11898 Healthy Mini Pizza Roll Adventure Fri Oct 02 15:55:00 -0700 2009 http://www.chow.com/stories/11898 Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:55:00 GMT Ostensibly wholesome pizza snacks This week's mission: ostensibly wholesome pizza snacks. http://www.chow.com/assets/2009/09/inline1_pizza_munchies.jpg James Norton 88 Supertaster 1 Why even try to make a healthy mini pizza roll? It’s a challenging proposition, this idea of fusing mini egg rolls and good old American pizza into something we can eat without feeling terrible. But apparently somebody thought there was gold in them thar hills.

Pizza Munchees are pizza rolls with a whole-wheat-based wrapper and soy cheese, and contain less salt and fat than their non-health-food competition. When weighed against Totino’s Cheese Pizza Rolls, they have marginally fewer calories but a better ratio of calories from fat per serving (45 out of 180 rather than 70 out of 200) and no saturated or trans fats versus 2 grams of each in every Totino’s serving.

This isn’t surprising, as the damn things are designed to be healthy. What is a little more unexpected is that they’re competitive on the taste front. Conventional pizza rolls use such low-quality cheese that soy cheese isn’t markedly less enjoyable; it’s just a different, lighter experience. Pizza Munchees do suffer from an almost tortillalike wrapper that could be crisper, but they also deliver a pleasantly profound oregano kick. Totino’s rolls are crunchier and more pizzalike, but the low cheese quality and overall greasiness work against them.

All in all, Pizza Munchees perform ably, particularly considering they’ve got one hand tied behind their back.

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