Here is a good question, Is Pizza Healthy? My instinct says yes. What’s wrong with bread with tomato and cheese? But that’s not really a good answer, so I took my basic ingredients; Flour, tomato sauce and cheese and started analyzing them. The result is not completely accurate as it doesn’t take into account the cooking process in the wood fire pizza oven, and any molecular change that would happen because of it. But it does give a good enough indication to answer the question.

For the purpose of the discussion, I’ll cut down pizza to its most basic. I’m using Western Australian Pizza flour, which is basically a finer milled baker’s flour, so quite high on protein. I’m using Shredded Mozzarella, which is semi-hard mozzarella with starch to keep it from lumping. Lastly, I’m using Mutti Pizza Sauce, it is fresh tomato pulp. I’ll go a bit deeper on each one:

The Calorie intake of the elements

Pizza flour is quite similar to bakers’ flour, it has very similar properties. i.e. high protein in order to create the gluten fibers. I’m using Western Australian flour because that where I’m at and we have huge wheat fields, so why not? Per portion this flour has 386 calories, 77.2g of carbs and 12.5g of protein. It is also reach in potassium and low on fat. To this flour I had salt, water, olive oil and yeast. The slow ferment allows the yeast to develop antioxidants, this does not turn the pizza into a super food, but it’s something.

Mutti tomato sauce is the most famous one in the world, it is a staple of quality in this globalized world, and I’m quite happy with it. Pizza sauce is nothing more that peeled crushed tomato, the cooking process should happen on the pizza in order to preserve the tomato flavor. As a side note, up until a couple of hundred years ago it was believed, in Italy, that tomatoes are poisons, therefor the passata and tomato paste were more common as they got the poison cooked out of them. This is partially true, they are from a notoriously poisonous family, but so are many other vegetables, this might be the topic of another story. For our purpose a portion of sauce is 16 calories 2.64g carbs, 0.7g of protein and is reach in Calcium, Vitamin C, Potassium and Lycopene.

I use shredded mozzarella; this is basically semi hard mozzarella with anti caking agent and starches to keep it from sticking and turning into one big mozzarella ball again. I like it, it’s white, not rich in flavor but have great texture, which in my eyes is fantastic, I feel like the cheese job is to bring in the stretchiness in the pizza as well as the caramelized cheese taste, and not to be a dominant flavor. Per portion it has 144 calories, 1.6g carbs, 9.6g Protein, 11.2g fat; out of which 7.2g saturated fat. And is very reach in calcium.

Average Pizza Intake

So, each one of my 9’ pizza catering is (without toppings):

Calories

546g

Carbohydrates

81.5g

Protein

22.8g

Fat

13g

       Saturated Fat

     7.43g

Calcium

288mg

Pottasium

107mg

So, is it?

I have run it against the recommended meal intake and it is mid-low range of intake per meal, more interestingly, when it is analyzed in percentages it shows a balanced nutritional value to caloric value, meaning that according to your body size you can eat more or less and still keep in nutritional. I would just add an apple, can’t go wrong with an apple. Keep that in mind for your next pizza party.