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Pizza is probably one of the top guilty pleasures for most people along with a new study published within the journal Public Health Nutrition has examined how a couple of healthy tweaks could make that slice of deliciousness just a little bit healthier.
Conducted with a team of Scottish researchers, the study looked specifically in the classical, personal-sized Margarita pizzas, that have a set crust, a ladle filled with sauce along with a sprinkling of cheese.
“Traditional pizza ought to be a low-fat meal containing at least one portion of vegetables, so mainly produced from ingredients related to better cardiovascular health,” study author Mike Lean said of Margarita pizzas. “However, to enhance shelf-life, commercial pizza recipes today include much more fat and salt than desirable.”
“Until now, nobody has stopped to see that lots of essential minerals and vitamins are very low or perhaps completely absent. From a nutrition and health perspective, they’re hazardous junk,” said Lean, a physician and nutritionist at the University of Glasgow.
First, the team of researchers determined the nutritional content and excellence of commercially-available pizzas. As many as 25 Margarita pizzas were included for analysis, varying in calorie content, ranging from 200 to in excess of 560 calories. Few of the pizzas in the study approached the 600 calorie mark that will turn it into a proper meal, the Scottish team said.
Just 6 of 25 pizzas in the study contained an excessive amount of total fat, or 25 percent of total energy, with eight having an excessive amount of saturated fats and only two having a desirable degree of less than 11 percent total energy. The majority of the fat within the pizzas came from the cheese, the scientists said.
To result in the tiny traditional pizza into a nutritionally-balanced meal, at least 45 percent of the energy intake may come from carbohydrates, they said. Five pizzas within the study didn’t meet this requirement due to high-fat and protein contents.
Of the few pizzas that had readily available vitamin and mineral content information, none met the recommended value for iron, vitamin C and vit a, they said.
“While no pizzas tested satisfied all of the nutritional requirements, many of the requirements were met in certain pizzas, which told us it should be easy to customize the recipes to make them more nutritionally-balanced without impacting on flavor C health by stealth, if you like,” said Lean.
To make the pizzas into a healthier food, they modified a modern pizza recipe by reducing the quantity of salt used and adding whole-wheat flour, a tiny bit of Scottish seaweed to improve flavor, vitamin B12, fiber, iron, vitamin A and iodine, in addition to adding red peppers for further extra ascorbic acid.
The ratio of bread to Mozzarella cheese was changed to fix the carbohydrate-fat-protein proportions minimizing saturated fats content. After cooking, the brand new recipe was analyzed within the laboratory.
The team also conducted a taste test with the public, with both children and adults giving it positive reviews for taste and attractiveness, the research said.
“There really is no reason pizzas and other ready meals shouldn’t be nutritionally-balanced,” Lean said. “We show it is possible with no detriment for taste.
“Promoting ‘healthy eating’ and nutritional education have had little effect on eating habits or health to date, and taking so-called ‘nutritional supplements’ makes things worse,” he added. “We can’t all make entirely home-made meals, so it’s time that manufacturers took making their products more appropriate to human biology, and that we have shown then [sic] how you can get it done. Rather than sneaking in additives like salt, they could be boasting about healthier ingredients that may benefit consumers.”
