Healthy pizza?

Sign me up! Food chemists have now produced a healthy pizza made with whole wheat flour and cooked longer to release more antioxidants. The disease fighting antioxidants were increased by a whopping 82 percent when baked at a higher temp, and increase by 60 percent when baked twice as long, and they doubled when the dough was allowed to rise an extra day. I don’t have the patience for that last one.

“The key important factor is that it’s made with whole wheat flour,” said Marla Luther, a University of Maryland graduate student studying food sciences. “The whole whet flour is higher in antioxidant than just regular all purpose flour, and it’s those antioxidants that we studied,” added Margaret Smitka, a registered dietician who participated in the study.

“The important message is. . . the little things you do at home may make your diet better,” says Liangli Lu, PhD, a food chemist from the University of Maryland.

Antioxidants are nutritional substances that combat the damaging effects of oxidation in animal tissue. They block the process by neutralizing free radicals which can damage cells, proteins, and DNA. They may play a role in preventing cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s and arthritis.

Since Americans eat a crazy 350 slices every second of the day, it would do us some good to sneak some disease fighting nutrients in where we can.

Source: UMD, ScienceDaily