Hold the crust? More pizza makers consider low-carbohydrate dough

MARTIN FINUCANE, Canadian Press, Monday, February 02, 2004

http://www.canada.com/health/story....9E-28ECDF2DA057

BOSTON (AP) - Pizza might be hailed as one of North America's best-loved foods, a dish that fills the stomach and seems to soothe the soul.

But to low-carb dieters, it's just a gut-busting disc of dough. And that has caused pizza makers to wonder if the low-carb craze will force fundamental changes in their product. They're saying, "Hey, we've got a problem here. Pizza's built on bread.

It's the No. 1 enemy of the Atkinites," said Tom Boyles, senior editor of PMQ Magazine, a publication that follows the pizza industry. "Atkinites" are followers of the protein-rich Atkins diet.

Boyles has a word for those who want to avoid carbohydrates: "carbavoids." Although industry sales haven't taken a hit yet, more pizza operators are considering offering customers low-carb options.

"Pizza operators are asking themselves, 'Do I want to do this?' and they're bouncing the idea back and forth," Boyles said. "It's at that point where they're going, 'Just how far is this going to go?' "

According to the National Association of Pizzeria Operators, about three billion pizzas are sold each year in the United States by about 40,000 shops.

At the same time, low-carb diets like the Atkins, South Beach and Zone have gained wider popularity. A Harris Interactive poll done last summer for Novartis Consumer Health Inc. estimated that 32 million Americans were on some kind of high-protein, low-carb diet.

Doug Ferriman, owner of Crazy Dough's Pizza Co. in Cambridge's Harvard Square, said he didn't think low-carb dieters would put "too much of a dent" in the pizza business, but he had clipped a recipe for low-carb dough from an industry publication and was going to try it in the spring.

"We're going to have to fiddle around with it for a while," he said.

Some local pizza shop owners and some smaller chains have already moved to meet low-carb dieters' demands.

In Columbus, Ohio, Donatos Pizzeria has announced it will roll out a pizza with a low-carb crust in its 182 outlets. Spokesman Tom Santor said the pizza dough, made out of soy protein and other ingredients, "tastes fabulous."

In Louisville, Ky., Bearno's Pizza, a small chain, offers a crustless pizza on the usual circular baking pan.

And in Escondido, Calif., John Pontrelli, owner of Pit Stop Pasta, offers what may be a traditionalist's worst nightmare: "pizza in a bucket." It has all the pizza toppings placed in a crock or, for takeout customers, a metal can.

While it's not a big item, he said, some people have asked for it, and "Our motto here is: you want to say no to people as little as possible."

At Low-Carb Creations in Vancouver, Wash., Craig Adams, vice-president and general manager, said sales of low-carb pizza dough had risen 300 per cent to 400 per cent in the past six months. Adams said the small company, which has 17 employees, had signed agreements to provide the skins to several smaller chains and dozens of other stores.

Tom Lehmann, of the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kan., a consultant who works with bakeries and pizza operations worldwide, said: "Low-carb is probably the biggest pebble to be dropped in this little pizza pond for a long time. There's just a huge, huge amount of interest."

Lehmann, who writes in industry publications as The Dough Doctor, said he has received an average of five requests per day for the past three months on how to make low-carb dough.

He said his own experiments so far turned out a product that tasted, well, different.

"If you consider a pizza crust as being an edible bread-like product that's located beneath the toppings, the cheese and tomato sauce, OK, that's all we can say about it. ... Wipe away any memories of your old traditional pizza crust," he said.

Steve Coomes, editor of pizzamarketplace.com, wonders if the low-carb craze will last and whether it's just part of New Year's resolution dieting.

"I still think that the vast majority of American pizza consumers are going to look at pizza and those side items like wings as an indulgence and will continue to enjoy them in their intended form," he said.

"They love it to the tune of $26 billion per year."

Oh how I miss sporkie pizzas from Bertucci's Oooh an excuse to go to Harvard Square and blow money!

Well, if it comes up, I'm trying it!
All it will take is some pizza chain owner to lose sixty pounds or so, ala Russell Stover.

I think pizza will be tough to do in a real lowcarb version, but reduced carb might be enough for some people. I tried the the carbsense herb crust mix, I didn't think it was too bad - but for a really low version, for a diabetic like me, or someone on induction, you've also got that sauce issue, cooked down tomatoes are very carby, and lots of well-loved sauce recipes contain sugar, too. One slice of the carbsense, with lots of cheese and meat toppings and minimal sauce, didn't treat my blood sugar too badly, but, c'mon, ONE slice? That's not the way I used to eat pizza, for sure. I wish them well, though, hope they can come up with something that will drop the carb loads for many people. Bill

Our local Sam's carries a Michael Angelo low carb pizza. It's 11 gms of carbs for 1/2 of a pizza. They're quite good and even my non-LC SO and daughter like them.

Dan

I'd like someone to come out with some real-food alternatives like eggplant used for the "crust" or portabello mushrooms. I don't want to eat those fake foods a la soy proteins, etc. That to me is just travelling down the same path the low-fat craze went with all their frankenfoods.

Deb,
I haven't looked into the frankenfood thing very much. The ingredients on the Michael Angelo pizza are as follows, and I'd appreciate knowing which are considered the fake foods:

Water, Mozzarella cheese, Wheat Gluten flour, tomatoes, vital wheat gluten flour, pork, pepperoni, soy flour, pecorino romano cheese, salt, baking powder, olive oil, yeast garlic powder, spices.

Thanks,
Dan

Gluten and soy are two ingredients in that crust that many people would target. I haven't done enough research to know why yet, but I know there are links posted all over the place in this forum. A lot of people post this Weston A. Price Foundation link when mentioning soy.

HTH!!

Midwest Grain Products makes a low carb wheat flour (wheat protein isolate) and a high fiber, low-carb wheat product that would probably work great in pizza dough. Eventually these pizza stores are gonna figure it out.

I really should buy some MGP stock because I think they're the only ones making that stuff.

Dan, ellemenno basically answered your question.

However, for years we've been told that whole grains are better for us than partial flours like white flour. Isolates and gluten flours are just that, partial flours. So why are we supposed to think that those partial flours are any better for us than white flour? I know, they are lower/low in carbs. But they are still incomplete foods.

Personally, though, I am not eating any grains or grain by-products and I definitely don't want to eat soy. So for me, I'll either just eat the toppings or replace the crust with whole foods such as eggplant or portabello mushrooms -- neither of which have I tried yet because I'm actually not a real pizza lover and therefore don't really miss it.

As a pizza lover, I am totally happy with Ken's Portabello Pizza recipe, but that only works if you already like mushrooms.
The thing about low carb pizza availability, for me, is the social aspect. It would be nice to have the option on a girl's night out, or for delivery on one of those nights I work late.

A quick visit over to the recipe forum provides an easy answer to the low-carb crust problem:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=44087

I've tried it and it's really good. Having said that, I'd not hesitate to order pizza with a reduced-carb bread crust for delivery, but if you need almost no-carb crust it's really good, and you can pick it up and eat it like normal pizza. It's not hard to make so an enterprising pizza joint could make it without too much trouble. It would probably cost more.

Agreed. The Michael Angelo low carb pizza is the best of the low carb pizzas by far.

So now we have a new name, "Atkinites" . How utterly quaint.