How many calories are in a piece of takeout pizza?

Hi! I never write about this stuff … but I just spent way too long trying to find the answer online so I thought I’d share this in case other people are looking, too.

I’m currently tracking my food intake with my FitBit. It’s pretty cool. I won’t say too much about the device because this isn’t meant to be a product review, but I think it has one of the more user-friendly food tracking apps. Plus, it’s obviously handy that it syncs with my FiBit. (I have the FitBit Charge HR, btw.)

Anyway, I was preloading my food for the day and I hit a roadblock I’ve hit many times. Pizza.

Friday is pizza night around here. But determining pizza calories is always a huge problem, because pizza is different everywhere you go. And we all know takeout pizza is waaaay different than frozen pizza, so using those calories never feels like an apples-to-apples comparison. Chain pizza places are also not very helpful, because the slices are usually smaller than something you’d get from your mom-and-pop joint.

So I wanted a judge’s ruling on how many calories are in a slice of typical takeout pizza.

I found this article in The New York Times that compared calories and fat from multiple pizza places in the city. I then got all nerdy with numbers and figured out the average calories and fat … but then I realized that all the slices were different sizes, so that wasn’t quite what I needed, either.

Then I got even more nerdy and figured out the average calories and fat per ounce, thereby creating what I feel is a pretty reliable benchmark for takeout/delivery pizza calories.

So now, tonight I will weigh my takeout pizza and apply this per-ounce formulation. (Just now, guessing that my average pizza slice is about 7 ounces, I’m already horrified at how many calories I’m looking at for my typical 2-slice dinner. Plus, it’s Friday. Wine will definitely be happening, too. Sigh.)

And now, for my findings … drumroll please …

Takeout/delivery pizza nutrition info

70.82 calories per ounce

2.44 grams of fat per ounce

20.5 calories from fat per ounce or 29% of calories from fat.

Again, numbers derived from The New York Times article I mentioned above. I deleted any pizzas that were listed as “healthy” versions, because I wanted to focus on a typical serving.

Note: Outside of Philly where I am, a pizza slice is relatively comparable to a New York slice. But if you live somewhere with lame pizza this comparison might not work for you.  (Hello, southern states … I’ve spent enough time down in the bottom of the country to know that what you think is a “New York slice” is not even close … and while we’re at it, anything called a “Philadelphia-style cheesesteak” is laughable. Laughable and sad. You should feel bad about this.)

Anyway, hope this is useful to someone.

Now go away. Nothing to see here.