Pizza Blotting Saves Calories Study Is False

(Image credit: Design by Katja Cho)

published 1 October 2015

You know those people who take a paper towel and blot the tops of their pizza? (Side note: HOW DARE YOU.) Well, it seems that besides inducing blind rage from, well, me, they also might be on to something—*or* they could just be pawns in a scheme for buying more paper towels.

Let me explain...

For the longest time, journalists/bloggers/anyone talking about blotting pizzas with paper towels or napkins were using a specific study that says blotting can eliminate 4.5 grams of fat and 41 calories per slice. Which, according to some lunatic math, saves you two pounds a year. (That is, if you're eating *87* slices per year.)

These figures, however, come from 15-year-old data by Georgia-Pacific Health Smart Institute. This institute is an initiative of Georgia-Pacific, which makes—wait for it—PAPER PRODUCTS. LIKE BRAWNY PAPER TOWELS.

According to Buzzfeed, who did the heavy lifting on this hellacious Pizza Scandal, the director of communications and public affairs at Georgia-Pacific said that they no longer had access to that data since the study was done so long ago and that they are "no longer able to verify the test results."

In 2013, the Food Network show Food Detectives stated similar results...though uh, they don't really seem authoritative.

Facebook screenshot from Food Detectives

So—to dab or not to dab? In my humble opinion, just eat your damn pizza. It's all still terrible for you/great for you anyway.

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Samantha Leal is the Deputy Editor at Well+Good, where she spends most of her day thinking of new ideas across platforms, bringing on new writers, overseeing the day-to-day of the website, and working with the awesome team to produce the best stories and packages. Before W+G, she was the Senior Web Editor for Marie Claire and the Deputy Editor for Latina.com, with bylines all over the internet. Graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University with a minor in African history, she’s written everything from travel guides to political op-eds to wine explainers (currently enrolled in the WSET program) to celebrity profiles. Find her online pretty much everywhere @samanthajoleal.