Reduce pizza damage

Men's Fitness, Sept, 2001

PIZZA may be considered a classic junk food, but experts say that description isn't entirely fair. Not only can pizza be an acceptable source of good nutrition--consider the antioxidant benefits of the lycopene in tomato sauce--but a significant amount of its fat content can be wiped away, assuming that you're avoiding stuffed crusts and multimeat options altogether.

Much of pizza's bad rap is due to the amount of fat in the cheese. But experts say "pizza lite" can be achieved by simply patting the surface of a pizza with a paper towel, a gesture that can remove up to 14 percent of a pie's total fat--about eight grams in a 15-incher--and up to 17 percent of its saturated fat, according to an informal study by the Georgia-Pacific Health Smart Institute of Atlanta.