Outliers: Pizza purveyors wage their own ACA fight

Outliers will admit to loving pizza, but we've always felt a bit guilty wondering just how many calories those cheesy slices contain.

Now an industry-funded coalition is hoping to keep those calorie counts under the counter. Politico reports that “an old-fashioned political food fight” is under way in the Beltway with pizza makers arguing that a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requiring chain restaurants to provide calorie counts shouldn't apply to pizza.

According to the group—with the amiable name of the American Pizza Community—there are apparently 34 million ways to order a pizza, making advanced disclosure of an individual pizza's calorie count somewhat more difficult than the simpler burger-and-fries combo. The group is lobbying for a change in requirements that would instead mandate calorie counts for a slice rather than a whole pizza and average totals rather than specific calorie counts.

Consumer groups disagree.

“They want a huge exemption for pizza,” Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told Politico. “They want to define what a serving size is themselves so they can finagle the calorie counts.”

We'll take a thin crust with mushrooms and green peppers, please.