Place: Pizza Hut
Item: Fit 'N Delicious Pizza
Price: $12.29 for medium
In our Lunch Guys world, we've always considered pizza a health food. One slice with the works gives us more veggies than a week's worth of french fries and ketchup. But Pizza Hut has upped the ante in the 21 st century's answer to the franchise burger battles — call it the healthy hostilities — with the Fit 'N Delicious Pizza.
What's so fit about it is half the cheese and more tomato sauce with lean toppings on a thin crust. That approach trims 25 percent of the fat from the typical thin-crust Pizza Hut pizza, dropping a slice to around 3.5 to 5 grams of fat and 140 to 170 calories. But what's so delicious about it? We ordered a pie to find out.
Tom: Pizza is one of those foods that shouldn't be “dietized.” That's not to say my Hawaiian-style Fit 'N Delicious with ham, pineapple and tomato wasn't really good, because it was. But it wasn't “pizza satisfying.” You know those pools of grease that form on pepperoni slices? I love those. Or when the cheese is so gooey it slides off the crust? This pizza had nothing like that.
My issues weren't just with the toppings. The Fit 'N Delicious crust is both of the aforementioned, but it's super-thin and “crackery” with barely
the idea that chicken is a legitimate pizza topping, giving a welcome meaty texture without the oily aftertaste. So light, so scrumptious, so easy to eat four pieces — half a medium. That doesn't help in the fat and calorie count, but c'mon, there's no way one or even two is enough for a legit lunch.
Tom: True, half a medium is about the right amount for lunch, which makes this a great lunch to split with someone. Plus, it doesn't weigh so heavy on your stomach all afternoon, causing you to fall asleep at your desk at 1:30. However, this is not the pizza for dinner or if you have late-night after-drinking “need some grease” cravings. It's a good thing that we Lunch Guys don't do the two-martini lunch.
Chris: I'd still prefer Pizza Hut to make a Fit 'N Delicious in a personal pizza size — and price. The $12.29 medium doesn't seem like such a deal, and it's hard to agree on toppings with other lunch-goers. Solo lunchers have only the overly doughy mini-pan pizzas, aka Fat 'N Delicious.
Rating: 4 sporks (out of five)
Food Facts: One slice with chicken, onion, green pepper: 170 calories, 4.5 g fat, 23 g carbohydrates, 10 g protein, 460 mg sodium.
E-mail The Lunch Guys:
tomandchris@thelunchguys.com
enough moisture (no butter? no oil?) to hold it together. Sure there was enough cheese, toppings and even flavor to make a good pizza. It just lacked the grease. And pizza without grease isn't pizza -- it's focaccia. Focaccia Hut? I don't think so. So to compensate for the “healthiness,” I ate nearly twice as much as I would have on a full-fat pepperoni-stacked thick-crusted monster.
Chris: I have the same problem with stuffing my face and with wanting more from a pizza, Tom. My mouth said, “One Fit 'N Delicious with chicken, onion and green pepper,” but my head was screaming, “Meat Lover's Supreme with the cheesy Stuffed Crust!” Yet when I chomped into my first slice, both my mouth and head agreed that this pizza is truly supreme.
I didn't miss what was missing, and I loved what was there. Seriously, half the cheese proved plenty enough to cover the plentiful toppings. The touch extra sauce didn't make this a goopy mess, nor did it droop the crust, which I think is as superbly thin as any pie outside of New York. And I'm now a convert to
