Everybody loves pizza all over the world, right? The delicious salty smell of cheese and tomatoes and all the other ingredients and herbs. If it’s still not heading in the direction of the refrigerator, stay and listen for a moment. The problem is that most pizzas are relatively high in saturated fat, and that’s bad news if you’re trying to keep your heart healthy or battling high LDL cholesterol levels in your blood.
The British Heart Foundation recommends a total daily fat intake of 95 grams for men and 70 grams for women. If you eat half of a typical 14-inch stuffed crust pepperoni pizza, you’ll consume about 75 grams of fat. Therefore, you could regularly exceed your daily fat limit by eating additional dietary fat from other foods for the rest of the day. If you’ve been told to avoid cheese, you may find yourself getting desperate as you crave your favorite food: pizza!
What if there was a type of pizza that was not only friendly to your heart health, but would actually LOWER your cholesterol level, the more you ate (within reason)? It sounds too good to be true? Well, the good news for pizza lovers everywhere is that it’s now possible. Amazing – a heart-healthy pizza packed with healthy ingredients that’s kind to your heart and your health.
A new type of cheese to lower cholesterol.
The breakthrough came with the introduction of a new type of cheese, which has all the flavor of mature cheddar, but can be used as a topping for pizza or lasagna. In the UK this product is known as miniCol. This is a healthy alternative to ‘regular’ cheese and is perfectly safe to eat or cook with, for people concerned about cholesterol levels.
The difference between traditional cheddar cheese and mini-Col is that mini-Col is made from milk, which has had virtually all of the milk fat removed and replaced with high-fat wheat germ oil polyunsaturated and plant sterols. Most plants contain sterols, which are natural substances found as components of certain vegetable oils. Plant sterols are effective in lowering cholesterol by blocking the absorption of cholesterol from the diet and also by stopping the reabsorption of cholesterol produced by the liver. Studies have shown that miniCol is capable of lowering cholesterol levels in the blood.
More information about miniCol can be found here: http://www.emmi-minicol.ch/news/
Pizza Margherita Recipe (Improved)
This recipe is for a basic 14-inch Margherita Pizza, but you can easily add other healthy toppings like tuna, chicken, or extra lean beef (raw meat for marinating and pre-cooking). Because you make it yourself, you know and control what it contains. The daily amount recommended by the manufacturers of miniCol Cheese is 65 grams per person, so the recipe contains 130 grams, enough for 2 servings.
You have two options for the crust: you can make your own using one of the great home bread makers now available, or buy a pre-made pizza crust at the grocery store.
pizza ingredients
Dough (enough for 2 pizzas)
- Water – 1 cup
- Strong flour for making bread – 3 cups
- Powdered milk powder – 2 tablespoons
- Sugar – 2 teaspoons
- Low sodium salt substitute – 1 teaspoon
- Yeast – 2 ½ teaspoons
All you need to do to make the dough is to throw all these ingredients into the bread maker and hit the ‘pizza dough’ button. About an hour later you will have a ball of dough ready to roll into a pizza base.
rest of pizza
- tomato paste tube
- 4 garlic cloves – finely minced
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- Mixed Herbs – 2 Tablespoons
- 1 chopped onion
- 2 tomatoes – sliced
- 1 onion – sliced
- 1 green bell pepper – sliced
- olive oil
- 130 grams of ‘miniCol’ cheese – grated
Assembly and cooking of the pizza.
- Cut the ball of dough into 2 halves. You can freeze one half for another time.
- Spread a little flour on the counter and cover the dough.
- Use a rolling pin and roll out the dough to the size of the pizza baking pan.
- Spread a small amount of olive oil on the pizza pan and rub with a kitchen towel (this will prevent the base from sticking)
- Place the pizza base on the baking tray.
- Spread the tomato paste from the tube evenly around the bottom of the pizza.
- Sprinkle the freshly minced garlic evenly into the tomato paste.
- Gather the tomato, onion, and bell pepper slices evenly around the pizza base.
- Sprinkle black pepper over ingredients.
- Spread grated cheese over top of ingredients.
- Sprinkle the mixed herbs over the cheese, done.
The whole pizza should be baked in the oven at 200 degrees for approx. 10 minutes and served with fresh salad and a glass of red wine.