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Help me estimate the calories in a vegan pizza

Old 05-15-2011, 03:56 AM
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Default Help me estimate the calories in a vegan pizza

It's our fifth anniversary today, but my partner is spending a lot of it writing his annual review report for work. The plan to go out for dinner seems to be getting changed to getting take-out instead so that he can keep working. I'm guessing it'll be pizza, which I haven't had since I started dieting. Here's what I generally have, from a nice local Italian place:

* About half of a 12" pizza, though they do 10" ones as well.
* The base is a proper freshly-made thin one, genuine Italian stuff.
* Decent tomato sauce (as opposed to some places who just put tomato purée on top, which is vile when they do a vegetarian pizza minus the cheese to mask the odd taste - especially when they deliberately leave gaps to show where the cheese ought to be!) and lots of random vegetables on top. I can ask them to leave out the aubergine (that's eggplant to you Americans), as it tends to be deep-fried and not very nice, and the rest is usually random. Say onion, peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn, black olives, sometimes potato or broccoli or who knows what.

Occasionally I put some fake parmesan on top (ground almonds, nutritional yeast, miso, bit of salt), but I haven't made any up due to being out of miso at the moment, and if I do, the Uncheese Cookbook thankfully lists the basic nutritional info. I suspect that it will be quite heavy enough on the calories already.

Would anyone be able to estimate the calories, and if possible what the macronutrient breakdown would be? I'm fond of this pizza place, we order from there every now and again, and I'd like to be able to incorporate it properly. Sometimes we get vegetable pakora from there as well, they're known for it (quite random, pakora from an Italian take-away), but I imagine I should refrain as they must be absolutely loaded with fat.
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Old 05-15-2011, 04:30 AM
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Congratulations on your anniversary .

I can give you the information from the homemade pizza crust that I do. It's whole wheat and a pretty standard recipe.

For one pizza crust, there are 834 calories, 10g fat, 160g carbs, 18.5g fiber, and 28.5g protein. I just divide that by how many pieces I cut the pie into and then multiply it by how many slices I eat. If it's not a whole wheat crust, the calories would be the same, though the fiber and protein would be less, I would think.

You can probably estimate the veggies by weight or volume and enter them. I doubt they would really be contributing to the calorie total. I usually just enter a quarter cup or so of crushed tomatoes for the sauce; I make mine with just the tomatoes and spices; I don't add olive oil, though some folks do.

Don't panic; I don't think it would be as caloric as you might think. Most pizza calories come from cheese and a thick crust. Enjoy your dinner.
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Old 05-15-2011, 05:15 AM
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Thanks, that's helpful. What size pizza do you get out of that?

After all this, he's just told me that he had pizza last night and doesn't fancy it tonight, but it'll be useful for know for the next time we get pizza. I'm guessing we'll have Indian or something tonight. It's not difficult to cook vegan, but finding decent vegan take-out round here is another matter entirely, especially when you're a wimp about chillies like me.
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Old 05-15-2011, 05:37 AM
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You can get any size pizza out of it; it will just be thicker crust the smaller the pizza. When I do it on my pizza stone, which is 14", it is very thin; if I want a smaller pizza for any reason, it just ends up being a little thicker.
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Old 05-15-2011, 06:06 AM
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Glad you mentioned that, since we ended up changing our plans. We're getting pizza tonight so that D can crack on with his work, and then tomorrow we will laze around and go out to the nice local Indian place for dinner.

So should I assume about 3/4 of that, since I'm getting a fairly thin 10" pizza?

*rereads*

Hang on, in that case we'd be talking about 600 calories just for the crust? That sounds excessive, surely?

Oh well, at least you've made me realise that I should approach this as I do any other meal: hunt down the individual ingredients and add them in separately.

Last edited by Esofia; 05-15-2011 at 06:10 AM.
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Old 05-15-2011, 07:14 AM
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For a whole pizza crust, it doesn't seem that surprising. Half of that would be 300, then.

It may sound excessive to you, but for the crust for half a pizza, 300 is not that much...

I am sure it's accurate. I took the recipe and entered the ingredients into a recipe calorie calculator website.

What you might could do is look on the internet for pizza places that publish their nutrition information and use that as a guide as well.

And sometimes you just have to face the fact that you're not going to get an exact number. You have to make your best guess and it will all even out over time anyway.
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Old 05-15-2011, 07:56 AM
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Good point: what were the ingredients?

ETA: I found a recipe here which looks about right. A 10" base is 70% of the area of a 12", so I've taken 70% of the figures there. So I've overeaten a bit for today, but not too horrifyingly. (I saved a quarter of the pizza and a bit of a pakora for lunch tomorrow, where it will be accompanied by SALAD.)

Last edited by Esofia; 05-15-2011 at 08:10 AM.
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Old 05-15-2011, 08:08 AM
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This is the recipe that I use: Amazing Whole Wheat Pizza Crust Recipe - Allrecipes.com

However, I do change it up somewhat; I use all but 1/2 C wheat flour and I add a lot of spices to the dough, so my nutrition info doesn't match exactly what is here on the recipe. I calculate all my recipes with this nutrition calculator: Recipe Calculator.
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Old 05-15-2011, 10:46 AM
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Oops, I edited my previous comment and by the time I'd done that, you'd replied to it. So see above for the final calculations. The pizza was quite delicious (onion, olives, mushrooms, artichoke, broccoli, fresh tomatoes) and while I was a bit over my usual calorie budget, I still had a healthy deficit at the end of the day. And we have both noticed today that this pair of trousers is getting rather loose, so hurrah!
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Old 05-16-2011, 02:48 PM
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If you can guess at the types and quantities of ingredients, you can stick them into this recipe calculator and it will give you a comprehensive breakdown of energy and nutrients. I use a lot while cooking.
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