“Anyone who says that money cannot buy happiness has clearly never spent their money on pizza.” I honestly don’t know anyone who does not like pizza with their choice of favorite pizza toppings. But I do know many people who try to avoid pizza, thinking that pizza is bad for our health. Pizza has always been associated with high calories, fat and grease. If you are on a diet, the first thing people will tell you is to stop eating pizza. Did you know that according to statistics says an average slice of pizza has 12 grams of proteins?

Here are some surprising health benefits of our favorite food, pizza.

Pizza helps to boost your brain.

The best thing about is that you can choose the ingredients of your pizza by choosing the toppings. Spinach, a common choice of topping, has several benefits. Spinach has high amounts of folate. This vitamin helps increase the blood circulation in your brain. Spinach also has vitamin K, which has various benefits. It helps slow down cognitive decline. Cognitive decline is where you have difficulty in remembering things, concentration and decision making difficulty. Pizza with the right ingredients essentially enhances your memory.

Pizza enhances your mood.

Everyone has definitely heard of the “happy chemicals” dopamine and serotonin. The brain works in the form of pleasure and pain. When you eat pizza, the pleasure part of your brain lights up and leads to the release of these chemicals. You get the feeling of gratitude and enjoyment. Ingredients like spinach, pineapple (though we are divided on the topic of pineapple as a topping) and cheese are all serotonin boosters. Serotonin has a direct effect on your positive and negative emotions. If eating pizza makes you happy, now you know the reason for it. It is essential to eat the food we like, especially in unprecedented times like these wit everything going on in the world.

Pizza is right for your mental health.

Have you wondered why ordering food at home gives you so much satisfaction? It is because you don’t have to go through the trouble of going to the restaurant and ordering food there. You can avoid the traffic. You can avoid meeting new people to order food. This satisfaction releases dopamine in your brain. When you do have pizza with a group of people, pizza promotes social behavior. Your brain releases the hormone ‘oxytocin’ that helps you form a bond with people. Can you believe that pizza helps you in socializing? If you are a shy person, now you have the solution to help you socialize!

As I mentioned above, eating food you love is good for your brain and body.

Nutritional value of pizza

As you can probably guess, the nutritional value of pizza mostly depends on the toppings. It is up to you to choose the best toppings you need.

Tomatoes are one of the most popular toppings. Tomatoes are also in the pizza sauces. It is rich in lycopene, a specific antioxidant. This actually lowers the risk of heart diseases. Lycopene helps lower blood pressure and lower high cholesterol rates. Pizza helps your body absorb this lycopene because of the presence of a bit of fat or oil. Antioxidants also have cancer-fighting properties.

Pizza can also help you eat more vegetables in the form of toppings. It would be better if you can opt for thin crust and eat a little less cheese in your pizza. An Italian scientist has even received an award from Harvard for researching the health benefits of pizza. According to Gallus, certain types of Italian pizza help may reduce the risk of different cancers. It is a full circle considering that pizza got its start in Italy in the 18th century.

Keeping all the health benefits in mind, we can now eat pizza with a clean conscious.  However, we should also keep in mind that eating anything too much might be harmful. Also, to eat pizza safely in this corona virus pandemic, we must make sure that we get the pizza delivered at our place rather than going out. You can grab amazing deals at Edmonton pizza delivery as well