This is good news. According to the April issue of Health magazine (sadly, not available online), pizza is health food:
Italian researchers recently found evidence that people who regularly eat pizza have healthier hearts than those who don’t. … In a study of nearly 1,000 people, those who regularly ate the equivalent of 4 to 5 American slices a week were 56 percent less likely to have a heart attack than people who never ate pizza; those who had eaten half that amount lowered their risk by 36 percent. The researchers’ earlier work showed that pizza eaters get fewer digestive tract cancers.
The article goes on to mention something about not ordering “fatty extras like sausage or extra cheese.” Yeah, right. And I believe Dottore Silvano Gallus of the Istitute di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri in Milan would go all Roberto Benigni on the suggestion from the editors that you “order veggie toppings and insist on just a sprinkle of mozzarella.” That is simply not a pizza.
Slice of cold pepperoni and mushroom for breakfast, anyone?
This may be heresy to some, but for the desperately dieting among us, I can recommend Weight Watchers’ Smart Ones pizzas. I like both the Deluxe (‘everything’ on it, though very little of ‘everything’) and Ultimate Veggie, which actually has semi-fresh tomatoes on it. For microwaveable freezer diet food, it ain’t bad. (They’ve helped me lose over 50 lbs, so hey! It works.)
MMMmmm….pizza.