Experimental dough contains healthy antioxidants

Although the cocktail of grease, cheese and heavily buttered dough now simmers in the stomachs of students all around campus, they could soon be in for something different. Something healthy. \nAfter years of eating traditional pizza, sending carbohydrates through their bodies and raising their cholesterol levels through the roof, student diners may have an alternative in the near future. But it will still be pizza.\nChemists from the University of Maryland experimented with baking wheat-based dough at higher temperatures and for a longer amount of time to a produce different pizza than from the kind made with traditional flour-based dough, according to a recent report from Reuters. The result of the experiment was a “healthy” pizza, which contained higher levels of antioxidants than its predecessor.\nAs a result of the experiment, pizza eaters may soon have an option of choosing between flour-based dough and a healthier wheat dough.\n“It’s nice to have the option,” junior Danyse Solomons said. “People order thin crust, so I think the wheat-dough idea would do pretty well.”\nThe benefits of the higher-fermented wheat dough stem from an increased amount of antioxidants, according to www.cnn.com. These are molecules that hinder the loss of electrons on cells. When cells lose electrons, they can become free-formed, losing the cell wall. This, in turn, morphs the cells and creates mitosis, or the division of cells. When these cells split, they can grow and cause dangerous reactions that eventually produce cancerous cells. Antioxidants block this process from happening by strengthening cells, preventing chain reactions from oxidation.\nGroup dynamics often influence the decision to order a pizza.\n“When people are in an atmosphere where they are up late and in a group environment, if some people have a craving for late-night food and it’s healthy, I think that it would be a very good thing,” said Heather Morrison, a medical assistant at Community Hospital North in Indianapolis. \nPeople digest antioxidants as part of their everyday diets in everything from fruits, vegetables, soy, coffee and even red wine, according to www.webmd.com. Antioxidants are known to prevent cancer and coronary heart diseases while treating such ailments as strokes and Alzheimer’s disease.\nFor students who order pizza regularly, healthier dough could have positive effects.\n“I order out once per week or so and I would at least try the wheat dough,” freshman Tyler Burcope said. “If it was good, I might pay one or two dollars more for it.”\nBy consuming antioxidants, people set themselves up for a healthier lifestyle. Around college campuses, it’s traditionally unusual for local businesses to offer nutritious food late at night.\nBut with breakthroughs in the food industry come opposing factors that would hinder a local operation from offering experimental wheat dough.\n“The taste is the biggest part of it,” said Brad Randall co-founder of Aver’s Pizza. Randall said the healthier product wouldn’t be as good.\n“It tends to get denser; it might change the final product and make it not taste as good,” Randall said.\nThat’s not to say that they haven’t tried wheat, though.\n“We’ve had recipes for it before, but for us it’s also a space constraint. It’s really not feasible for us to have both wheat and white dough,” Randall said.\nPotential customers seem to echo Randall’s concerns about taste.\n“I probably wouldn’t eat the wheat. The taste scares me,” freshman Grace Godfrey said.\nThe combination of healthy dough and unhealthy toppings also causes some skepticism.\n“The problem would be that even if you get the high-antioxidant wheat dough is that it is often equaled out by the unhealthy toppings that come on top of it,” Morrison of Community North Hospital said.\nAlthough the possibility for change is there, vendors wouldn’t necessarily switch their products.\n“Changing isn’t something we would do,” Randall said.\nWithout a local outlet that delivers healthier pizza to students, the market is open for the taking. \n“If I could have gotten healthy food when I was in college, I would have jumped on it in a second,” Morrison said.