Pizza has a bad reputation because many health gurus say it is an unhealthy meal. There are options to make it better and healthier for you so is cheese pizza healthier than pepperoni?
One of the automatic thoughts that come to mind when someone says pizza is that it is such a delicious meal but that comes with the guilt that it is going to make you fatter or unhealthy.
However, if you choose the right ingredients to put in your pizza, you will actually have a healthy meal. You can limit your consumption or mix it with other foods to balance the nutrients you get.
Pepperoni pizza is one of the favorites of most people. It has a lot of flavors and the texture perfectly complements the crunchiness of most pizza crusts that are made with other toppings.
Cheese pizza can be considered a healthier option if you want a pizza that does not involve meat or too much fat. However, there are things that go much deeper than the fat content.
So here, we will be seeing what these types of pizzas contain and see which one is a healthier pizza for you. That way, you will not need to feel guilty when you eat those delicious slices.
What Are The Benefits?
While most pizzas contain a lot of bad fats, there are also some that will help your health. You do not have to worry about getting fat or having risks of getting heart diseases.
However, you do need to limit the consumption in order to avoid those threats. Despite having beneficial nutrients, pizza also contains harmful ones if they are eaten in large amounts.
Here, we will discuss the health benefits that you get from both cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza. That way, you will know what actually goes inside your body and which one is healthier.
Has A Lot Of Protein
Protein is an important nutrient for the body as it is responsible for building and rebuilding our muscles and other damaged tissues. There are also other benefits along with that.
Cheese pizza is actually an amazing source of protein. With a single slice, you actually get around 23% of your daily protein intake that is needed by your body to function properly.
You can also enhance the cheese pizza by putting some lean protein in it or switch to whole wheat flour when making the dough. It will become healthier for you and give you more benefits.
Since protein gives you enough amino acids to break down other minerals, it is very helpful in making your muscle tissues healthier. They also improve the tissues within the organs.
While pepperoni pizza does not contain that much protein, it helps the body in absorbing it. Pepperoni pizza contains a mineral called manganese which provides many enzymes.
For a single serving, you will get around 13% of the daily requirement of your body. This mineral helps in releasing and using enzymes in the body to digest other minerals as well.
The relation of manganese to protein is highly important. Our body has a hard time absorbing lean protein, so manganese actually helps in digesting the protein with the help of enzymes.
Other Benefits Of Manganese
While we are on the topic, manganese is a very helpful mineral. Aside from letting our body digest protein properly, it also functions as a medium for other bodily functions.
Manganese helps in absorbing cholesterol and carbohydrates. So while you are eating fatty food, you will also be able to absorb the important nutrients that help your body.
Because of the many minerals that manganese helps absorb, it also improves other body functions. It helps in making the bone healthier by keeping a healthy development inside.
Manganese is like a healing mineral that helps in both muscle contraction and wound healing. That means that it can help in keeping your wounds closed to prevent infections as well.
Good Source Of Phosphorus
Cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza are actually good sources of phosphorus. Both of them contain almost the same amount with the cheese having the edge of more phosphorus.
Phosphorus is a beneficial mineral to the body as it helps build teeth and bones. It is what helps us develop bones and fix them when there are fractures or broken bones in our bodies.
This mineral is also a part of our RNA and DNA. While it does not do a lot on that level, it is important to keep the structure of the DNA and keep it safe from viral infections and mutations.
Phosphorus is also a great part of our metabolism. It helps generate energy in every cell so you have all the power you need to function through the day, you can feel this when eating some cheese.
That is why in this category, the cheese pizza wins. Depending on the thickness of the pizza, you will get more phosphorus with cheese pizza plus it has a lot of calcium to help you too.
Maintain Healthy Bones
One of the more obvious minerals in cheese is calcium. Calcium is popularly known for its ability to keep the bones healthy and maintain strength to prevent injuries and fractures.
It is pretty obvious that cheese pizza contains more calcium than pepperoni pizza. In fact, in one serving, a cheese pizza can deliver up to 20% of the daily calcium intake of average humans.
That means that if you get enough of the calcium from cheese pizza, your bones will continue to develop healthier. It also reduces the loss of bone tissues as our bodies inevitably age.
Calcium also helps in the contraction of muscles and will actually give you more strength, which includes the heart. A small amount of calcium intake also goes to the body’s blood-clotting ability.
Obviously, you can get calcium from pepperoni pizza as it often includes cheese. However, it is also more prominent if you just go for the plain cheese pizza to get that much-needed calcium.
Selenium For The Immune System
Since the cheese pizza has an advantage over the pepperoni, it is only right that we mention here the mineral that pepperoni pizza has more than the cheese pizza.
Selenium is a rich mineral or antioxidant that helps boost the immune system. This antioxidant helps manage and limit the free radicals that we usually get from different foods and others.
Not only does this antioxidant limit the number of free radicals from our own metabolism but it also reduces the ones we get from our environment. It helps prevent diseases from pollution.
It also helps in improving the human body’s reproductive abilities. Along with that, it keeps the thyroid hormone metabolizing properly and also helps in DNA synthesis.
For every 48 grams of pepperoni pizza, you get 15% of the daily needed selenium. This mineral is hardly found in cheese pizzas so you see clearly that pepperoni pizza wins this round.
Beware Of…
Now that we have seen the different benefits and nutritional values of these two types of pizzas, you still need to keep in mind that they do have some harmful effects if eaten too much.
You can limit the effects by tracking the amount and kinds of minerals that come with the pizzas. That way, you will know how much you can eat before it gets too unhealthy for your body.
So here, let us see what you actually eat when you take a slice of each pizza to make sure that you get just the right amount of nutrients you need and limit the bad ones at the same time.
The Amount Of Calorie
While calories can be good for your body to maintain the balance between fats and muscles, it does not take much before your body takes a toll with too many calories in the body.
That is why it is one of the minerals that we prioritize in burning when we exercise. Both the cheese and pepperoni pizza contain a lot of calories that will most likely harm your health.
So if you are eating a bunch of slices, then you need to keep track of how many calories you have eaten to see how much you need to exercise to burn them and keep your calorie-content balanced.
Unhealthy Fats
Fats are one of the three important nutrients that our body needs. However, not all fats are good for the body and even if you eat healthy fats, too much can result in obesity and other health problems.
Cheese has a lot of healthy fats but just like pepperoni, it contains unhealthy fats as well. This is especially true with pepperoni pizza as it contains a lot of saturated fats that are truly unhealthy.
Pepperoni pizza also contains trans fat which is another type of unhealthy fat. Too much of these can make your blood vessels clog or even worse, you might experience strokes.
Nitrates And Preservatives
Cheese pizza does not have that much of an issue with preservatives as it is intended to age. Yes, there is a limit for the cheese to be stored but it hardly gives harmful effects on the body.
Pepperoni, on the other hand, needs to be stored for long periods of time, and in order to do that, you need a lot of preservatives. The meat easily spoils without these preservatives.
Such preservatives are the nitrates used commonly in pepperonis. It does great to the color and the flavor of the pepperoni as it helps maintain them even after a long storage time.
However, the health content of the meat itself decreases because of this chemical. It triggers headaches and migraines and is also believed to have a slight effect on pregnancy.
How Can You Improve The Pizza?
While these chemicals and harmful minerals sound threatening, you can actually avoid them or at the least, limit them. Here are some tips that you can follow to make your pizza healthier.
You can change the flour that you use when making the dough. The best option for making the dough healthier is to opt for whole wheat flour when making your pizza crust at home.
By doing this, you reduce the number of calories that you eat. This goes with both types of pizza and if you want to reduce the number even more, then you can reduce the cheese and meat.
Making your pizza at home is also a great tip. Commercially-made pizzas are usually heavy with saturated fats which means that the only way you can reduce them is to make the pizza at home.
Conclusion
Pizza in general is a great food as long as you know where to stop because let’s admit it, it is very hard to stop eating slice after slice. That is why you need to know which one is a better choice.
Between cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza, I would prefer cheese pizza for the health content and the flavor as well. But I cannot stick to that alone so I would go for a pepperoni every now and then.
All pizzas have their own charm so it is up to you or your mood on which type of pizza you want at the time. It all relies on your preferences but a healthier choice would be to go with cheese pizza.
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