Pizza and digestion: it's time to make things clear

Do you eat pizza and stay "weighted"? It's all about leavening. I'll explain it in this new section related to bread, pizza and other leavened products!

The passion for pizza is one of the things that most people share, over the years love for this product has never changed but the average consumer is very attentive to what he eats and to his health. All this is due to the evolution of technology and the change in lifestyles.

The era of information has led us to be caught on many issues, the kitchen and pizza in particular have developed a lot; the digestibility, the genuineness and the gourmet combinations of the products are factors that are increasingly taken into consideration.

This long introduction brings us closer to a theme that even today is not clear to most people (pizza chefs included): the digestibility of Pizza.

A dough that has had a too hurried leavening will trigger many of the processes that still create trouble for pizza consumers. All this is due to the lack of commitment, to the dubious skills and to the "old-fashioned" workings of many pizza makers.

One of the most used phrases but also more wrong and meaningless regarding digestion in relation to pizza is: "pizza keeps leavening in my stomach".

I'm sorry to dispel this myth but the phrase just mentioned is completely wrong for the simple reason that the yeast at a temperature of 60 ° C dies, this means that its action fades as soon as the pizza is baked.

Now we will understand what are the REAL factors that determine a good or bad digestion of the pizza.

Returning to the hurried dough I could mention one by one all the discomfort that will surely have happened more than once after eating a pizza, including: sense of fullness and weightiness, thirst at night, sleepiness etc.

All this is due to the dough and leavening done incorrectly. To be clearer it will be enough to understand the digestive process in relation to pizza.

Pizza and digestion:

As we all know, the basic ingredient for pizza is the flour that possesses most of the calories and starch we find in the dough.

The stomach to digest complex parts (starch and protein) must first break down into glucose and amino acids, this process is done by gastric juices.

If the dough is not well-ripened, the pizza will be less digestible, our gastric juices will have to work much more to make the starch decomposed and become a simple sugar (glucose).

On the contrary, with a slow and correct leavening the correct maturation of the dough is reached, in this way the starch and proteins will be already decomposed and our gastric juices will have to work very little to complete the digestion.

To complete and confirm the importance of leavening in the dough we can add that a mature dough (in addition to having broken down the starch into simple sugars) when it is "silhouetted" and divided into balls continues its leavening and proceeds in the decomposition of the elements: glucose will turn further into alcohol and gas, the latter will not be digested because they will vanish during cooking giving the right aroma to the product.

In a nutshell, here's what happens when we realize a right process of leavening and maturation of the pasta:

From the image we can clearly understand how the decomposition process allows the starch to be completely canceled without having to be digested even minimally.

Explanation of symptoms:

We now try to understand why a pizza that has leavened little can cause all these annoying symptoms:

    - Heaviness
    - High blood sugar
    - High blood sugar
    - Thirst

All these feelings are connected, the main problem is precisely the complex sugar that is not decomposed and causes the rise in blood sugar.

The rise in blood sugar triggers a spontaneous production of insulin in our body which is then the primary cause of drowsiness.

The feeling of thirst, on the other hand, occurs because our body can not digest itself and the gastric juices need the help of water to split the elements and facilitate the process of hydrolysis.

The correct leavening and the new school:

To correctly proceed with the creation of a digestible dough, one of the fundamental factors is definitely the maturation of the dough obtained with long leavenings (from 24 hours upwards) that are reached with excellent results thanks to the use of the cold technique, in some cases mixing with ice or keeping the temperatures under control.

In order to facilitate this type of dough, mainly strong flours are used, with high W.

As previously stated, the technology and the information age have led us to deepen our knowledge and to tackle many things in the best way over the years.

Now with the new pizza chefs we can more easily find knowledgeable and competent figures regarding the chemical processes and the new methods of processing the dough, many of the pizza chefs of the new guard face these issues with passion and without too much diffidence.

Thanks also to the many schools and training companies present today, the dissemination of the right processing method is easier, you can also rely on professionals who train staff and owners of the activities to improve and optimize the final product.

In short, anyone who wants to make a good pizza at home or in his own room has all the means to do it.

If you happen to go to eat a pizza and have a sense of fullness or drowsiness in the future, unsuccessfully delete that pizzeria from your list.