Growing up in Michigan, Domino’s (Pizza) has a personal meaning for me. The company’s headquarters is in Ann Arbor near the University of Michigan campus. It sits on a large parcel of land called Domino Farms and my parents used to take us out there around the holidays to drive through one of the largest Christmas light displays I have ever seen. Unfortunately for Domino’s though, this is where the fondness ends as I (apparently like many others) never cared for their pizza very much.
In the past year, Domino’s took a bold step forward by launching an advertising campaign that admitted that their pizza was terrible (Example). They vowed to do better and asked customers to try their new recipe. What did they change, you ask? Well, for one, it looks like their pizza became 40% cheesier. The New York Times reported over the weekend that Domino’s and other chains such as Taco Bell have been working with an organization called Dairy Management to 1) help the chains increase their sales and 2) do so by using more cheese. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love cheese, which is precisely why such an approach to increase sales using more cheese should be wildly effective. However, just one slice of the new Domino’s pizza contains as much as two-thirds of the daily recommended amount of saturated fat. That means that in two slices I have not only eaten all of the saturated fat I should have for the day, but that I have exceeded it - by about 30%. In the article, the Department of Agriculture is quoted as stating that, “When eaten in moderation and with attention to portion size, cheese can fit into a low-fat, healthy diet.” With this, we are in absolute agreement. Portion size is key, but portion size can be difficult to judge or maintain when there is a huge business promoting more, more, and more. The $600,000+ salary of Dairy Management’s CEO and their $12 million+ marketing campaign behind the cheesier pizzas can go a long way to influence us to do things that are not in our best interest. So, keep in mind that an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as an entire glass of whole milk and that cheese has become the number one source of saturated fat in most people’s diets. In fact, the amount of cheese that Americans eat has tripled since the 1970′s. Perhaps there is a relationship here between rising rates of obesity and the extra cheese… Alas, it is not easy being (too) cheesy.Larry