I will be the first person to tell you that if you are trying to live a healthy life or even moreso, trying to lose weight, the first thing you gotta do is get the carbs out of the picture as much as possible. This is, after all, the main reason why I was able to lose more than 50 pounds in less than a year.
Yeah, there was exercise involved, but every trainer worth his or her salt will tell you that weight loss is 80% what you put in your body, and 20% what you do with your body. That is proven time and time again in stories such as my own and also tons of scientific studies. As the old saying goes: "You can't exercise away a bad diet."
If you want to be healthier or lose weight, you have to find a way to make what you put in the tank more conducive to weight loss and one of the biggest offenders of this policy, globally, is pizza.
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I love pizza, and when i say that I mean all pizza. I love a NYC slice, a Chicago deep dish, an ultra thin crust pizza, $1 frozen pizzas from dodgy manufacturers, even that shady rectangular pizza that was exactly the size of "main course" area of our high-school lunch trays brings about fond memories.
I mean, what's not to love? Cheese = good, tomato sauce = good, bread = good, most almost all of the toppings = good. I even like pineapple on pizza too!
However, I do realize that this delicacy is one of the major contributors into why it is that I ended up a fat near 250 pound lump and know that I need to regulate it's intake as far as my diet is concerned. That being said, I had a whole pizza myself last night but it was the first time I had pizza in 2 weeks and I ran a 10k earlier that day.
Someone was always going to come along and make a "healthy pizza" and this has come in the form of the hellspawn that is the cauliflower crust pizza.
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Sure it LOOKS like pizza, but so does a lump of wax in the hands of a talented artist and in my mind I only marginally prefer the cauliflower crust over a wax one. For starters, cauliflower is basically the worst vegetable in existence. If I ever have cauliflower it is by accident or it comes included in a "vegetable medley" with my steak at a restaurant (I always hated that term.) If it does come with a meal and it isn't covered in cheese or gravy to help shield me from that awful cauliflower taste, I will pick around it.
So when I heard that there was a carb-friendly crust that came out that was made of cauliflower, I was a little less than enthusiastic. I ended up trying it anyway because I have a mantra of "I'll try anything once as long as needles aren't involved." At least that is my motto that one time I did meth (Pro tip: don't do meth.)
Cauliflower crust doesn't taste like pizza crust, despite the scientists best efforts using chemical magic. It also doesn't hold together the same as dough does because of the very inconvenient attribute cauliflower has of being a vegetable that was sent to earth by Satan himself.
But it's healthier, right?
I did a bit of digging after I tried one of these satan-pizzas at a trendy restaurant and found out that originally yes, it was better for you. But since the original round of near carb-free pizzas were basically inedible and everyone hated them, the manufacturers needed to make changes to reduce the amount of vomiting that was happening in their establishments. Therefore they started "adding stuff" to make the cauliflower crust taste less like cauliflower. These days the nutritional information is basically hidden as far from your prying eyes as possible so that you don't figure out that the dark lord has used his tricks one again.
Now when you order a cauliflower crust hellspawn there is a better than average chance that you are getting the same amount of calories AND carbs that you would be getting if you just ordered a regular pizza.
For example: A frozen pizza that Oprah's fat ass has been promoting (for a fee, no doubt) is oddly 11 inches in diameter and the entire pizza contains 1600 calories. A Red Baron frozen pizza with the same toppings and is actually 12 inches (the way the good Lord intended pizzas to be) is 1520 calories. Guys... the regular pizza has LESS CALORIES than the 'healthy one" now.
But but but but it has less carbs right? Ok, yeah, you got me there... kinda. The Oprah pie clocks in at 39 grams but get this.... the Red Baron delight has a whopping (drum roll) 41 grams! Once you adjust the silly serving size manipulation that Oprah's pizza is recommending the amount of carbs are likely exactly the same. I'm not going to do that math.
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Sprinkle some basil on it, that'll make it look healthier
Just like many things in the "diet" world, they started out with an idea that was in fact significantly lower in calories and carbs and this was possible because it was a disgusting mess. Then they get the public used to the good parts of the deal, then while you are not looking they slowly remove all the health benefits but keep the name and also tell you that it is still healthier.... which it isn't.
Fake news
Guys, if you want to change your diet, then change your diet. This trend of remaking bad foods with good ingredients has never, and will never work. The low fat cookies in the 90's were garbage (and higher in carbs) and this is why you rarely see this anymore and cauliflower pizza is basically the low-fat cookie of the 2000's.
If you want a pizza, then order a friggin pizza, just don't do it every day. The end.
I haven't had the misfortune of trying this but I did have some cauliflower pasta. It was n't that bad because you can drown anything in meat sauce and it is going to taste pretty great but the pasta itself didn't really hold up. It fell apart.
I would get the pizza too if I need a pizza, no time for fake pizza. I'll eat the cauli blanched or stir-fry, but not as a copycat.
Love the general theme of debunking diet fads -- but if you ever insult cauliflower again, we might have words ;)
Only blasphemers speak ill of the incredible flavor delivery vessel that is cauliflower.
To be fair, some kind of spicy seasoned cauliflower ON a pizza is surely better than a janky cauliflower crust pizza.
happy to see you reply. It's all subjective when it comes to the taste of everthing. I've never been a fan of cauliflower but to each their own for sure. I once met a guy that really disliked potatoes, of all types and i was like "what is wrong with you?"
ha! This is one of your best posts yet. I like you other stuff also but the cynical tone suits you. I hope to see more of this in the future. That being said, I have never been subjected to this because it never caught on in asia as far as I know. I'd probably give it a try if it was though, just to see what it is all about.