounds in the 1980s and 1990s.