How to Order a Healthy Pizza

Pizza is one of the top 10 favorite foods of most Americans today. I know that in my family pizza is everyone's favorite food. Pizza is also the main food choice for parties and get-togethers, because it can be delivered to your home within 30 minutes and is easy to prepare if you decide to make it yourself.

Unfortunately, even though pizza pleases the palate, it does not please the waistline. Many forms of pizza can range from 250-550 calories per slice; you can see how easily this can translate into pounds on the scale in no time at all, with most people eating 2-5 slices in one sitting. However, if you choose more carefully, you can have pizza without totally destroying your diet. Below is a list of the best things to look out for when ordering a pizza.

Sauce
The traditional tomato marinara sauce is quite good for you and full of lycopenes and is very low in calories, so make sure that you do not substitute this, it is good for you. Now what to look out for while ordering at a Pizzeria is the pizza's that are made with Alfredo sauce or a white sauce; these are usually full of heavy cream and cheeses that add several hundred calories to the pizza. So stay away from white sauce and go with tomato sauce.

Crust
The crust is the main staple of creating pizza, without the crust there would be no pizza. However, you do not have to give up eating pizza if you are trying to live a healthy lifestyle. You just need to make better decisions when ordering. Nutritionally, the less crust you consume the fewer calories, so stuffed crust and deep dish crust are out of the picture, pan baked crust is better, with thin crust being the best calorie wise.

Cheese
Pizza is not pizza without cheese, good old mozzarella. Cheese is a little higher in calories especially the way it gets loaded onto most pizzas. The best ting to do is to order your pizza and go "light on the cheese". Even though cheese is a great source of calcium and protein it also high in saturated fat. If the pizzeria you are at offers a reduced fat cheese, take that option instead of the high fat cheese.

Toppings
While ordering a pizza to make it healthier, most people will opt for a plain cheese or vegetarian pizza thinking they are doing themselves a favor. This is a mistake, as protein will make you feel fuller faster, so you should not forget to add some meat to your pizza. The healthier toppings you choose the healthier your pizza will be and therefore, you can have more. So remember when it comes to toppings lots of vegetables and don't forget the protein.

So in short, the healthiest pizza one could get at just about any pizzeria is made out of thin crust, tomato sauce, light on the cheese with lots of vegetables (onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes) and a meat product. With this pizza you would be able to have 3-4 slices, because one slice of this pizza is roughly 180 guilt-free calories. Now if you could make this same pizza at home you would save even more calories.

References for this article come from my own personal experience from working at a New York Pizzeria and from www.eatingwell.com and www.bellybytes.com