Jane Black, formerly of The Washington Post‘s food section and currently studying the eating habits of Huntington, W.Va., has a nice piece in New York magazine about how bad pizza is for us. Federal authorities have been sounding the alarm as part of new USDA dietary guidelines.

From Black’s piece:

The humble slice, we learn on pages 25 through 27 of the USDA’s report, is Americans’ No. 2 source of saturated fat and solid fats, largely because pizza is what the dairy industry might call an “effective cheese-delivery system.” Pizza is also the No. 3 source of sodium, beating out cold cuts and even bacon. After “grain-based desserts” like cakes and doughnuts, it’s the second-biggest source of calories for children and adolescents in a generation that has so far distinguished itself only on the scales.

I had a mediocre delivery pizza last night, and I must say, I feel sluggish today. (The muskrat I had Saturday didn’t seem to do too much damage to my digestive tract.)

Perhaps I should give into nanny-statism and learn to say “no” to something I know is bad for me? As Black says: “This isn’t a White House plot to take away your pizza. It’s an effort, and an uphill one at that, to save us from ourselves.”

Do you agree with her?

Photo by Flickr user jasoniam via an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license