Public Interest Group Says Pizza Helping Boost U.S. Obesity Rate

Pizza is helping to boost the fast-climbing rates of obesity and heart disease in America, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

A plain piece of cheese pizza provides half a day's worth of saturated fat, according to a CSPI report. Adding more toppings to the pizza just makes things worse for people trying to lose weight or just stay healthy.

Although most people would not choose to have a second Big Mac or Quarter Pounder, many people reach for a second, third and even fourth slice of pizza. Just one slice of Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust Meat Lover's pizza is equal in fat content to a Quarter Pounder, the report said, and one slice of Pizza Hut's Big New Yorker Sausage pizza has more fat than a Big Mac.

CSPI analyzed different varieties of pizza from the major pizza fast food outlets and only found three pizzas worthy of the nonprofit organization's "Best Bite" ratings: Pizza Hut's Hand Tossed Veggie Lover's, Papa John's Original Crust Garden Special, and Domino's Hand Tossed Cheese special ordered with only half of the regular amount of cheese. One-fourth of a large version of these three pizzas contains about a fourth of one day's saturated fat and about 500 calories.

The single best thing you can do to improve your pizza is to order it with less cheese, says CSPI.

"More cheese on your pizza means more crust in your arteries," said Jayne G. Hurley, CSPI nutritionist and study director. "The saturated fat in the carpet of cheese is one of pizza's biggest problems -- adding fatty meats just makes matters worse. But any pizzeria worth its sauce should happily accommodate a request for half the cheese."

Other CSPI findings and recommendations include:

• Order a half-the-cheese pizza and get vegetable toppings, which are lower in calories and richest in nutrients;
• Avoid stuffed crust pizzas, which have cheese injected into the pizza crust;
• Stay away from multi-meat combination pizzas; and
• Avoid side orders like cheese bread, Buffalo wings and bread sticks.
  

Other sources: CSPI