Great Lunch Ideas Come from Everyone's Favorite, Pizza

Think about pizza as a lunch idea, many of you might remember back in high school, and we won't say how long ago that was, having frozen French bread pizza for lunch. You remember, you always ordered doubles when they had pizza, as did most kids at school. The only problem was that the pizza had a funny smell. Actually, it smelled like Band-Aids. Whatever that combination was in an actual Band-Aid, be it plastic and medicated cotton or who knows what, you would know as you were coming down the hall toward the cafeteria that Band-Aid pizza was on the menu.

Most have not outgrown your love (obsession?) for that Italian delicacy that has all but swept the nation, nor the healing affect it had on you. Yet most pizza lunch stops today have become more sophisticated regarding the fare they offer and the clients they serve. Pan pizza may have dominated long ago as a quick, filling lunch idea, but now the gourmet pizza kitchens have since usurped their thrown.

You are relegated to merely bread, tomato sauce and mozzarella no longer. Oh, no! Now, as you pick up the phone to order lunch for express delivery, you can have pineapple and ham on Hawaiian pizza; broccoli and spinach on veggie pizza; shrimp, lobster or crabmeat on seafood pizza, three- four- and even five-cheese pizza; the meat from any beast on the planet on meat lover's pizza, and any combination in between. Pizza has become a tenable lunch idea once more.

One of the most popular styles today is white or ricotta pizza. The two cheeses combined create a delicacy unparalleled. Thin crust Neapolitan is the standard for luncheon neophytes who want an alternative to ordinary lunch ideas. Sans tomato sauce, white pizza uses the natural oil from the mozzarella and ricotta to enhance the flavor.

Most people today are active, yet still must count calories. You might have been told that pizza was not the best of lunch ideas to consider, yet nutritionally a single slice of white pizza not only gives you sixty percent of your daily allowance of protein, but contains zero saturated fats and no meat! Great news for the country's fast-growing vegetarian society.

Many nutritionists pound the table about how as an American you should have more fiber in your diet. They press you to consider salad bars as the best lunch ideas where you can consume roughage as if you hopped around on four legs and chewed on grass as a habit. Fresh fruit and vegetables are a vital part of every balanced diet, yet, as more health and consumer reports are revealing, a trip to the local salad bar may be more risky than originally thought. This circumstance may cause some to err on the side of safety and choose cooked foods for their luncheon repast.

Whereas many working folk may not have the time or patience to prepare complex meals to take with them to work, there is always a pizza place near by. Pizza is made quickly and sold quickly, thus there is little time for any overage to sit and grow stale. It has been a prime source of nutrition and an excellent lunch idea for decades.

So why do people still run away and hide their love for pizza? Some put themselves through the psychological torture of having a frozen meal for lunch, just so they can say they stayed within the proposed guidelines of healthy eating, only to plunk down twenty dollars or more on a full course meal at dinner to assuage the bane of self-denial. Why do this when you can consider pizza, as you always did, as a healthful and tasty lunch idea, free of guilt?

A slice of pizza, which by the way also contains three of the four food groups (bread, vegetable and cheese), as a lunch idea is a far better way to honor the taste buds, as well as the wallet.