Pizza… yum. Lovely cheese, tangy meat, a few veggies, all baked into luscious richness. It’s the staple food of children, teens and college students. Pizza day is the most popular day at school and it’s something even the pickiest eaters enjoy.
You might guess it is all bad, but there are actually some benefits to eating pizza. The good is more than just in the taste!
That lovely pie is a calorie bomb. One slice of cheese pizza contains about 213 calories. You’ll get 18% of your day’s allotment of saturated fat, 20% of salt, plus carbohydrates, sugar, and cholesterol. And how many people eat just one slice?
One slice of pepperoni pizza ups calories to 313 – more than 1/3 from fat! You’ll get 29% of saturated fat, 32% of salt, as well as carbohydrates, sugar, and cholesterol.
Ok… you do get calcium, potassium, iron, vitamins A and C.
Wipe the grease from your chin and consider the aftereffects of eating pizza. You might feel bloated and overfull. It’s the salt. Your heart is having to work extra hard to move blood through your body and your kidney is struggling to remove extra water. Your arteries, brain, heart and kidneys are taking a beating.
You might feel constipated. There is very little fiber in the average pizza and all that cheese is stopping you up. You may get headaches, acne, hemorrhoids, and even bad breath.
Pizza is easy on the taste buds and hard on the body. Given all the side effects from constipation to heart attacks, slowing down pizza consumption is important. If you eat pizza as a treat, go for a whole wheat, unstuffed thin crust, heavy on the veggies and light on the cheese and meat.
With a few simple tweaks, you can make pizza healthier, but you still should only eat it once and a while. And limit yourself to one slice, not the whole pie. And… final hint, cut back on the beer too. It’s just adding insult to your kidneys and belly.
The Express News
