When I gave up grains, I thought I was also giving up pizza forever. Yes, I cheat a couple of times a year with a gluten free pizza, but really it’s no good for me: my body doesn’t tolerate tomato sauce, cow cheese, yeast or grains well. That’s four points against eating pizza.
Enter: meatzza! I initially balked at the idea. A pizza made of meat? It sounded too decadent and well, meat heavy. I’ve been a vegetarian and raw foodie at different periods of my life, and like many of us animal lovers, a part of me still wishes I didn’t have to eat meat to feel good. Well, all that changed when I came down with adrenal fatigue directly following a 3 month stint as a vegetarian. My moral superiority and kindness to all creatures lost its luster when I became too sick to get out of bed.
Why eat the meat? Traditional cultures consumed very high amounts of animal products (up to 70{edc87575597f4f3ad5e35fd7f36c45c2e827b7d30afc5bd9b12c8599e57b4ed7} of their total intake), and studies and research performed by Weston A Price demonstrated these people were remarkably hardy and healthy. Since incorporating Weston A Price principles of traditional eating into my life, a way of eating that is rich in animal fat and protein, and feeling so much better for it, meatzza was an inevitable and one of my last holdouts (okay, maybe eating brains is one of my last holdouts).
Science is catching up, too; meat is no longer the devil it was in the 80’s and 90’s. For a long time science claimed saturated fat and cholesterol from animal products were bad for your body (potentially contributing to heart disease and high cholesterol, etc), but new science has reversed its initial opinion, showing that it has no negative effect on the harmful LDL cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is actually protective; a vital molecule in all cell membranes in the body, it is an important building block for hormones (and if you’re still stuck on the old way of thinking about saturated fat and meat, be sure to read 8 Ridiculous Myths About Meat And Health, a great article).
Recipe
1 lb. each, ground beef and turkey (2 lbs)
1 tsp each: oregano, basil, sage, fennel seeds, garlic powder, salt
1 egg
1+ cup shredded goat cheese (pile the cheese on, if you like)
chopped: black olives, thin sliced red onions, bell peppers and whatever veggies you enjoy
meatzza sauce: 1 cooked acorn squash, slightly salted and pureed
Preheat oven to 450. Mix spices into meat till well incorporated. Press meat on a lipped and oiled cookie sheet, as you would dough. Bake for 10 minutes, or until meat is solid (meat will shrink a bit). Pour off any fat before you spread your sauce. Layer veggies and cheese (put the thin onions on top – they will carmelize and crisp up) then crank the temperature to 500 and broil on the top rack for 5 minutes until cheese is bubbly. Serve with salad. Enjoy!
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