Well, if ketchup could be a vegetable....

A federal judge in Texas - I'm tempted to say "where else" but this kind of inanity is hardly limited to there - has agreed with the USDA that batter-covered frozen french fries are fresh vegetables, according to the June 16 Chicago Tribune.

The case involved a suit against

little-noticed changes by the USDA to federal regulations that govern what defines a fresh vegetable. The changes were made at the behest of the french-fry industry, which has spent the past five decades pushing for revisions to the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act.

Known as PACA, the law was passed by Congress in 1930 to protect fruit and vegetable farmers in the event that their customers went out of business without paying for their produce.

Under an obscure USDA rule, most frozen french fries have been considered fresh vegetables since 1996. Now they all are, under a revision last year that added batter-coated, frozen french fries to the list of fresh produce.

The judge agreed that PACA was so ambiguous on what constitutes "fresh" that the agency should get to decide what it means. So even though the law "states that 'fresh fruits and vegetables of every kind and character' are perishable agriculture commodities," in the words of the judge, we are now to regard sliced potatoes coated with an "aqueous starch enrobing slurry," deep fried, and flash frozen as "fresh vegetables." Exactly what is "perishable" about them goes unexplained.

Footnote One: A USDA news release announcing the revision

says caramel-coated apples also will be considered fresh fruit under the Batter-Coating Rule, [but] officials say the gooey treats would not be included because coating it changes the character of the fruit and makes it a candy.

By that logic, doesn't batter-coating potatoes turn them into bread? You can't have it both ways. If batter-coating doesn't change the nature of the potato, so it's still a vegetable, candy-coating doesn't change the nature of the apple, so it's still a fruit. And, in fact, fresher produce than flash-frozen starch.

Footnote Two: For those of you who respond to this with "Yeah! Just get rid of Bush!" I want you to notice when the rule turning non-batter coated frozen french fries into "fresh vegetables" was established.