by Rachel Stockton

Created on: July 07, 2008

Some of these debate questions on Helium leaving me scratching my head, because a lot of them, in my opinion, can't be answered with a mere "yes" or "no." I mean, the older I get the more I realize that there are very, VERY few questions that can be answered in such black and white fashion. However, I digress; the question of black and white versus gray is another article entirely.

So, back to the question at hand: "Is pizza healthy?" That's like asking "Is marriage good for you?" The answer to both is "It can be."

Pizza, for the money, gives one a pretty good bang for the buck. It has, for example, all four-five food groups in one dish. For those who think it's expensive, I ask, "What other dish provides a serving of all of the food groups on the food pyramid?" The answer is, of course, not many. To provide access to so many types of foodstuff, one typically must eat several dishes at once.

However, I WILL say that the way pizza is prepared in large part determines whether the servings provided are truly nutritional.

I've eaten thick crust pizza, where, I swear, the yeast continues to rise in my digestive tract. I end up feeling as though I swallowed a ball bearing within a matter of hours. I feel sluggish, and just pretty "yucky" after consuming it.

But, if the crust is thin, and made with whole wheat? Well, that's another story entirely. I feel sated, but not bloated. So, the first caveat for pizza to be "healthy" is that it must be made from whole wheat flour, not white flour, and the crust should be "light".

Secondly, the vegetables should be fresh; the mushrooms shouldn't be the courtesy of Green Giant. And, to get the most nutritional value, the more varied the vegetables (in type and color), the healthier the pizza. I heard a nutritionist say once that in order to get all of the vitamins we need to get in one day, we need to eat about 18 different foods. That's a lot. But, in a pizza, it's easy to provide many different foods in one sitting.

Then, there's the question of cheese part skim mozzarella is preferable, as the caloric density is much less than if the cheese is made entirely from whole milk.

The sauce, if it's tomato based, provides lycopene and antioxidants by the boat load. One centegenarian in our community attributes her longevity to the fact that she eats one tomato, or tomato product, per day. Makes sense to me.

Then, of course, meat can be added. Here, as with all of the other ingredients we've discussed, we can make healthy choices, or not so healthy ones. Pizza made with Canadian bacon and grilled chicken or anchovies can provide protein dense nutrition without a lot of fat and preservatives. Pepperoni and sausage? Well, certainly they provide protein, but at artery clogging expense.

So here's the bottom line: there is probably no healthier entre than a pizza made with whole wheat (easy on the crust), lots of fresh vegetables, part-skim mozzarella and some lean protein. In answer to the question, "Is Pizza healthy?"; a pizza made in this fashion would get a resounding "YES!"

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