Looking Back: Should we consider pizzas to be a healthy food?

Isn't it funny how a simple dish that some people once dismissed as merely cheese on toast has become the nation’s favourite takeaway meal and with some people, especially children, their most favourite meal of all. The pizza which was a dish that originated as a peasant meal to be eaten in the fields of Mediterranean countries is now eaten by 4.4 billion people worldwide each year.

The word pizza was first documented in 997 AD in Gaeta, Italy and was at first a dish for poor people, sold as a street food. The early pizzas were actually sweet and not savoury.

America has always taken to pizzas in a much bigger way than any other country, of course! One in eight people eat it every day with a large percentage of children eating it for breakfast.

In a time when obesity is a worldwide problem, pizzas may be seen as an unhealthy food choice, although researchers are saying that eating pizza regularly can help prevent oesophageal, colon and mouth cancers.

They also say that it is an important part of the healthy Mediterranean diet being rich in olive oil, fibre, vegetables, fruit, and flour and is a freshly cooked food.

Pizza Express was opened in London in1965 by Peter Boizot who had been very impressed by pizzas when on holiday in Italy, bringing over a pizza oven from Naples and a pizza chef from Sicily.

I remember the first Pizza Hut opening in Sheffield. My children were so excited by the self-service salad counter where skills in balancing as much salad as you could into small bowls were very useful, never mind the pizzas!.

Today, there are many different kinds of pizza crusts and toppings.

The favourite topping in America is pepperoni, while in Japan they like squid on theirs, in Pakistan curry, in Brazil green peas and in Russia red herring. I usually stick to cheese and ham. Boring?