HealthyPosted on 09.05.2014

What’s Healthier – The Pizza Round

This week we’re asking pizza one is naughty and which one is nice.

Say ciao to the four cheese pizza, and aloha to the Hawaiian. Which one’s calling your name?

Naughty – Four cheese

The legendary four cheese pizza – it’s a testament to how delicious cheese can be. Melty, oozy, with beautiful stringy bits of cheese.

But a pizza that’s so heavy on cheese won’t exactly have room for the nutritious bits on a pizza, namely the tomatoes and other veggies.

Usually, the only nod in the direction of veggies you’ll find on a cheese feast is a slick of tomato puree on the pizza base. That’s not enough to give you any significant benefit, and certainly not enough to undo the ‘naughtiness’ of all that cheese.

The type of cheese you get will depend on your individual takeaway, but Cheddar or Jack cheese is always popular for their tastiness and stringiness. Then there’s provolone and gorgonzola. And mozzarella, of course, is a pizza classic. And if you’re really lucky, there’ll be some cheeky parmesan in there too.

Whatever ends up on your pizza slices, cheese contains a high proportion of fat, including saturated fat. It’s also high in salt, which can contribute to raising your blood pressure. You don’t want that.

If you’re set on a cheese heavy pizza – see if they’ll make it with mozzarella. It’s lower fat than other cheeses.

Nice – Ham and pineapple

Hawaiian pizzas, while delicious, aren’t perfect! But, set against the other choices on your average pizza menu, a Hawaiian is one of the healthier options.

For starters, the main ingredients are relatively low in fat and calories (and certainly less calorific than toppings like meatballs, pepperoni and cheese).

Ham is a processed meat, and it’s best to keep our intake of these to a minimum. It’s also salty, which increases blood pressure. So if you order this, it’s a good idea to concentrate on keep an eye on the salt you’re eating the rest of your day, and cut it down!

Cheese makes up a smaller part of this pizza than many others, and you can always ask your takeaway to go easy with the amount they use on yours – the pineapple and the ham are so packed with flavour you won’t miss it!

Sadly, the pineapple doesn’t nudge this pizza into my ‘health food’ category – in order to get enough fruit to make up a portion towards your five-a-day fruit and veg target, you’d need to eat an unhealthily large amount of pizza! Just rest assured that this is one of the lighter pizza choices.

What will you go for? Get Pizza from JUST-EAT now!