To think this is a healthy pizza!?

Steer clear of sardines… they’re mostly microplastics 😆
(i honestly steer clear of them in recent yrs! & am surprised they’re still sold?)

Yes I work out pretty much every day, do quite a lot of endurance work on the bike and weight training alongside generally being active, and we eat pizza every week! I do eat mainly high protein but pizza is a thing of joy and carbs are not the enemy. I make the dough in the breadmaker and then 2 mins in the pizza oven and it’s perfect 👌

Crosta and Mollica stuff is pretty UPF-free, but although I try to be very mindful of UPF I don’t get in a tizzy about seed oils or UPF condiments or meal when out. 80/20 is a good balance to have I think. For me I’m mostly 100% UPF-free at home but don’t really consider it when out and about. I just try to avoid artificial emulsifiers, preservatives, gums, bulking agents and thickeners mainly when I am the one in control. If I’m not in control then I don’t worry about it. I would eat that pizza and not think anything more of it.

Oh my goodness yes! It's in almost every "convenience" food, including supermarket bread. At one time they were even adulterating sunflower oil with it - don't know if they still are, as I've stopped using that too. I found a report by NHS Scotland discussing whether rapeseed oil should be highlighted in bold in the list of contents, and they concluded no, because "not very many people" have a problem with the muck.

Avocado oil mayonnaise is delicious, though!

Crack on with the pizza OP, from a fellow endurance athlete. The fact you are exercising regularly does have context.
I have my blood work done regularly. I’m in tip top shape. I eat pizza like that once a week. Balance and trying to eat really well 80% of the time, while not getting to into the weeds and neurotic seems a good plan.
I wish they could prescribe regular exercise on the NHS 😊.

Glutamate is a normal amino acid and tomatoes are naturally very high in it.

MSG, however, is artificially manufactured and does not always agree with a lot of people. Many people monitor their intake of MSG and to avoid that, there are a number of ways of labelling it. I don’t know if that signifies different manufacturing processes. https://mamavation.com/featured/90-hidden-msg-ingredients.html

I don’t think there’s anything healthy about pizza

I'm uber picky about my food and I'd eat that. In the scale of things, it's not that bad...

Dough: flour, salt, yeast, water

Sauce: tomato

Cheese: milk

The same way you eat anything else with salad

Probably not if you're eating a 16" pizza from Domino's to yourself but otherwise, it's quite easy.

Yeast extract is literally Marmite’s main ingredient. I wouldn’t worry about it.

30 hours of fermentation! My homemade pizza is probably equally bad for you but faster. strong white flour, sachet of instant yeast, pinch of sugar and salt, glug of olive oil, give it an hour and I’d it’s ready to roll. Stick blender a tin of tomatoes with Italian herbs for the sauce and tear up mozzarella balls.

What are the 6 or fewer ingredients that you would need to use to replicate it?

I'm always a bit 🤔 when people have salad with a pizza. What do you do shovel in a load of salad then a bite of your pizza, or eat your salad then your pizza, lettuce and pizza just don't go.

I don't think yeast extract is MSG? It does contains glutamate, but I'm pretty sure glutamate is just a normal amino acid?

I think these days we're all trying to avoid the fact that we're all going to die. Yes, avoiding UPF is a good thing, but not when it comes at the expense of other things. Sometimes life IS too short to hand make every item you eat from scratch and raw-home grown ingredients and the odd cut-corner is not going to make much of a difference in the great scheme of things.

And I love the idea of sardine salad! (And pineapple on pizza, but don't tell anyone).

I agree that an occasional pizza and salad is fine as long as you have just used up, or plan to use up, the calories!

I think it's not so much the calories themselves as how active you are in using them up before they get taken by fork-lift trucks to the warehouse and stored in your fat cells.

I would hazard a guess that if exactly the same pizza was being sold for thrice the price in a farmfood shop, artisanly wrapped in brown paper with a piece of twine, she'd buy it 'as a treat.'

otoh because it is so plain you could actually recreate a version yourself very easily. Sounds like a faff but given you've said you add your own toppings anyway, if when you make the dough you make multiple pizzas worth, all you have to do next time is take one out of the freezer and spread some passata.

She is a FrankInLaw.

OP: I hope you enjoyed your pizza.

You already pay attention to eating an overall healthy diet. Does following your SIL down a rabbit hole of neurotic eating help a healthy mind?

The Crosta Mollica ones are really nice although pricey.

But actually since we got a pizza oven we haven’t bought pizza anywhere except the odd meal out because it’s never as nice as the fresh ones we make at home now. We used to get a takeaway pizza every so often or have some frozen ones in, but no one likes them as much as home ones now and they’re so quick and easy to make with the pizza oven (we have the Ninja electric one so literally plug in and go). If you like pizza, it’s a really good investment. We use it at least once a week for pizza and often for a joint of meat too as it’s also a smoker.

Yes, sorry - I just meant that the OP can still have pizza, just a better quality one. I agree both probably aren't needed in the same meal.