Why Pizza Is So Good

Do you love pizza?¹I know, it’s a dumb question. But please bear along with me as I proceed to ask even more dumb ones.

Do you love pizza so much that you might possibly be the long-lost fifth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?²Why the look on your face? What part of me having even more dumb questions to ask didn’t you understand?!?!

Do you love pizza enough to do some sketchy shit for it in a dark alley?³I mean, even sketchier than the shit you already do!

Those are all rhetorical questions because of course you love pizza!

Well, considering that 13 percent of Americans eat pizza on any given day and 350 slices are eaten every second, you’re not alone in your affinity for Italy’s only contribution to mankind other than Machiavelli and the subject matter for mob flicks. Fuck, others love the stuff, too!

So wanna know why you and everyone else loves the za so much?

That’s another rhetorical question because of course you wanna know why you love the za so much!

According to researchers at the University of Michigan, you and others love pizza as much as you do because you have an addiction to it. In a study comprised of about 500 students who completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale, a tool that assesses what its name implies, pizza came out number one as the most addictive food.⁴1). Pizza
2). Chocolate
3). Chips
4). Cookies
5). Ice Cream
6). French Fries
7). Cheeseburger
8). Soda
9). Cake
10). Cheese

Now, why is it so addictive?

Is it because the pizzeria you get your slices from sprinkles crack over your pizza to get you hooked so you keep coming back?

Good guess, but not quite.

Crack isn’t the special ingredient at play for why you’re the Tyrone Biggums of pizza. Instead, it’s the other stuff.⁵Good guess, though!

There are foods in nature that contain sugar (e.g. fruits and vegetables) and foods that contain fat (e.g. nuts). However, it’s rare that the combination of sugar and fat is found in natural food. And with the exceedingly rare food items the combo does occur with, the intensity of sugar and fat isn’t comparable to that found in processed foods. That brings us to pizza, a processed food with artificially elevated levels of sugar and fat, in addition to salt.

Well, it turns out that the salt, added fat (e.g. cheese, pepperoni, sausage, bacon, ground beef), and the rapid rate of absorption of refined carbs (i.e. sugar) in the flour and sauce produce the same effect on the brain’s reward center as addictive drugs do. In other words, the amygdala lights up with the release of dopamine each time you take a bite, giving you a sense of bliss, which makes you want to eat more and more. This is not only why you lose control over consumption and continue eating long past fullness but why you also suffer cravings for pizza when you go a few days without it. That’s because natural food doesn’t do the trick anymore of eliciting as much pleasure as it once did, resulting in your body calling out for what does, which is pizza, making you similar to a dope fiend who starts suffering withdrawal if they go for too long without banging heroin into their arm.

So there you have it, you fucking junkie!

Glossary: dietary fat

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.

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