Pizza Hut just unveiled three new recipes : Chicken Bacon Tomato, Roasted Veggie and Five Cheese Please. Each new recipe features a creamy garlic Parmesan & Romano sauce. In Australia, Pizza Hut also launched its Cheese Burger Crust Pizza . Pizza Hut has gained some attention with the new additions, but overlooked the growing food revolution. Consumers want a different class of options. People want healthier options that will allow them to enjoy their favorites despite food allergies and chemical sensitivities.
Fourth quarter sales at Chipotle jumped 30 percent after it vowed early last year to eliminate genetically engineered ingredients from its menu. Subway announced, in February, that it planned to remove azodicarbonamide from its dough with great public approval. According to Pizza Hut’s ingredients list, its pizza dough does not contain the chemical, but its garlic bread does! While Pizza Hut is enjoying the buzz from its three new Garlic Parmesan Pizzas, Chipotle and Subway could have served as examples as to what menu changes would have most pleased the public. There are many changes Pizza Hut could have made to its menu that would reflect the food revolution gaining strength in America.
Pizza Hut could have eliminated the MSG copy cat chemicals from their dough.
Pizza Hut knows that people get reactions after eating MSG. It’s listed on Pizza Hut’s own food allergens table. Common reactions to MSG in sensitive people are migraine headaches, heart irregularities, asthma, mood swings, and/or fuzzy thinking. Unfortunately, what most people do not know is that there are more than 40 different ingredients that usually or always contain free glutamic acid. According to Truth in Labeling , free glutamic acid can also cause these reactions as well. On the Pizza Hut menu, some ingredients that contain free gultamic acid are autolyzed yeast extract, textured or hydrolyzed proteins, hydrolyzed corn, and modified food starches.
Pizza Hut could have eliminated soy, a common allergen, from its dough.
According to Pizza Hut’s disclosure on allergens, every type of dough it offers contains soybean oil. Even Pizza Hut’s chicken wings and Meaty Marinara pasta contains this allergen. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America says that soy is among the most common foods that cause allergic reactions. While soybean oil is often less allergenic than other soy based foods, it is still a culprit in allergic reactions such as atopic dermatis (eczema), hives, asthma, anaphylactic shock, and digestive problems. Another concern the public has about soybean oil is that soybeans are one of the most common genetically modified foods in the American diet today.
Pizza Hut could have found replacements for BHT and BHA in their toppings.
Almost every Pizza Hut meat topping contains the preservatives BHT and BHA. Deseret News identified the biggest dangers of these additives which are banned in other countries:
BHA and BHT have been known to impair blood clotting when consumed in high quantities, and promote tumor growth.
They could have made sure tree nuts and peanuts were no longer an issue.
While many peanut and tree nut allergic people rejoice because Pizza Hut pizzas do not contain nuts, many still avoid the pizza chain because many of the ingredients used at the restaurant have been processed in facilities that also process tree nut or peanut containing foods. According to CNN , “Food allergies are on the rise, and are currently the fifth leading chronic illness in the United States.”
They could have joined the Food Revolution.
Consumers are reading food labels now, more than ever before, and dining out is no exception. As people look over ingredient lists for allergens, they discover that many of their old favorites contain a lot more than they bargained for. Pizza Hut was never meant to be the healthiest choice in dining, but healthier choices could guarantee the chain maintains success in the coming years.
[Photo by Tom Arthur]