2020 Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar is facing some heat over a previous stance that classified pizza sauce as a vegetable in school lunches.
During a CNN town hall, Thomas Satterthwaite, a sophomore at Harvard University, asked the senator about a letter she sent to the USDA in 2010 petitioning them to keep frozen pizzas in school lunches, thus allowing for the sauce to be counted as a vegetable.
The letter came after the USDA began considering a new rule that would no longer count tomato sauce as a vegetable in school cafeterias.
The Harvard student pointed out that her letter was sent to help protect a frozen food company in her home state of Minnesota, and asked “to what extent do you believe that the financial interests of corporations in your home state should outweigh the health of American’s next generation?”
Klobuchar responded by acknowledging that the letter was a mistake, but said that she made the decision to protect an employer dealing with a difficult economy while still calling the question “fair criticism.”
“First of all, I made clear in a New York Times article a few years later…We were in the middle of the downturn and it was a little more, I would say, complex in terms of the language; but it’s a fair criticism,” the 2020 candidate said, adding, “I’d said I’d regretted sending that letter.”
The Minnesota senator went on to say that the letter, “was about trying to keep a company afloat in a really small town that employed a bunch of people. But I think that nutrition is paramount for this country and that’s why way before I was running for president I said that that was a mistake.”
That company was Schwan Food Co,. a major supplier of frozen pizzas to schools in Minnesota that would have been negatively impacted by the new USDA position, according to The Hill.
In the 2014 interview with The New York Times Klobuchar referenced, the senator said, “I did not want the rule changed legislatively,” adding that, “I would not send a letter like this again or take this position again.”
She told The Times that her primary concern was how the rule would impact Minnesota farmers who were still dealing with the impacts of the recession.
When pressed further by CNN moderator Chris Cuomo, Klobuchar made her stance on pizza sauce clearer, saying, “No, I didn’t think that frozen pizza with tomato sauce on it, I do not believe should be counted as a vegetable.”