I’ve seen and performed this practice for years now. Basically, it requires placement of a napkin or other paper product onto the face of a slice of pizza before consumption. Grease is then absorbed into the paper. My question is, does this practice remove a significant amount of grease from the pizza? It does make me feel better, especially when there are pools of grease on the surface. Pizza isn’t exactly the healthiest snack around, but does taking off that portion of grease make a big difference?
I don’t think it makes a very big difference health-wise, but it could make the pizza a lot less messy to eat, which is what I think the goal of the people I’ve seen do it was. I just tip the pizza and let the grease drain off.
Consumer Reports actually did an analysis of this once. They dabbed the pizza, then measured how much fat was actually removed by the napkin/paper towel.
IIRC, they found that it did remove a little of the fat content, but not appreciably much–that is, not enough to make it, say, “healthy.”
Hopefully someone can come along with some specifics
Most cites I’ve seen say you can take about a teaspoon off the pizza, but that obviously depends on how greasy the pizza is and how much has “sweated” to the top. As teaspoon of oil is about 40 calories, you are not going to lose weight instantly but it could make an impact over time.
The Georgia-Pacific Health Smart Institute study says it removes 14% of the total fat content. Note that Georgia-Pacific makes paper towels.
Any grease that dosen’t get into your body is a benifit. You could easily weigh the paper before and after to get farily accuarate calorie differential . That is, 1 gram of fat is about 10 calories if I recall correctly.
I don’t think you can claim to have done something healthy by dabbing at your pizza. If you’re not making a real effort to lose wait, you’ll end up being just slightly hungrier later anyway, and probably make up for it by eating one extra potato chip.
I really hate watching people do this. It’s disgusting, to me, since your left with a greasy paper towel afterwards, and it can’t possibly have any meaningful impact on your health - if you’re eating pizza often enough for the calories to actually add up to something significant, then you’re not making any effort to lose weight anyway. And so, as I said, you’ll just end up eating something else to make it up later.
Isn’t that where all the vitamins are?
I also doubt it does much for the health, but I can see doing it to remove excess grease for taste and aesthetics.
If the 40 calories is going to make an impact over time my WAG says you are eating way, way too much pizza.
I used to dab pizza with napkins, back when I ate pizza. I didn’t do it for any health benefits, I did it simply because I didn’t like quite that much grease on my pizza. I also used to drain my fried fish on quite a few napkins or paper towels, for the same reason.
I always thought so. That’s why I drink those grease shakes after I exercise.
I think any miniscule potential health benefit is more than outwieghed by the risk of exposure to any virulent disease germs which thrive in a dairy-and-tomato-rich environment that may have been left on the paper by some pizza parlor flunky who didn’t wipe his nose before refilling the napkin dispenser.
But that’s just MHO.
The removal of grease from a pizza is only going to ruin both its taste and aesthetics. That’s part of the charm, and the only reason pizza was invented in t first place: as a grease delivery device.
Wanting greaseless pizza is like wanting a quiet and comfortable sports car. You just aren’t a purist.
I think the same thing about Decaf, too.
Weighing the towel isn’t the end of the story - not all of the liquid was fat. Some will have been solid matter, and some water.
You’re right… at that rate it would be 88 slices for every 1 lb. body weight gained.