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Frozen Pizza Contaminated With Listeria

  • March 20, 2017

An enormous pizza recall has provided a new incentive to avoid processed food. As reported by CNN, RBR Meat Company recalled 21,000 pounds of supreme pizzas because of potential listeria contamination. These pizzas are sold primarily at Walmart. Chalk this up as another recall of processed foods and consider the implications. 

The primary selling points of processed food are that it is easy to prepare and ostensibly free from contamination. Without these dubious selling points, there is no reason whatsoever to purchase unhealthy mass produced food.

Frozen pizza is an extremely unhealthy “food” and its popularity seemingly inexplicable. A closer look reveals why it is still found in the diet of millions. Processed foods such as frozen pizza stimulate a strong reward response in our brains and are very rewarding and easy to overeat. This is no surprise when one considers that they have been designed to elicit "sensory-specific satiety."  This describes the ability of distinct flavors to overwhelm your brain and promote food cravings.

It is far too easy to become addicted to frozen pizza and other processed foods. Processing modifies or removes important components of food, like fiber, water and nutrients, changing the way they are digested and assimilated in your body. There are also three “bliss inducing” ingredients that are particularly insidious. These are sugar, salt and fat. Frozen pizza hits the mark on all three of these.

Worse still, unlike whole foods, which contain a mix of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, fiber and water to help you feel satisfied, processed foods stimulate dopamine, a feel-good neurotransmitter, making you feel good even though the food lacks nutrients and fiber. This artificial dopamine stimulation can lead to excessive food cravings and, ultimately, food addiction.

Processed foods are addictive, bereft of nutritional value and loaded with unhealthy ingredients. The key to a healthy diet is to ditch these items entirely. Instead, you should consume exclusively wholesome and nourishing whole foods. Ditching processed foods requires that you plan your meals in advance, but if you take it step-by-step as described in my nutrition plan, it's quite possible, and manageable, to painlessly remove processed foods from your diet.