Flickr/Bitman

Just look at all those nutritious veggies!

Those Democrats. They just won't drop that ridiculous "pizza is not a vegetable" thing. Fox News reports that Rep. Jared Polis, a Democrat from Colorado, has proposed legislation that would stop pizza being counted as a vegetable in public school lunches. The SLICE (School Lunch Improvements for Children's Education) Act also would allow the federal government to set nutritional standards for school lunches.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed a similar rule that would have prevented pizza from being counted as a vegetable in meals, but Congress succumbed to lobbying from the frozen-food industry and blocked it. As a result, frozen-pizza manufacturers are still able to have their product counted as a "vegetable" in public school lunches because it contains tomato paste. (See also: "ketchup is a vegetable," from the Ronald Reagan days.)

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J. Garbee

Froodles On Ice

What exactly is a Froodle? Well, the next time you're at the farmers market, bemoaning the certainty that those colossal summer peaches will never arrive, take a moment to think about what (cold) scientists are eating at this very moment at McMurdo, the largest research station in Antarctica.

In the summer, they get fresh fruits and vegetables from New Zealand, but right now, it's a whole lot of frozen meats, canned fruits and vegetables, and potatoes. In other words, things that ship well to frozen continents, store well and can, preferably, be eaten frozen during those 30-degrees-below-zero lunch hours. Things like Froodles.

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Flickr/net_efekt

An apple a day could make you more attractive

Eating fruits and vegetables isn't just good for you on the inside, it makes you prettier, NPR reports. Apparently produce gives you a healthful glow by actually tinting your skin lovely shades of yellow and red.

Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland found that people's skin color changed in just six weeks when they increased their fruit and vegetable consumption. The students in the study who ate the most produce turned yellower and slightly rosy. (Is that what they mean by a peachy complexion?) The study was published online in the journal PLoS One.

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C1ssou/Flickr

Supermarket apples

If you've ever been stuck at the supermarket register with an apple that's lost its Price Look-Up Code sticker, and a cashier who, despite flipping laminated page after laminated page, can't figure how to charge you for this one piece of fruit, you might appreciate Toshiba's efforts to make everyone's lives easier: its Object Recognition Scanner scans whole fruits and vegetables -- and even varieties within each fruit or vegetable type -- without the need for code look-ups or manual inputs.

The Scanner was demonstrated recently at RetailTech 2012, an industry trade show in Japan. According to DigInfoTV, the cashier only has to hold up the fruit or vegetable in front of a camera; the camera then will recognize the object and scan it into the register. The scanner's camera is specially designed to eliminate noise around the object, "so it can recognize objects very fast, even if they're moving."

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A. Scattergood

Researchers say a compound in oranges, grapefruits and other citrus fruits may lower a woman's risk of stroke, WebMD reports. The study appears in the April issue of the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

Previous studies have shown that antioxidant compounds called flavonoids in fruits and vegetables may help prevent strokes. Flavonoids improve blood vessel function and have powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. In a lovely bit of serendipity, they are also found in chocolate and red wine.

In the new study, conducted at Boston's Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women's Hospital, the specific flavonoids found in citrus fruits, called flavanones, seem to give the greatest protection against strokes.

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Guzzle & Nosh

Medlar rolls at Proof Bakery

Here's a little fuel for the fire of our slow-burning medlar obsession. About a week-and-a-half ago, Proof Bakery in Atwater Village began selling medlar "Tootsie Rolls" made by Jessica Koslow of Sqirl. Made from the ancient and rare fruit (rare in Southern California, anyway), the chewy little candies sell for $2.50 each and have been described as tasting like spiced apple, dates, honey and autumn leaves.

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Flickr/manwithface

Americans love their orange juice.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking into banning all orange juice imports from Brazil after an illegal fungicide was found in a sample, Reuters reports. Brazil is the world's top grower of oranges for juice, accounting for more than 10% of the U.S. supply. About half of the orange juice imported into the U.S. comes from the South American country.

The pesticide, carbendazim, is banned in U.S. citrus but is used on orange trees in Brazil to fight mold. According to the agency, a U.S. juice producer detected low levels of carbendazim in orange juice concentrate imported from Brazil. The FDA said low levels of carbendazim were not dangerous and the agency had no plans for a recall. However, the agency said it would stop any shipments of orange juice at the border that test positive for the fungicide.

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flickr user thomitheos

An Apple-Filled Backyard

Most farmers market discoveries tend to involve a new way cook those black trumpet mushrooms or choose a Crenshaw melon. But some days, you just get lucky. Or perhaps it was our discussion with a few farmers about spaders (a device that tills the soil) that got us to this gem: Trees of Antiquity nursery in Paso Robles.

If like us, you've never heard of Trees of Antiquity, you've probably unknowingly picked up a pint of their Misty Southern Highbush blueberries or had a Chojuro 1889 Asian pear salad for lunch somewhere. The organic nursery, originally known as Sonoma Antique Apple Nursery (they still sell more than 100 varieties of apple seedlings), supplies numerous farmers with seedlings for heirloom fruit trees and bushes. Lucky for us, their seedlings are also available retail, and January happens to be the beginning of the nursery's seedling shipping season.

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Winnetka Farms (left) / Mother Moo Creamery (right)

A medlar on the tree (left); medlar ice cream (right).

What the hell is a medlar? And why is it worth driving to Sierra Madre to find out? After getting her hands on a basket of the ancient, almost unknown and rarely commercially grown fruit, master food preserver and Mother Moo Creamery owner Karen Klemens turned it into a batch of über-rare medlar ice cream. If you want a taste, go now. Klemens made only one gallon, which she expects won't last more than a week.

"People are intrigued to come in and taste it," Klemens says, "but so far, only the true foodies have come in and asked for a scoop."

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clayirving

A Colorado produce company issued a voluntary cantaloupe recall after a 13th death was linked to the melons tainted by bacteria. Some cases of Listeriosis illnesses have been reported in California, but no deaths.

Older adults, pregnant women, newborn children and adults with weak immune systems are most prone to be hit harder by Listeriosis. The bacteria that carries the disease is more lethal than E. coli. Officials linked the current outbreak to Jensen Farms in Holly, Colorado. Tainted cantaloupes were distributed nationally between July 29 and September 10, with illnesses first reported on September 12.

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