Brain Food For Children: 3 Pizza Toppings That Can Help Boost Memory


Pizza is one of America's favorite types of food, especially for children as shown in a recent Gallup Poll, so they'll be in for a treat if you decide to pack pizza for them for lunch. While pizza has always been labeled as a type of unhealthy, junk food, that's not always the case. Whether pizza is healthy or not solely depends on the type of toppings and crust that you order. While pizza will never become the healthiest food around, there are several pizza toppings that can help boost your children's memory and learning abilities.

Add a Taste of the Ocean with Fish

You're probably aware by now that fish is one of the healthiest types of meat that you can eat. This is mostly because fish like salmon, tuna and mackerel are rich in omega-3 fatty acids like docosahexaenoic acid, which are important for maintaining healthy brain function. These fatty acids have neuroprotective properties and play an important part in brain development and function. It helps boost memory and also improve one's mental health, making it an ideal pizza topping to add for growing minds. The omega-3 fatty acids will help your children better absorb their learning materials.

With that being said, some people are concerned with whether fish as a pizza topping would be easily overcooked. To prevent fish from overcooking, request that the pizzeria place it under the cheese. The cheese will shield the fish from the heat and prevent it from overcooking. In addition, the cheese acts as a barrier for evaporation to keep the fish juicy and delicious.

Add Dark Green Leafy Vegetables – Particularly, Spinach

Don't forget to add some vegetables into every meal. Pizza is no exception. If you're wondering which type of vegetables you should add to pizza, consider spinach, as it not only can boost one's memory and learning abilities, but also tastes delicious on pizza. Studies have shown that a diet rich in spinach can help improve one's mental ability and short-term memory, as spinach is rich in folate and vitamin B. Both of these molecules play a crucial role in improving and maintaining one's memory, as they help regulate and synthesize chemicals that send signals between brain cells, otherwise known as neurotransmitters.

If you're going to add spinach to the pizza that you are packing for your children, ask the pizzeria to place a thin layer of spinach underneath the cheese. This way, the spinach will not overcook. In addition, this makes the spinach difficult to detect. Your children won't even be able to taste the spinach.

Double Up on the Tomatoes

With the pizza already drenched with tomato sauce, adding a little bit more tomato won't hurt. In fact, tomatoes are quite popular as a pizza topping. Tomatoes are a rich in lycopene, which have been shown to help improve memory retention in many different studies. You can either get sliced or diced tomatoes added to the pizza.

If you find that adding tomatoes to your pizza makes it a bit soggy, ask the pizzeria to bake the crust by itself without any toppings for 10 minutes first before they remove it from the oven to add the toppings you've requested. By partially baking the pizza first, a barrier will build against the tomatoes.

Conclusion

Packing pizza as a lunch for your children will definitely make their day. By adding some extra pizza toppings, you can even make the pizza a healthy meal for their brain without them knowing it. In fact, these pizza toppings can help boost their learning abilities. Add additional healthy snacks and treats with their lunch, and they'll be good to go. 

You can also keep these things in mind and use these tips when ordering pizza from a local restaurant, like Barros Pizza.

About Me

Learning To Cook Healthier

After I realized I had a weight problem, I started focusing on eating a little healthier. The only problem was that I wasn't sure how to cook healthier, since all of my training revolved around fatty dishes that were swimming in cream and butter. Fortunately, a friend of mine took the time to teach me some easy ways to lighten up different dishes. It took a little practice, but after cooking healthier for a few weeks, it became a lifestyle and I started to lose weight. This blog is all about learning to eat and cook a little healthier.

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