It's nice to see a scientist taking a break from trying to clone mammoths and growing knobs on rats' backs for once and actually addressing one of the real issues facing humanity today: why can't pizza be healthy?
Dan Schmitz is the director of user experience and research and development at Abbott Laboratories, a food technology company that makes products like meal replacement shakes, protein bars, and baby formula.
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Dan reckons there's no good reason why we couldn't get all of our required nutrients by simply stuffing our faces with slices of pizza in the near future.
He says that a lot of why we struggle so much to pick a salad over a burger, for example, is to do with taste. However, he thinks that in the future it will be possible to keep all the delicious flavours of a nice greasy pizza, while at the same time packing it full of nutrients.
In an ideal world, we'd all get our required vitamins from fruit and veg, but since it can be so tricky to stay strong and resist the lure of the pizza, sticking them all in there instead is probably a pretty good idea.
Credit: Jeremy Keith/Flickr
Abbots Laboratories already have several products on the market designed to be rammed full of different nutrients to target specific issues. These include Ensure, a shake designed to help people who are recovering from surgery or are malnourished, and Glucerna, which helps diabetics to control their blood sugar levels.
The only issue for Dan is that he has to find a way to cram all of the good stuff in, without compromising on taste.
"It's as much an art as it is a science," Dan told the Business Insider.
When Dan was working on a drink which contains HMB, a substance humans naturally produce to preserve muscles, he faced problems such as curdling, a fishy taste when left in the fridge and other disgusting things.
His team had to work to balance the taste, stabilise to mixture and added flavours like vanilla to get it tasting good.
Dan thinks that a similar technique could be implemented to pack everyone's favourite Italian staple full of goodness, while keeping the taste the same. It might just take a while to get right.
But sadly we're going to have to wait and for now, if you want to stay in good health, you're going to have to balance your pizzas with plenty of greens.
Featured Image Credit: Yoshihide Nomura/Flickr