Healthy Fast Food Guide | Domino’s Pizza | Detailed

Overview

Unlike other fast-food pizza establishments, Domino’s has created options that we can tweak to be slightly healthier. Thus, there are a couple more menu items we can work with when deciding what to get.

Recommendations

Option #1 — Veggie & Chicken Pizza

1. Thin Crust — reduces the sodium and empty calories from the crust because it’s smaller than hand-tossed
2. Robust Tomato Sauce or Marinara Sauce — both of these sauces are acceptable. The marinara has more fat, but less sugar than the robust tomato. However, this amount of fat is minimal so this choice can be based on preference rather than nutrition
3. Grilled Chicken Breast — this chicken is grilled instead of fried, which means you’ll have less intake of bad fats, avoid losing nutrients in the cooking process and reduce butter intake. Consider requesting extra chicken if you need to increase your protein intake because the protein content will be low in a quarter portion of a small pizza
4. Spinach — improves blood glucose levels, lowers risk of cancer, improved bone health
5. Tomato — improves heart health, fights cancer, and improves skin health
6. Black Olives — high in antioxidants and promotes digestion, as well as cardiovascular health. Also, high in sodium so request without olives to reduce sodium intake for the day
7. Cheese — decent protein and improves bone and teeth health, but high in saturated fat and sodium. Request a lighter portion for reduced saturated fat and sodium. The nutritional breakdown looks at regular cheese and not the lighter portion that we’ll be ordering, so it the saturated fat, sodium, and calories should go down a bit

Nutrition facts calculated by adding up each ingredient and dividing by four to account for a quarter portion of the small pizza. For instance, the calculation with calories would be the following:

490 (thin-crust) + 50 (robust tomato sauce) + 260 (regular cheese) + 100 (chicken) + 70 (black olives) + 10 (fresh baby spinach) + 15 (tomatoes) = 995 total calories

995 calories ÷ 4 (a quarter portion of small pizza) = 249 calories

See the excel sheet for full nutritional facts breakdown.

Option #2 — Chicken, Green Pepper, and Onion Pizza

1. Thin Crust — reduces the sodium and empty calories from the crust because it’s smaller than hand-tossed
2. Robust Tomato Sauce or Marinara Sauce — both of these sauces are acceptable. The marinara has more fat, but less sugar than the robust tomato. However, this amount of fat is minimal so this choice can be based on preference rather than nutrition
3. Grilled Chicken Breast — this chicken is grilled instead of fried, which means you’ll have less intake of bad fats, avoid losing nutrients in the cooking process and reduce butter intake. Consider requesting extra chicken if you need to increase your protein intake because the protein content will be low in a quarter portion of a small pizza
4. Onions — lots of nutrients, antioxidants, and improves heart health
5. Green Peppers — high in antioxidants, maintains eye health and reduces the risk of chronic illnesses
6. Cheese — decent protein and improves bone and teeth health, but high in saturated fat and sodium. Request light cheese to reduce fat and sodium intake. The nutritional breakdown looks at regular cheese and not the lighter portion that we’ll be ordering, so it the saturated fat, sodium, and calories should go down a bit

Option #3 — Plain Wings (8 pieces) + Classic Garden Salad

The wings are high in fat and sodium, but the best option among other wings since other flavors are higher in sodium and/or higher in sugar (empty calories). Add a classic garden salad for healthy carbohydrates to fill you up. With other wing establishments, I might recommend a couple of rubs if you need flavor, but the rubs and sauces are significantly higher in sodium, fat, and/or sugar than other places that offer rubs. Thus, it would not be appropriate to suggest any of them. See below for a breakdown of the rubs and sauces to explain why they’re not suggested:

• Mild — 8 pieces of this flavor are 117% of your sodium’s daily value at 2800mg; the plain wings, though not great, have half this amount of sodium
• Hot — 8 pieces of this flavor are 138% of your sodium’s daily value at 3320mg
• Sweet Mango Habanero — 8 pieces of this flavor is 60% of your sodium’s daily value at 1440mg but have the added 22 grams of sugar, which do not have nutritional value compared to vegetable and fruit leading to empty calories
• BBQ — 8 pieces of this flavor are 70% of your sodium’s daily value at 1680mg, but has the added 20 grams of sugar, which do not have nutritional value compared to vegetable and fruit leading to empty calories

Classic Garden Salad

The classic garden salad has the following contents along with suggestions of what to exclude:

1. Lettuce — rich in antioxidants, prevents bone loss and improves heart health
2. Tomato — improves heart health, fights cancer, and improves skin health
3. Onions — lots of nutrients, antioxidants, and improves heart health
4. Carrots — regulates blood cholesterol, improves eye health, and lowers blood pressure
5. Cabbage — anti-inflammatory, antioxidants, and supports digestive tract
6. Skip the cheddar cheese since wings already will be high in saturated fat and sodium
7. Skip the croutons due to the lack of nutrients leading to empty calories

More Useful Tools

Quick Guide — for when you’re on the go and/or need to know what the suggestions are without all the detail

Detailed Notes — consolidated notes for each fast-food establishment