Beyond that with tin crust, homemade pizza tomato sauce (which is delish, by the way) and properly chosen and generously added toppings (avoid processed meats, especially with too much salt, and make the toppings be more by weight than everything else), it can be pretty healthy.
My homemade pizzas are always a mountain of toppings. I usually go with bell peppers, mushrooms, fresh onions cut in rings, and (un)canned tuna. Sometimes artichoke if I come by it, and/or olives if I have em around. Finish with mozzarella… now I’m hungry :(
A more accurate description would be an “imbalanced” meal. It contains ingredients that would give you needed nutrients, but at the wrong levels. Too much fat and carbs, vs “vegetables” which are also processed and full of added sugar and salt. It’s not the worst thing you could eat, but it isn’t great. To your point, that’s why moderation is so important.
Absolutely. Even if I make pizza from scratch with whole wheat flour and homemade sauce, the amount of vegetables I can reasonably put in/on it is so limited. If I want to mimic a typical pizza as it is served in Germany, I need about 2 mushrooms for the whole thing. Even with the sauce, there is just so much sauce I can put on the dough - and so many veggies I can put on it - before it just becomes a soaky pie. And this is nowhere near a ratio I can really approve of. Our usual dishes consist of 50-80% vegetables. With pizza, I feel like we are just eating 50-80% dough.
Just because whole wheat is good, tomato sauce is good, veggies are good, and a bit of cheese is good, doesn’t mean the combo of it is anywhere near balanced and healthy. We usually balance it with a huge salad but honestly we just don’t like filling up on bread/dough, so we rarely eat pizza.
That is highly dependent on how you make it. Same thing could be said for most meals. A homemade pizza will almost always be better for you than whatever crap dominos is peddling these days
It’s highly dependent how much cheese you put on it, really. Just the base and some (quality) toppings aren’t the problem, but if half of the content is cheese, that’s way too much fat and energy. Personally I don’t like cheese so I only sprinkle a minimal amount of it on top, but I’ve observed most people feel the total opposite and drenching the whole thing in cheese seems to be the preferred way to consume it…
It doesn’t really change that its main component is bread and cheese, with a very low content of vegetables. But sure, better than the extremely low bar you set for yourself.
If it’s homemade (including the sauce) on thin crust of proper bread dough (again, homemade, without adding too much salt) and you’re generous and careful with the toppings (avoiding salty and/or highly processed stuff), the only inherently imbalanced thing is the cheese (which is excessive for something with such a high proportion of saturated fats).
Even the carbs in the pizza base if you go for thin crust are actually less than, for example, in a sandwish.
Then again, homemade pizza done from scratch including the sauce and the bread dough takes more than an hour to make, so people overwhelmingly buy pizza already make (or at least ready to bake), and then it’s loaded crap because you really can’t trust industrial food.
Also even for homemade there is a tendency to add as toppings tasty stuff like pepperoni, which is industrially made for example for preservation it’s loaded with either nitrites (which increases the risk of colon cancer) or salt (which increases the risk of cardio-vascular problems)
Yeah, so basically, a personal, pepperoni and mushroom flatbread pizza, and a salad, and like, a fistful of grapes or an apple.
That’s a reasonably healthy meal, provided you can keep the grease from the meat and cheeses to a reasonable level.
You could also replace salad with just… peas, carrots, beans, whatever, maybe you go with a mango or orange or something for the fruit, who knows.
And of course, if you make/acquire the ingredients for making your personal pan pizza, you have a lot more options for tweaking their nutritional content.
The whole wonderfulness of pizza is that its basically a blank canvas, that tends to work well if you can balance flavor profiles.
Is it? I doubt there are many fibers in there. Unless you count the tomato sauce it doesn’t really contain a lot of vegetables either. I’d be really surprised if tomato sauce on the average pizza is healthy, it’s probably so over processed that all the fibers and vitamins etc are gone and it’s just a big carb nuke. And a pizza contains too much fat as well. A good pizza might be decent compared to most fast food, but I can’t imagine the average fastfood or supermarket pizza being a healthy meal.
Jokes aside, pizza really is a pretty healthy complete meal. As with all things, moderation is the most important factor.
Lots of saturated fat on the cheese.
Beyond that with tin crust, homemade pizza tomato sauce (which is delish, by the way) and properly chosen and generously added toppings (avoid processed meats, especially with too much salt, and make the toppings be more by weight than everything else), it can be pretty healthy.
My homemade pizzas are always a mountain of toppings. I usually go with bell peppers, mushrooms, fresh onions cut in rings, and (un)canned tuna. Sometimes artichoke if I come by it, and/or olives if I have em around. Finish with mozzarella… now I’m hungry :(
It really isn’t though. Low on fibres and high on carbs.
Traditional pizza isn’t all that high in carbs. The US style pizza pies are.
mama mia
A more accurate description would be an “imbalanced” meal. It contains ingredients that would give you needed nutrients, but at the wrong levels. Too much fat and carbs, vs “vegetables” which are also processed and full of added sugar and salt. It’s not the worst thing you could eat, but it isn’t great. To your point, that’s why moderation is so important.
Absolutely. Even if I make pizza from scratch with whole wheat flour and homemade sauce, the amount of vegetables I can reasonably put in/on it is so limited. If I want to mimic a typical pizza as it is served in Germany, I need about 2 mushrooms for the whole thing. Even with the sauce, there is just so much sauce I can put on the dough - and so many veggies I can put on it - before it just becomes a soaky pie. And this is nowhere near a ratio I can really approve of. Our usual dishes consist of 50-80% vegetables. With pizza, I feel like we are just eating 50-80% dough.
Just because whole wheat is good, tomato sauce is good, veggies are good, and a bit of cheese is good, doesn’t mean the combo of it is anywhere near balanced and healthy. We usually balance it with a huge salad but honestly we just don’t like filling up on bread/dough, so we rarely eat pizza.
That is highly dependent on how you make it. Same thing could be said for most meals. A homemade pizza will almost always be better for you than whatever crap dominos is peddling these days
It’s highly dependent how much cheese you put on it, really. Just the base and some (quality) toppings aren’t the problem, but if half of the content is cheese, that’s way too much fat and energy. Personally I don’t like cheese so I only sprinkle a minimal amount of it on top, but I’ve observed most people feel the total opposite and drenching the whole thing in cheese seems to be the preferred way to consume it…
A thin crust veggie pizza is awesome but I’m not sacrificing the amount of cheese so I just eat less pizza :(
It doesn’t really change that its main component is bread and cheese, with a very low content of vegetables. But sure, better than the extremely low bar you set for yourself.
That’s fair. I don’t even want to know what a Jack’s pizza is made out of. Probably compacted crack.
If it’s homemade (including the sauce) on thin crust of proper bread dough (again, homemade, without adding too much salt) and you’re generous and careful with the toppings (avoiding salty and/or highly processed stuff), the only inherently imbalanced thing is the cheese (which is excessive for something with such a high proportion of saturated fats).
Even the carbs in the pizza base if you go for thin crust are actually less than, for example, in a sandwish.
Then again, homemade pizza done from scratch including the sauce and the bread dough takes more than an hour to make, so people overwhelmingly buy pizza already make (or at least ready to bake), and then it’s loaded crap because you really can’t trust industrial food.
Also even for homemade there is a tendency to add as toppings tasty stuff like pepperoni, which is industrially made for example for preservation it’s loaded with either nitrites (which increases the risk of colon cancer) or salt (which increases the risk of cardio-vascular problems)
Yeah, so basically, a personal, pepperoni and mushroom flatbread pizza, and a salad, and like, a fistful of grapes or an apple.
That’s a reasonably healthy meal, provided you can keep the grease from the meat and cheeses to a reasonable level.
You could also replace salad with just… peas, carrots, beans, whatever, maybe you go with a mango or orange or something for the fruit, who knows.
And of course, if you make/acquire the ingredients for making your personal pan pizza, you have a lot more options for tweaking their nutritional content.
The whole wonderfulness of pizza is that its basically a blank canvas, that tends to work well if you can balance flavor profiles.
Toss on some mushrooms, spinach leaf, and a bit of ground beef or sausage and you’re good to go.
Ahh moderation, my arch nemesis.
Everybody needs a goal to aim for, so I make sure to keep well away from reaching it so as not to lose it as a goal.
It’s just bread, it technically has other stuff but in insignificant amounts, it is literally cheese bread.
Moderation is the issue with pizza, at least for me.
I’ve been making pizza and pasta from scratch. It’s basically the exact same ingredients:
But when I’m making pizza I know that I can almost double the amount of flour because we are eating way more pizza than pasta.
Is it? I doubt there are many fibers in there. Unless you count the tomato sauce it doesn’t really contain a lot of vegetables either. I’d be really surprised if tomato sauce on the average pizza is healthy, it’s probably so over processed that all the fibers and vitamins etc are gone and it’s just a big carb nuke. And a pizza contains too much fat as well. A good pizza might be decent compared to most fast food, but I can’t imagine the average fastfood or supermarket pizza being a healthy meal.