According to Health.Yahoo.net, “When pizza was first invented, back in some long forgotten Italian village, it was a nearly perfect slice of nutrition: A thin crust of carbohydrates for energy, slathered with tomato sauce for vitamins and minerals, and topped with calcium-rich, protein-boosting mozzarella. It was like a food pyramid in pie form!”
“So what happened? How did this healthy Italian invention acquire a reputation for being so terribly unhealthy? Well, to start, American food manufacturers got their greedy little hands on it. As we began researching the Eat This, Not That! book series, we discovered marketers were up to all sorts of mischief that has made it easier for Americans to gain weight—doing creepy things like loading the top up with fatty meats, infusing the crust with hidden cheeses, and otherwise turning the healthy pizza pie into a Big Mac with crust. Mama Mia! It’s too bad, too, because pizza is a staple of American life. During last year’s Super Bowl, Papa Johns sold more pies than there are people in Delaware. And it’s only the third-biggest pizza chain (Papa Johns, not Delaware). So if you want the best of both worlds—the health benefits of the Italian style and the football-rooting fun of the American way of life, then you need to know which pizzas should be showing up at your door at halftime—and which should get called for a 15-pound penalty. (And for more of the best health, fitness, nutrition and weight-loss tips that will improve your life instantly, make sure you follow me here on Twitter.)”
#7: Worst Supermarket Pizza
DiGiorno For One Traditional Crust Supreme Pizza
790 calories
36 g fat (14 g saturated fat, 3 g trans fats)
1,460 mg sodium
No, it’s not delivery, but it is dangerous. This is how DiGiorno handles the personal pie: with 60 percent of your day’s sodium, 70 percent of your saturated fat, and more trans fat than you should consume in an entire day. If your heart had a voice box, it would be screaming in outrage.Â
Eat This Instead!
Stouffer’s French Bread Deluxe Pizza (1 pizza)
430 calories
21 g fat (7 g saturated)
820 mg sodium
#6:Â Worst Multi-National Pizza
California Pizza Kitchen Tostada Pizza with Grilled Steak (1/2 pie)
840 calories
16 g saturated fat
1,649 mg sodium
With a caloric heft like this, you’d expect this Tex-Mex pie to be massively portioned. It’s not. The big fatty price tag draws not from size, but from the combo effect of tortilla chips and ranch dressing. Switch to the equally interesting Four Seasons Pizza, which carries artichoke hearts, salami, mushroom, tomatoes, onions, and two cheeses, and you drop nearly 400 calories per half-pie serving. Â
Eat This Instead!
Thin Crust Four Seasons Pizza
480 calories
9 g saturated fat
1,567 mg sodium
Bonus Tip: Take a look at the weapons of mass inflation being whipped up in the labs of the mad fast-food scientists: The 20 Scariest New Restaurant Foods! Be afraid—be very afraid!
#5:Â Worst Single Slice
Sbarro Stuffed Pepperoni Pizza
960 calories
42 g fat
3,200 mg sodium
Sbarro serves up elephantine slices, so you should know better than to order one that essentially consists of two of those slices folded one atop another. In this one wedge of pizza, Sbarro manages to pack in nearly as many calories as you’d find in four pepperoni slices from Pizza Hut! You want to survive the Sbarro super-slice challenge? Stick to a regular pie, nix the pepperoni and sausage, and limit yourself to one slice.
Eat This Instead!
Fresh Tomato Pizza
450 calories
14 g fat
1,040 mg sodium
Bonus Tip: Sure, pizza has the potential to inflate, but it’s certainly not the only food to cause widespread weight gain. Case in point: The 15 Worst Burgers in America. You’ll also learn which burgers to eat instead, so you can enjoy your favorite foods and still lose weight—without ever dieting.
