Seen a magazine lately? What did the cover say? Probably something about boys, celebrity gossip, or beauty tips. Well, there are an increasing amount of weight loss tips thrown into the mix! Surely you want to look like the models on the cover. Have you been eating healthy, or seen a store that offers organic produce? Trying to be healthy is not only a goal, but also a fad. However, underneath the advertisements for vitamins and fancy exercise equipment, there is still a looming presence of unhealthiness.
The New York Times recently reported that Domino’s, whose sales had been dropping recently, changed its recipe to get back into the black, and, into your waistline. Desperate to jack up the profits, the popular pizza chain worked with an organization called Dairy Management (an entity created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for encouraging Americans to buy dairy products). Together, they launched a new line of Domino’s pizzas, and profits skyrocketed. This was too good to be true–there has to be a catch, right?
Those pizzas had an average cheese content increase of more than 40%.
Now, at first this may not seem like a huge problem, but just one fourth of a pie from the new line of pizzas contained almost four hundred and fifty calories! That’s almost one fourth of your daily calorie requirement. Not only do these slices come with hefty calories, but also 77% of recommended saturated fats, and 66% of a healthy sodium intake. Now, before you cancel that order from Domino’s, rip out their advertisements from the phone book, or make a permanent mental note to never eat there again, remind yourself how delicious that pizza you eat every Wednesday in the cafeteria is. Many students look forward to Wednesdays because pizza is their favorite lunch.
Have you ever wondered what the health situation was in those mouth-watering slices? Ever wondered what made them taste so good? The Hewitt Times reports.
Let’s start with our favorite part of the pizza: the cheese. According to Chef Ron, the Hewitt School orders an average of 85 pounds of cheese per month. That averages out to almost three pounds of cheese used daily! Of those 85 pounds, 60 are mozzarella for pizza and various catering events, and yes, especially that powdered cheese that you heap onto the plain pasta every day. The remaining15 pounds ordered are American cheese, used in the mac and cheese, pastas, turkey, meatloaf, and tacos. Each pie of the pizza contains eight ounces of cheese, and that translates to (assuming it has eight slices) about six hundred and fifty calories in the whole thing. But don’t fret; you can’t possibly eat a whole pie: that pizza is much too filling! A comparison with the new Domino’s pizza (which contains a whopping one thousand, eight hundred calories in the whole pie) reveals that Hewitt’s pizza is thankfully much, much healthier.
The thing about dairy products is that they are all about consumption. Hewitt’s pizza isn’t nearly as unhealthy if you only eat a slice or two (depending on the size). Besides, if you really think about it, the pizza itself is only available on Wednesdays. Eating that much cheese isn’t bad, as long as everything is in moderation. In this case, eating several slices of pizza shouldn’t affect your diet. As long as your diet is full of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, a mild amount of oils, and especially exercise, you should be just fine.
So, there’s nothing wrong with eating pizza, cheese, or any other kind of dairy product, as long as everything is in moderation.