Research reveals what’s unhealthier: supermarket pizza or chain pizza

Putting a pizza from the supermarket in the oven yourself, or ordering from a fast-food pizza chain – do you regularly find yourself faced with that choice? Convenience sometimes wins, of course, but if you have to choose between these two options, it might be good to know that in one of the two cases you’re still eating just a little ‘healthier’…

If you ever order a (whole) pizza for yourself, it might be useful to know that doing so can easily push you over the recommended maximum amount of salt for one day. And when it comes to calories, you’re obviously not exactly on the healthy train either; as a woman, you’d only be allowed two more slices of bread with peanut butter for the rest of the day before exceeding the recommended 2,000 kcal limit.

More than a thousand pizzas

Tim van Kuppeveld is (only) a third-year Healthy Living student at HAS University of Applied Sciences in Venlo, but his research is so extensive and thorough that the Netherlands Nutrition Centre fully endorses his recommendations. He compared 449 supermarket pizzas with 585 pizzas from well-known chains and demonstrated that a supermarket pizza generally contains less salt and fewer calories than a pizza ordered from one of the familiar chains.

A sizeable one

This is mainly due to the size of the average pizza. Because takeaway and delivery pizzas are generally almost half as large again as supermarket pizzas, the drawbacks naturally add up quickly. But when it comes to salt content, supermarket pizzas aren’t healthy either, and some even contain more salt per 100 grams than chain pizzas.

Pizzas topped with meat or fish in particular generally contain a lot of salt. Eating too much salt can lead to high blood pressure and kidney problems. The saltiest supermarket pizza contains 2.7 grams of salt per 100 grams, while the saltiest chain pizza contains 1.9 grams. Quite a difference, but don’t forget that a supermarket pizza weighs 380 grams on average, while a chain pizza weighs 702 grams on average.

Less often, but top quality

The advice, if you’re going to order a pizza anyway? Choose the smallest one, or share a pizza. Even better advice, if you ask us? Don’t eat pizza often, but when you do, choose a beautiful thin-crust pizza from a real Italian, with high-quality toppings and ingredients that you enjoy so much that you can dine out on that amazing pizza experience for a while!

Also read:

• Here you’ll find the tastiest pizzas in the Netherlands
• 5 things you didn’t know about peanut butter
• Mastino’s vegan pizza is worth going out of your way for (even if you’re not vegan!)

Source: Netherlands Nutrition Centre