Pizza: the salt, the timing and the lycopene that does not arrive

Salt is the measured fact about pizza. In a laboratory analysis of 39 takeaway items from 23 outlets in one English town, pizza came out the saltiest category at a median 1.6 g per 100 g, and almost half of all the foods tested held more sodium than their own menus declared. Across the United States, pizza supplies about 4.4 percent of all the sodium people eat, one of eight categories that together make up a third of it. That is a population figure, and it covers the person who eats pizza monthly and the person who eats it daily alike. Put it on a plate instead. Our seven USDA entries for pizza run from 447 to 690 mg of sodium per 100 g. The lunch used in the children's trial further down was two slices weighing 150 g, and on those entries that portion carries 670 to 1035 mg of sodium, which is 29 to 45 percent of the 2300 mg Daily Value from one meal. The tomato does less for you here than the tomato in a tomato study. Adding 500 mg of calcium to a test meal cut the lycopene reaching the blood by 83 percent in ten people, so the cheese and the sauce are not independent of each other. That trial used a calcium supplement rather than cheese, and what a real mozzarella takes off has not been measured.

The numbers, per 100 g

How much is actually in it

• Pizza was the saltiest takeaway category measured in a lab, and menus understated it about half the time. — 39 takeaway food items from 23 outlets (n = 39 items) Evidence C source
  Median sodium ranged from 0.1 g per 100 g for chips to 1.6 g per 100 g for pizza, the highest category measured, with some single-serving meals exceeding the 6 g per day recommended intake; curry dishes varied most at 2.3 to 9.4 g per dish; almost 50% of foods exceeded their declared values
• Pizza supplies about one twenty-fifth of all the sodium Americans eat. — US children and adults aged 1 year or older (n = NHANES 2021-2023 sample) Evidence C source
  About a third of total dietary sodium came from eight categories: deli meat sandwiches 5.0%, pizza 4.4%, savory snacks 4.4%, soups 4.4%, poultry 3.8%, pasta mixed dishes 3.8%, bread 3.1% and cheese 2.7%; among children aged 1 to 11 the top contributor was savory snacks at about 8%

What your body absorbs

• Calcium cut the amount of tomato lycopene that reached the blood by more than four fifths. — 10 healthy adults (n = 10) Evidence B source
  Lycopene bioavailability fell by 83% when calcium was added to the test meal; in vitro, calcium changed neither lycopene micellarisation nor mixed micelle size, but reduced the absolute value of micelle charge by 39%
• Fat in the meal is what lets tomato carotenoids get absorbed at all. — 11 healthy volunteers (n = 11) Evidence B source
  All lycopene isomers rose significantly when the juice was taken with oil, peaking at 24 hours; LDL and total cholesterol fell significantly six hours after the juice with oil, and these falls correlated with the rise in trans-lycopene and 5-cis-lycopene respectively

What cooking and storage change

• Replacing the salt in a Neapolitan pizza with seawater halved its salt and nobody could taste the difference. — 12 healthy volunteers (n = 12) Evidence B source
  The seawater pizza contained nearly 50% less sodium chloride and more micronutrients; no significant differences appeared in satiating power, pleasantness or the glycaemic and insulinaemic response; three-hour urine volume was 194 mL after the standard pizza against 292 mL after the seawater pizza (p = 0.018) and the three-hour sodium balance was +1.6 g against +0.5 g (p = 0.002)
• Of the compounds baking creates in wheat foods, acrylamide is both the most studied and the most abundant. — 28 studies of wheat-based foods including bread, cookies, pasta and wheat grains (n = 28 studies) Evidence C source
  Most studies, 69.7%, measured acrylamide in bread, cookies and pasta, while polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at 26.2% were determined mainly in wheat grains and pasta and hydroxymethylfurfural at 4.1% only in cookies; the highest concentration found was acrylamide at 136.29 µg/kg, then HMF at 70.59 µg/kg and PAHs at 0.11 µg/kg

Safety, limits and interactions

• Europe's food safety authority treats acrylamide from baked starchy food as a cancer concern at every age. — — Evidence E source
  EFSA concluded that acrylamide in food potentially increases the risk of developing cancer for consumers in all age groups; acrylamide forms during high-temperature cooking of starchy foods, and the European Union later set benchmark levels for its reduction in Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2158

Who this works differently for

• Pizza raises blood sugar late, and in children on insulin the scheme that handled that best also caused the most hypoglycaemia. — children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes on multiple daily injections (n = 43) Evidence B source
  There were no significant differences in postprandial glucose excursions between the three schemes, but the scheme giving 130% of the insulin-to-carbohydrate dose split as 60% premeal lispro and 40% regular insulin 30 minutes after the meal produced a significantly lower late three to six hour glucose area under the curve (p = 0.01); postprandial hypoglycaemia occurred in 27.9% of participants on the first two schemes and 39.5% on the third (p = 0.32)

The bottom line

Start with what is missing. Our corpus holds 369 records that mention pizza and exactly two syntheses, and neither is about pizza as a subject. In the research literature pizza is almost always a test meal or an example in a paper about labelling, which means the honest answer to what science says about pizza is that almost nobody has asked. Everything below is either about one of its parts or about a meal that happened to be a pizza. If pizza is a regular meal for you, salt is the part to watch, and the menu is not a reliable guide to it. Twelve volunteers ate a Neapolitan pizza made with seawater in place of salt, which cut the sodium chloride by nearly half. They rated it as pleasant and as filling as the standard one, and their blood sugar and insulin responses were the same. That is twelve people and one meal each, so read it as a demonstration that the salt in a pizza is a recipe decision rather than a requirement of the food. Two groups have a specific reason to read further. Fat and protein delay the glucose rise from pizza, which is why a carbohydrate-counted insulin dose lands at the wrong time. In 43 children with type 1 diabetes, the scheme that split the dose, part before the meal and part thirty minutes after, gave a lower late three to six hour glucose area than the standard schemes. That same scheme produced the most hypoglycaemia of the three, 39.5 percent of the children against 27.9 percent on the other two, and the authors say the extra insulin needs optimising for that reason. It is a description of a problem rather than a protocol to copy. Insulin dosing belongs with your diabetes team rather than with a web page. The other thing is the baking itself. Acrylamide forms when starchy food is cooked hot, and Europe's food safety authority concluded that acrylamide in food potentially increases cancer risk in consumers of all ages, setting no tolerable intake because the mechanism is genotoxic. Pizza base is not among the foods measured in the reviews we hold, which covered bread, cookies, pasta and wheat grain. So this is a statement about a compound and not a number for your dinner.

Sources

1. piz-dr-03 · cross-sectional laboratory analysis
   Median sodium levels ranged from 0.1 g/100g (chips from fish & chips shop) to 1.6 g/100g (pizza), with some meals exceeding the 6 g/day recommended intake in a single serving.
   PLoS One, 2026 · checked 2026-09-22
2. piz-dr-04 · cross-sectional national dietary survey analysis
   Approximately one-third of total dietary sodium intake among children and adults came from deli meat sandwiches (5.0%), pizza (4.4%), savory snacks (4.4%), soups (4.4%), poultry (3.8%), pasta mixed dishes (3.8%), bread (3.1%), and cheese (2.7%).
   Prev Chronic Dis, 2026 · checked 2026-09-22
3. piz-dr-01 · randomised cross-over bioavailability trial with in vitro digestion model
   LYC bioavailability was diminished by 83 % following the addition of Ca in the test meal.
   Br J Nutr, 2016 · checked 2026-09-22
4. piz-dr-02 · randomised controlled cross-over feeding trial
   All lycopene isomers increased significantly in subjects consuming TJ with oil, reaching the maximum concentration at 24h.
   Food Chem, 2015 · checked 2026-09-22
5. piz-dr-05 · randomised controlled cross-over trial
   However, a significant difference was found in the urine volume collected over the 3 h after the two meals (194 mL after StP vs. 292 mL after SWP, p = 0.018) and in the 3 h sodium balance (+1.6 g after StP vs. +0.5 g after SWP, p = 0.002).
   Nutrients, 2020 · checked 2026-09-22
6. piz-dr-07 · systematic review and meta-analysis of contaminant occurrence
   The highest concentration was for acrylamide (136.29 µg·kg-1) followed by HMF (70.59 µg·kg-1) and PAHs (0.11 µg·kg-1).
   Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr, 2023 · checked 2026-09-22
7. piz-dr-08 · regulatory scientific opinion
   acrylamide in food potentially increases the risk of developing cancer for consumers in all age groups
   EFSA, Acrylamide in food is a public health concern, CONTAM opinion 2015 · checked 2026-09-22
8. piz-dr-06 · randomised cross-over clinical trial
   However, Intervention C had a significantly lower late (3-6 hr) blood glucose area under the curve (p=0.01).
   Pediatr Diabetes, 2023 · checked 2026-09-22