'Healthy Pizza' on Its Way

If you, like many people around the world, love pizza but try not to eat to much because is not healthy, there is good news today.

At the University of Maryland, a study has been conducted by the university's food chemists on one our favourite foods, pizza. The pizza being used is made from whole-grain wheat pizza dough, a much healthier option. The main focus of the study is to try and increase the presence of antioxidants already found in the whole-grain pizza dough. The researchers attempted to achieve this by allowing the dough more time to rise and baking the pizza in a hotter temperature for longer periods of time.

Antioxidants play an important role in our health. There have been a number of findings recently released that support the need to consume antioxidants, as they help to fight against cancers and other diseases. Antioxidants help protect our bodies from free radicals which can damage our cells and trigger cancer.

When Jeffrey Moore, a researcher on the pizza project spoke to Reuters he said, " The reason that we chose pizza is just because it is a very popular product, not only in the U.S. but worldwide." "So we thought if we could find ways to improve (its antioxidant) properties, doing this for such a product could have a larger impact on public health."

However, Moore did point out, that even if they produce a healthier pizza, consumers would need to be weary of cancelling out the good effects with over doing the toppings, such as, loading the pizza with extra cheese, sausage and pepperoni. Moore said, " It you're adding back all these other things that have potential negative health consequences, then you're negating anything that you're adding in terms of (health) value."