SUMMARY: Given the growing clamor for healthier foods and the government's focus on “corporate responsibility” for creating such foods, pizzeria owners should consider a preemptive nutritional initiative. For most foods, “going healthy” translates into designing the product to have less of some “bad thing.” However, we in the pizza industry can go beyond that. We can transcend to a higher culinary plane. That's because we can not only reduce or eliminate the “bad things,” we have the opportunity to design our product to comprise virtually nothing but “good things.” This article lays out 10 easy-to-apply guidelines for accomplishing that.

For decades, pizza has been cast as a culinary demon of the American landscape — a calorie-laden, artery-clogging, heartburn-creating dietary disaster. Although it's true that some folks order pizzas that fit this description, it's also true that pizza can be ordered in a health-promoting format, as well. It's this configurational diversity that makes pizza so interesting, unique, and enduring among food products. It's also what provides pizzeria owners with a potentially powerful competitive advantage in this world of fast-growing nutritional awareness! In short, we have it within our power to create and sell a truly health-enhancing, nutritionally-balanced food — which, for lack of any better term, we'll call Health-building Pizza.

The Basics of Good Nutrition. Nutrition researchers tell us that a health-promoting diet consists of a greater amount of lower-glycemic foods and a lesser amount of higher-glycemic foods. Lower-glycemic foods include proteinaceous foods, fiber-rich foods, and foods made of coarsely ground starches (e.g., stone ground flour). So we're talking meats, non-sugary dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and whole grain products, especially when coarsely ground.

Higher-glycemic foods include sugar-rich foods and foods made of finely ground starches (e.g., conventional finely-milled white flour).

In addition, these experts tell us that we should consume fat in modest amounts only ... and that when we do consume fat, it should be more of the monounsaturated type and less of the saturated and polyunsaturated types. Olive oil comes closest to this prescription, followed closely by canola (or rapeseed) oil.

The 10 Guidelines for Health-building Pizza. When transported into the pizza world, the above nutritional basics translate into the following 10 guidelines for creating a health-building pizza. What's amazing about this is, these 10 guidelines are actually easy to apply. Perhaps the hardest one is the first one, and it's not even that hard. In reviewing these guidelines, bear in mind that they need not necessarily be applied to your current pizza. The best strategy might be to introduce a “health-building pizza” as a new menu item. Here's the guidelines:

1. Use a high-fiber dough recipe for the crust. Using whole wheat flour in the recipe helps. Other ingredients can be added to increase fiber level, as well. For a “super-healthy crust” use a stone ground whole wheat flour. Unfortunately, stone ground flour may not always be available. Plus it tends to result in a heavy, dense cell structure which some pizza-eaters might find unappealing. To check out a Health-building Pizza Dough recipe, click here.

2. Keep sugar to a minimum in dough and sauce recipes — no more than one percent in each.

3. Keep oil and fat to a minimum — no more than three percent in dough, based on flour weight. Use little or none in the sauce.

4. When oil is used, use olive oil. If you want to incorporate olive flavor into a recipe, use virgin or extra virgin oil. If you don't want olive flavor, use "extra light" olive oil.

5. Make it a thin crust pizza. For dough portions, use a 7 ounce dough ball for a 10-inch pizza, 10 ounce for a 12-inch pizza, 14 ounce for a 14-inch pizza, and 18 ounce for a 16-inch pizza. Of course these are guidelines — it's possible to have a slightly thicker crust and still have a healthy pizza, but, generally speaking, the thinner the better.

6. For sauce portions, use whatever amount of tomato-based sauce gives the best flavor. So you have great latitude here. Generally speaking, the more the better, as long as it satisfies customers' pizza tastes.

7. For cheese, use a 50:50 blend of low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella and no-fat mozzarella, or any other (blend of) cheese that has the same amount of protein and fat as this blend. For a cheese flavor-enhancing tip, click here.

8. For cheese portions, don't overdo it. Use no more than 6 ounces for a 10-inch pizza, 8 ounces for a 12-inch pizza, 11 ounces for a 14-inch pizza, and 14 ounces for a 16-inch pizza. To prevent excessive cheese drying during baking, put the toppings on top of the cheese (as opposed to underneath).

9. For meat toppings, use lean meats. Lean ham, chicken, and/or lean ground beef qualify. Typical pepperoni and Italian sausage would not qualify, although it's possible to create lean Italian sausage. If you do apply pepperoni, use it thin-sliced and put on only a light or moderate portion amount.

10. For veggie toppings, include as much or as little of the typical non-starchy pizza veggies as the customer requests — tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and green peppers all qualify.

Interestingly, there are many pizzas on the market today that already come close to meeting these healthy pizza guidelines. So, in fact, pizza is already a healthy food. We're simply talking about making it even healthier.

For a more in-depth look at how to create and market a health-building pizza, check out “Healthy Pizza, Healthy Sales”, an article published in the Spring 2000 edition of Pizza Marketing Quarterly and now located on the PMQ website.

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This article was authored by John Correll.
Response may be directed to john@correllconcepts.com.