We have really strong feelings about pizza! Pizza night is one of our favorite nights! With the rising popularity of frozen cauliflower crust pizza, we thought it would be fun and helpful to do a taste test with three popular brands of frozen cauliflower crust pizza. And the results are in!
Along with tasting different brands of frozen cauliflower crust pizza, in our latest YouTube video we also discussed the importance of reading and understanding ingredient labels. Learning how to read ingredients on food labels is one of the best things we’ve done for our health. In the past, I would just look at the nutrition label to see how many calories, fat, carbs and protein something contained. However, by reading the ingredients, there is so much more you can learn about the foods you’re eating or thinking about eating.
The Importance of Reading Ingredient Labels
It can be essential to your health to read and understand the ingredients that are in the foods you eat. Here are just a few reasons why you should start reading through the ingredients. Typically, the shorter the ingredient list and the easier to pronounce ingredients, the better it will be. Also, if you’re sensitive to something like gluten, for example, you will want to know if the product contains any ingredient you might be sensitive to.
Tips to Understanding Ingredient Labels
- Focus on what comes first. Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. So if cauliflower appears as the first ingredient in cauliflower pizza, we know there is more cauliflower in the pizza than anything else. It’s important to read the entire label, though, especially if you have a sensitivity or an allergy.
- Know the buzzwords. Sugar, sodium and saturated and trans fats have a variety of other names. Sugar, for example, can be listed as sugar, high fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, brown rice syrup, honey, molasses and other words that end in “ose” (glucose, fructose, maltose and galactose). If you’re watching your sodium intake, watch for words like salt, brine, baking soda, monosodium glutamate and sodium benzoate. Fat could be listed as lard, partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated oils, tallow and/or shortening.
- Lean on products with short ingredient lists. Some additives and preservatives can be necessary to make certain foods safe for consumption, shorter ingredient lists are easier to understand and in many cases contain more natural ingredients.
- Have food allergies or sensitivities? It is mandated that manufacturers must list any of these allergens that are in the product:
- Milk
- Eggs
- Peanuts
- Tree nuts, such as almonds, walnuts and pecans
- Fish
- Shellfish
- Soy
- Wheat
Those are just a few tips to help get your started reading and understanding ingredient labels. If you don’t know what something is in the list, you can always google it.
Cauliflower Crust Pizza Taste Test
Whether you’re following a gluten-free diet, trying to eat more vegetables or just loves to try new foods, cauliflower pizza crusts can be great and are definitely worth trying. They’re cheaper and typically healthier than delivery pizza and quicker than pizza from scratch. As an added plus, cauliflower pizza crust can be a blank slate for any pizza toppings you choose. Many times we add extra toppings to our frozen pizza, but for the sake of the taste test we kept these authentic to what comes in the packaging of the cheese cauliflower crust pizza. Results below!
365. We didn’t taste any cauliflower in this pizza. The crust is softer than what we prefer. We also just didn’t love the flavor of this pizza. I thought it was bland and Mike had a stronger opinion. Watch the video to find out what he said the taste reminded him of… yikes! We both rated this pizza 5 out of 10.
Open Nature. The look of this pizza was the best and reminded of us of pizza we would eat in our childhood. There was no taste of cauliflower and overall we really enjoyed this pizza. We both rated Open Nature cauliflower crust pizza 9 out of 10 and thought it was excellent. We would definitely purchase this one again!
Caulipower. We thought this one was good, but a little bland, especially compared to the Open Nature brand. If we doctored it up a bit with pepperoni and other toppings, we think this one would be even better. I gave the Caulipower pizza an 8 out of 10 and Mike gave it a 7 out of 10.
Watch our YouTube video below for all the details and be sure to subscribe to our channel for more fun!