Seriously. It has a bit of bread, some tomato sauce, a bit of meat, some cheese, and some vegetables. It's like an open faced sammich. Why is pizza picked on as something that you shouldn't eat?
As I see it, the biggest problem with pizza is that it's the Lisa Lampanelli of the food world. It has set out to offend as many people as possible. Unlike the comedian, who many think is funny in how she picks on the different types of people, pizza has just earned a bad rap. Everyone knows that pizza is just bad for you. It's just common knowledge, right?
Well, I may stand alone in what I'm going to say here but I think pizza has been unfairly picked on and that there is nothing wrong with pizza, under the right circumstances. First though, let's look at who the bastard child of the food world has offended.
Vegans. Pizza has cheese and the most popular pizza is probably pepperoni. Nasty, nasty, nasty.
Vegetarians. They may fair better as long they can get past the fact that everyone around them is eating pizza with meat on it.
Low Carbers. All of the stuff that they would eat is sitting on top of bread. Get the deep pan from Pizza Hut and you'll throw these people into a fit.
Gluten Free. Good luck on finding a commercial pizza that is free of gluten.
Paleo. Bread and cheese, no thank you please.
Primal. Bread again.
The bottom line is this. If you hold to some kind of strict diet out there in the world, pizza has something on it that's just not going to work for you. It manages to combine all the ingredients in the world into one little circle.
Worse still is that many pizza sauces have sugar in them or worse that even, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). You know how I feel about HFCS. I don't know for a fact that commercial places like Pizza Hut and Dominos have sugar of HFCS in their sauce but I would be very surprised if they didn't. Big chains like that don't usually pass up on the food addiction trifecta: sugar, fat, and salt. With some sugar, pizza easily makes it onto the addictive substances list.
But wait! That's not all!
At the big chains, the side dishes are usually more of the same. You can start off with garlic bread or breadsticks. You can have a pasta dish on the side. For dessert, you can have cinnamon sticks or chocolate bread sticks dipped in chocolate. How much bread, sugar, salt, and fat can you stuff into one meal? Visit a chain store and find out.
After all of that, how do you get to still enjoy the yumminess of pizza? Well, first, you have to realize that there is a good chance that the yumminess comes from the addiction factor. Understanding that, it's still possible to enjoy pizza, at least if you are following the Success Warrior Diet TM, which is much less strict that all of those listed above.
First, make it yourself and eat at home. I'm going to cover this a lot in this blog and will be addressing it specifically sometime in the near future. Making your own food and eating at home is better for you on several different levels.
Second, start off with a salad. The Success Warrior diet goes very light on bread. I try not to outlaw anything but some things are better kept in check. Bread is one of those things so having an appetizer of bread, a main course of bread, and a dessert of bread is out.
Third, it will come as no surprise after the last paragraph but go with a thin crust.
Fourth, don't put sugar on your pizza (unless it's inside of fruit like pineapple). If pizza is an open-faced sammich, can you imagine sprinkling sugar on your ham and cheese sandwich? Blech!
Fifth, eat your pizza at the dinner table, not in front of the TV. Eat it with friends or family. Have a glass of red wine with it (Gasp!). Truly enjoy your pizza.
Sixth, if you need some dessert, go with some kind of fruit dish.
In my book there is nothing wrong with pizza. I think it has earned a bad wrap because of the very strict diets out there that have become the new religions of the world and because of how pizza has changed in ingredients and side dishes. If you have a large deep pan pizza delivered to your house in a cardboard box that is filled fat, salt, and sugar and also have 2 liters of Pepsi with it and have breadsticks and cinnamon sticks and then watch it in front of the football game, then yes, you can't be surprised that it's not good for you.
If you make your own pizza so that you can control what goes into it and can have great conversation with friends and family over the dinner table and truly enjoy the experience of the meal, then pizza can certainly be part of your life.
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