Puny DiGiorno Personal Pizza vs. Powerful Pear Salad!

Today at lunchtime my 13yo asked if he could have a Digiorno Small Pizza. I looked at the label and said he could have half--390 calories!  It's a puny thing, about six inches in diameter, though the box indicates two servings (unlike the one 790-calorie serving labeled on the website).  His little puny half-pizza nets 390 calories, 18 grams fat (7 of those saturated), 16 grams protein, and 3 grams fiber, plus almost 750 mg sodium.

While that was cooking for him I made my lunch salad:

POWERFUL PEAR SALAD

4 cups torn leaf lettuce
1 diced bosc pear
2/3 cup broccoli slaw
1/2 cup matchstick carrots
1/2 cup navy beans
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 oz toasted sliced almonds
2 T. plain lowfat yogurt
1 T. light honey mustard salad dressing (25 cal, 1 g fat)
dash each of cinnamon and powdered ginger

Combine all vegetables and fruits, top with yogurt and dressing and spices, then toss. Top with almonds and eat right from the mixing bowl.

Verdict--EXCELLENT. This is a beautiful sunshiny salad with a bright, fresh flavor. I think some lemon juice in the dressing would be good in the future.

Here's the nutrition comparison (and I calculated mine in my head after I made it, figuring it was about the same as the little puny half pizza--I was right!):

Powerful Pear Salad
430 calories, 10 g fat (1 g saturated), 19 g protein, 22 g fiber, and 210 mg sodium (half of that from the tiny tablespoon of bottled salad dressing!)

Puny Personal Pizza
390 calories, 18 grams fat (7 of those saturated), 16 g protein, 3 g fiber, and almost 750 mg sodium.

The pizza serving weighs just 140 g. (about 4.7 oz.) and my salad weighs 650 g, about 22 oz., or 1-1/3 pounds!  Which is more satisfying, do you think? 

In other nutrients here's the score:

• Pizza has 13% of daily Vitamin A and 15% of calcium (all that cheese, don't you know?), plus 5% each of daily iron and Vitamin C.
• Salad has 147% of Vitamin A and 31% of calcium (only 1/6 of that from the yogurt), plus 36% iron and 234% of Vitamin C.

Everybody agrees that salad is more nutritious than pizza, but that much more?!  Yes, indeed.

I just told the pizza consumer to have an apple. That will give him 72 additional calories, double his lunchtime fiber intake, and triple the Vitamin C.

Another win for the nutritarian approach to eating.