6 Clean Eating Pizza Recipes for the Whole Family to Enjoy! (2024)

FAQs

Is pizza a clean food? ›

There are plenty of pizza choices that can be considered healthy. Some options that can easily fit into a nutritious and balanced diet include a thin-crust pizza and a cauliflower-crust pizza. Topping choices on the more nutritious side are vegetables, chicken, shrimp and cheese.

If you are looking for some ways to enjoy pizza in a healthier way, whether you're ordering it out or making it at home, here are some tips, according to dietitians: Choose thin crust. Look for whole-grain or vegetable-based crusts. Skip the meat—or opt for leaner meats, like chicken or shrimp.

A clean diet may include whole fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and healthy fats while limiting highly processed snacks and other packaged foods with added sugar and salt. It may also be associated with terms like plant-based, grass-fed, sugar-free, or gluten-free.

Often a diet staple of college students and busy families, frozen pizzas are popular meal choices for many people. While there are exceptions, most are high in calories, sugar and sodium. They're typically highly processed and contain artificial preservatives, added sugar and unhealthy fats.

Healthy Pizza Toppings

Turkey sausage and roasted chicken provide a healthy and satisfying alternative to regular pepperoni slices. Bell peppers, mushrooms, and black olives are common pizza toppings, all pleasantly nutritious. Some other nutrient-rich options include butternut squash, tofu, lox, and artichokes.

The Italian (real) version of a pizza.

An authentic recipe sources the freshest ingredients possible, usually with local produce and real farmer's cheese. The unhealthy reputation is simply false, especially when the pizza is layered with seasonal vegetables and healthy meats.

Wheat Flour (Crust)

The crust is the main thing that makes pizza unhealthy. Humans didn't consume significant amounts of wheat until about 10,000 years ago, when we started farming and domesticating animals.

Pizza is high in saturated fats due to cheese and processed meat toppings, which can increase your cholesterol levels as well as risk for heart disease. Eating three-four slices of pizza or more, on a regular basis, can have detrimental health consequences.

A diet with a calorie surplus is fattening. While there is no standard "slice" of pizza we can measure, having 4 typical slices in one day is not going to have any long term effect on your weight as long as the rest of your diet is reasonable and healthy.

Can ice cream be healthy? ›

At the moment, we simply don't have enough good quality evidence to suggest that ice cream definitely has any health benefits. But a couple of small portions a week – paired with an otherwise healthy diet and exercise regime – is unlikely to do much harm.

Pizza is high in saturated fats due to cheese and processed meat toppings, which can increase your cholesterol levels as well as risk for heart disease. Eating three-four slices of pizza or more, on a regular basis, can have detrimental health consequences.

Pizza can be used for bulking phases as part of a well-organized approach. Including a few slices of pizza into a well-balanced bulking diet where the majority of calories are still made up of nutrient-dense, healthy foods can provide a host of benefits on top of a large amount of calories and protein.

What we eat has a big impact on our health, and ultra-processed foods like candy, soft drinks, pizza and chips do not contain enough of the beneficial nutrients that the body requires. The more ultra-processed foods we eat, the poorer the overall nutritional quality of our diet.

While it's true that many types of pizza are rich in calories, fat, and sodium, those made with fresh, whole ingredients can be a healthy addition to anyone's diet. Traditional-style pizza is made using wheat, yeast, water, salt, oil, tomato sauce, and fresh cheese.