Do you like pizza? Are you afraid to eat it because it’ll turn you into a roly-poly? Or because it’s a bad food? An evil food? One that should be avoided at all cost or you’ll wind up in a confession booth lamenting your dietary woes to a priest?
That’s all right. We’ve all been there. You can also leave that awful pizza demonizing zone. In fact, pizza is a superfood. You just don’t know it yet.
Superfoods
Before we delve into the divine pleasure of pizza, you might be thinking “hey, fuck stick, there’s no kale on it. How the hell can pizza be a superfood?”
The truth is there are no superfoods.
What exists, in reality, are a myriad of foods that offer either a lot or a little. Some foods are high in calories and nutrient dense. A good example would be a sweet potato. One such potato has vitamin C, vitamin b6, and beta carotene.
Other foods have little to no micronutrients and lots of calories. A good example would be a doughnut.
Still, some foods have low calories and lots of nutrients. Like spinach. Or kale. Or tomatoes.
Regarding pizza, what gives?
If you order a pizza and you eat all eight slices in a sitting that can be problematic from a calorie standpoint. We’re talking roughly 2400 calories for a 14-inch hand tossed pepperoni pizza from dominos. On a side note, if you can eat a monster pizza in a sitting, that is quite an achievement.
One slice of the same is 300 calories. A lot more feasible in the context of a well-rounded dietary plan, no?
Make your pizza one of the best superfoods
The above example of a pizza was what we call calorie dense. What if you wanted to chow down on a pizza without the caloric load? There are a few ways to do that. The Domino’s hand tossed has a thick crust. A fuck ton of cheese. Sauce. Pepperoni. It’s also a 14-inch pie. As such, it’s easy to see where the calories come from.
On the other hand, you could go to the Carrabba’s—that great pseudo-Italian chain restaurant in every urban sprawl—and get a decent Margherita Pizza. It has a thin crust, basil, cheese and tomatoes as toppings. The slices are a bit smaller and there are only six of them as opposed to the other example. In other good news, the entire calorie count for that pizza is 698 calories. That’s about 117 calories per slice. Much more feasible, wouldn’t you say?
Of course, the best way to control what you get is to make your own pizza. But even still, there are ways to make your pizza awesome. So, I give you this:
The Five Best Pizza Toppings Ever
The following are in no particular order, but they all have a common thread. They taste wonderful. And most of them are packed full of various vitamins and minerals. Assuming you’re using a thin crust and a lean-ish cheese, you can have a powerful pizza to fuel your fat loss results.
1. Pineapple
Yes, pineapples do go on pizzas. Fibrous, sweet, and packed to its ass in Vitamin C, the flavor of pineapple offers a nice juxtaposition to the savory components found on the rest of your pizza. Goes excellent with bacon.
2. Jalapeño Peppers
These guys have potassium, as well as Vitamins C and A. Not a bad option for your pie if you like a little spice in your life.
3. Tomatoes
Be it in the form of a sauce or thin sliced morsels of deliciousness, tomatoes are filled with lycopene, copper, folate, and biotin. Throw them on and grow yourself some hair and help stave off the anemia.
4. Spinach
I love spinach. Not just for its high Vitamin A content. But, you can cook about ten bags and wilt it so much that it will fit in the palm of your hand. Pretty awesome.
5. Bacon
There is no other reason to put bacon on a pizza other than that it tastes great. It’s salty, fatty, and has a little protein, too. What’s not to love?
Conclusion
Yes, you can make pizza work for you. And I am aware I didn’t list anything as awesome as BBQ chicken pizza or Chicago deep dish. But if you are looking to lose fat, those aren’t the ideal pizza types to include in your plan anyway. Think of them as an irregular treat. On ther other hand, with a little work and ingenuity, you can use some of the toppings listed and make a nutrient dense pizza. Tweak the crust and the cheese, and there you have a manageable option to make into one of your regular superfoods.
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