A valentine's pizza is essentially a pizza shaped like a heart. A variety of chain pizza restaurants, including Papa John's, Papa Murphy's and Domino's offer heart-shaped pizzas leading up to Valentine's Day on February 14. While pizza is not unhealthy, especially when eaten in moderation, the loads of pepperoni used to brighten your Valentine's Day pie add saturated fats, sodium and calories.
About Pizza
Tomato sauce, calcium-rich cheese and vegetables are all ingredients for a healthy meal. Claudia Zapata writes on San Antonio Express-News' website that every pizza starts with great health potential. According to the USDA National Nutrient Database, an ordinary slice of cheese pizza from a chain restaurant is low in cholesterol, contains 272 calories, 9.8 g of fat and a variety of healthy vitamins and minerals.
Valentine's Pizza
Read the fine print. The size of your "slice" serving depends on the size of your pie, which changes that nutritional content in your meal. Papa Murphy's Valentine's Day pie is a large, regular-crust pizza with cheese and pepperoni. Papa John's Valentine's pie is a 14-inch pizza on thin crust with a topping of your choice. Papa Murphy's 106 g slice contains 290 calories, 13 g of fat and 640 g of sodium. A slice from Papa John's 14-inch pie is 94 g. With pepperoni, that slice contains 270 calories, 16 g of fat and 530 mg of sodium.
Healthy Pizza
If you're watching your weight, you can make your own healthier Valentine's pie at home without the extra meat, fat and calories. The health, nutrition and recipe website EatingWell offers instructions for making a low-fat pepperoni pie; all you need to do is cut it to shape. Using whole-wheat pizza dough, low-fat turkey pepperoni, low-sodium tomato sauce, part-skim cheese, you can make a pie with 280 calories per serving, but with just 6 g of fat -- half as much as those from chain restaurants -- and 602 mg of sodium.
Nutrients
A regular, 14-inch cheese pizza with 106 g per serving offers between 12 and 17 percent of the recommended daily allowance of certain B vitamins, 23 percent of the daily value of protein, 14 percent of the RDA of calcium, 20 percent phosphorous and nearly 40 percent of selenium, a powerful antioxidant. Up your nutrient intake by using more veggies. Red peppers will help maintain your Valentine's theme and are an excellent source of vitamins C and A, which are powerful antioxidants, according to the American Heart Association. Antioxidants work by neutralizing free radicals, which travel throughout the body, causing damage to cells and organs.
Considerations
When possible, choose thin crust over regular or thick crust. According to the USDA, a slice of thin crust pizza can have 100 fewer calories per serving plus fewer grams of fat. If you can't use light cheese, which typically is not an option at pizza restaurants, at least forgo extra cheese, which, according to Zapata, is the biggest calorie and fat contributor on a pie. Also, keep your meat at a minimum, or order leaner meats like chicken breast, ham or Canadian bacon. The difference between a slice of pepperoni and an ordinary cheese slice can be anywhere from 50 to more than 100 calories.
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