Is Pepperoni Pizza Healthy?


I don’t know about you, but without pizza, the world would be a pretty sad place! However, the world also doesn’t look so great when you’re feeling lethargic thanks to unhealthy eating or lifestyle choices. With all of that said, the question is, “Is pepperoni pizza Healthy?”

The average slice of pepperoni pizza is not considered healthy for human beings because it contains 13.5 grams of fat content, 5.5 of which are saturated fats, as well as 311 calories and over 700 milligrams of sodium. Although individual ingredients like cheese and meat can have health benefits, when they are baked together into pepperoni pizzas, they are not healthy.

So all of that sounds pretty grim if you are a pepperoni pizza lover who, like me, also hopes to stay healthy. However, there is a ray of hope! You can still manage to stay healthy if you understand exactly what pizza is doing to your body and limit your intake of it.. In this article, we’ll go over this topic in detail, covering ingredients and their effects on humans!

What is in a Pepperoni Pizza?

In order to discern whether or not pepperoni pizzas are actually good for us, we’re first going to have to understand what is in them and how that affects our bodies. Let’s go over the list of pepperoni pizza ingredients, on average, below!

· Dough

· Tomato Sauce

· Mozzarella Cheese

· Pepperoni

· Butter

These are, in a nutshell, what your pizza slice contains across the board, with a few variations depending on your favorite pizza place’s recipe standards. But what do these ingredients have to do with staying healthy? Let’s find out by breaking them down!

is pepperoni pizza good for you?

Dough

Whether you’re trying your hand at making pizza dough at home or, like me, you’d rather order one hand-made by professionals, it all starts with a good old-fashioned ball of pizza dough! Pizza dough, in turn, contains the following ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt, and usually, olive oil.

Now, on its own, you should know that all pizza dough really is can be boiled down to plain white bread. White bread is noted for having plenty of calcium content. Calcium, which is great for your bones, is actually a substance that human being are encouraged to eat!

However, just four slices of white bread on its own would more than fill up your body’s recommended need for calcium. And while it is doing that, it is also suffering the disadvantages of

being a processed food. This means it spikes your blood sugar. That can lead to heart disease and diabetes.

That is what dough can do to the human body alone. However, we’re talking about pizza: when combined with the other ingredients, is dough really so bad?

Both white dough and tomato sauce contain carbohydrates; in fact, they are huge sources of carbs! White dough also contains one gram of fat, and this, along with the mozzarella cheese’s fat content, means that when you eat pizza you are mixing your carbs with your fats.

Why is this such a bad idea? Well, mixing carbs and fat sends a signal to your brain that leads us to want to overeat. Not only that, but it causes our cells to store more fat, collectively.

Tomato Sauce

What about tomato sauce? After all, not only do we love that tomato sauce adds a little sweetness to offset the savory pepperoni, but it is made from fruit! That means it has to be healthy, right?

Not necessarily. Actually, most pizza sauce isn’t made with tomatoes all on their own. Instead, standard tomato sauce recipes tend to contain tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano or other herbs, and, unfortunately, granulated sugar. The sugar is added to make the tomato flavor really pop, and although it is delicious, it is certainly not good for you.

Just one quarter of a cup of pizza sauces, especially tomato based ones, also contain 34 calories and 0.7 grams of fat. What’s worse, they mix this fat with carbs, which, as previously stated, is a good way to addict your brain to eating too much and gaining weight.

Mozzarella Cheese

Say what you will about various recipes, but in my opinion, pizza just isn’t pizza without mozzarella cheese! However, is mozzarella cheese healthy for you? The unfortunate answer is, no, not really.

Mozzarella does its part for the human body if you are snacking on it alone by offering up protein and calcium content at the same time. Protein helps your body to build up energy and recharge your cells, and calcium is great for your bones.

However, methods for creating modern day mozzarella cheese kind of ruin these health benefits by containing big amounts of salt and saturated fats. This may be a recipe for the creamy cheese we know and love but it is also a recipe for heart disease.

Pepperoni

Finally, our star player, the pepperoni that makes it a delicious pepperoni pizza! This topping can turn your pizza from good to outstanding in no time at all, at least when it comes to taste and texture. But what about health benefits? What does adding pepperoni do to a pizza?

Pepperoni is not a nutritious addition to your pizza, I’m afraid. It is sad to say, but although pepperoni is meat and should be considered a source of protein, it has the disadvantage of being a cured meat.

This means that it is super high in sodium and, again, that villainous saturated fat. Sadly, all of this concludes in harming your heart in the long run, bumping up your risk of high blood pressure that overworks your organs.

In Conclusion

To sum up everything that we have gone over up, a Pepperoni Pizza is delicious, but it is absolutely not good for you. Pepperoni pizza is made up of several ingredients that, while only mildly harmful to health on their own, are even worse when put together to make this delicious food.

The main reason pepperoni pizzas aren’t good for you is because they combine ingredients that are high in carbohydrates with ingredients that are loaded with fat. Mixing carbs and fats leads your brain to want to overeat, and shifts fat into your cells.

This can lead to obesity, but it can also have you feeling lethargic, weak, and, on top of it all, feeling like you need to eat more when, in reality, your body has had enough! So although pizza is delicious, you should make sure you are not overeating when it comes to pepperoni pizza.

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Sam Brett

Sam Brett is the founder and editor of Pizzachefhq, a pizza enthusiast who writes about what he's learned on the way of being a pizza creator and sharing his advice, tips, and research.

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