Good news! The consumption of fresh vegetables is about to skyrocket, thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which ruled that frozen, batter-coated french fries are in the same category as broccoli and spinach. This ridiculous ruling spotlights the conflict inherent in the USDA’s dual roles as the nation’s cheerleader for homegrown foods and government arbiter of nutrition.

While nutrition workers in the USDA are formulating what foods belong in government-endorsed recommendations for healthy diets, commerce workers down the hall are redefining “fresh vegetables” and handing out subsidies to sugar growers. While the nutrition side is figuring out the proper menu for school lunches, the commerce side is helping fast-food businesses come up with items that will increase the sale of cheese.

The frozen fries fiasco arose from – what else? – a lawsuit. A frozen potato industry group sought protection for growers under a 1930 federal law designed to ensure that growers of fresh vegetables would be paid if their contractual partners went out of business.

But first the Frozen Potato Products Institute had to get the USDA to classify batter-coated fries as fresh vegetables. The agency did just that last year, noting that the ambiguity of the 1930 law gave it leeway. Of course, the USDA could’ve cited that same law in saying, “are you kidding?”

When a bankrupt food distributor challenged the ruling, a federal judge backed the USDA. To do so, the judge had to overlook some inconvenient facts about how such fries are made.

“After partial dehydration, the potato strips are coated with aqueous slurry.”

Yum. And what exactly is aqueous slurry?

“The aqueous starch enrobing slurry … is comprised of a combination of chemically modified ungelatinized potato starch, chemically modified ungelatinized cornstarch, rice flour and other optional ingredients.”

Yep. Just like picking those spuds right out of the garden.

Since the USDA’s ruling, it has noted that the classification is for commercial purposes only. The nutrition guys down the hall assure us that this particular “fresh vegetable” is not recommended.

The country hasn’t seen this kind of comedy from the USDA since 1981, when it tried to reclassify ketchup as a vegetable for school-lunch purposes.

As the nation faces an obesity problem, it might behoove the government to uproot its nutrition people and transplant them in Health and Human Services. That way the USDA can carry on its commerce role with a straight face.

In the meantime, be careful when you super-size those fresh vegetables.