Ingredients

ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, AND FOLIC ACID), WATER, LOW-MOISTURE PART-SKIM MOZZARELLA CHEESE (CULTURED PART-SKIM MILK, SALT, ENZYMES), TOMATO PASTE, COOKED SEASONED PIZZA TOPPING MADE WITH PORK AND CHICKEN, BHA, BHT AND CITRIC ACID ADDED TO HELP PROTECT FLAVOR (PORK, MECHANICALLY SEPARATED CHICKEN, WATER, TEXTURED SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SPICES, SALT, SUGAR, SODIUM PHOSPHATES, PAPRIKA, NATURAL PORK FLAVOR [MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, PORK FAT, NATURAL FLAVORS, PORK STOCK, GELATIN, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, SODIUM PHOSPHATES, THIAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE, SUNFLOWER OIL, PROPYL GALLATE], SPICE EXTRACTIVES, BHA, BHT, CITRIC ACID), PEPPERONI MADE WITH PORK, CHICKEN AND BEEF (PORK, MECHANICALLY SEPARATED CHICKEN, BEEF, SALT, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF SPICES, DEXTROSE, PORK STOCK, LACTIC ACID STARTER CULTURE, OLEORESIN OF PAPRIKA, FLAVORING, SODIUM NITRITE, SODIUM ASCORBATE, PAPRIKA, PROCESSED WITH NATURAL SMOKE FLAVOR, BHA, BHT, CITRIC ACID TO HELP PROTECT FLAVOR), COOKED BEEF PIZZA TOPPING (BEEF, WATER, TEXTURED SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, DEHYDRATED POTATOES WITH SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF SALT, HYDROLYZED CORN PROTEIN, SOY PROTEIN AND WHEAT PROTEIN, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, MALTODEXTRIN, SPICE, NATURAL GRILL FLAVOR [FROM SUNFLOWER OIL], GARLIC POWDER, COOKED IN PORK FAT OR BEEF FAT OR VEGETABLE OIL), SUGAR, WHEAT GLUTEN, 2% OR LESS OF VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR CORN OIL), DEGERMINATED WHITE CORN MEAL, YEAST, SALT, DEGERMINATED YELLOW CORN MEAL, DATEM, BAKING SODA, SPICES, WHEAT FLOUR, ENZYMES, DRIED GARLIC, ASCORBIC ACID (DOUGH CONDITIONER).

How on Earth did we end up having so many ingredients in what essentially is just pizza. The food industry really has gone too far by over-processing everything.

It's not as bad as it looks. Half those ingredients are sub-ingredients. It's like you making something like chili and using salsa. You'd then need to add all the ingredients of the salsa to your chili ingredients. With the sub-ingredients removed it comes down to this:

ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, LOW-MOISTURE PART-SKIM MOZZARELLA CHEESE, TOMATO PASTE, COOKED SEASONED PIZZA TOPPING (MADE WITH PORK AND CHICKEN, BHA, BHT AND CITRIC ACID ADDED TO HELP PROTECT FLAVOR), PEPPERONI MADE WITH PORK, CHICKEN AND BEEF, COOKED BEEF PIZZA TOPPING, SUGAR, WHEAT GLUTEN,

2% OR LESS OF VEGETABLE OIL, DEGERMINATED WHITE CORN MEAL, YEAST, SALT, DEGERMINATED YELLOW CORN MEAL, DATEM, BAKING SODA, SPICES, WHEAT FLOUR, ENZYMES, DRIED GARLIC, ASCORBIC ACID.

Why take out the sub-ingredients? Unless you regularly use "DEHYDRATED POTATOES WITH SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE" when preparing hamburger at home.

I'd rather see the expanded list of ingredients in my chili and salsa. I'm sure it wouldn't look nearly as bad as the list above.

A lot of it is due to the "frozen" part of frozen pizza. There's a ton of what amounts to materials science happening in your frozen pizza. Find a local pizza joint that makes their dough from scratch and bakes in a brick oven, and you can cut down on that ingredients count by an order of magnitude.

What are the issues with those ingredients?

The issue is that the vast majority of these ingredients are artificial substitutes for the actual content of a pizza-like-thing that an average consumer might expect. That they are artificial is not in itself inherently an issue (at least to me, although many many artificial additives have been proven to cause problems while manufacturers continue to use them), but the fact that so many substitutions are made all at once in a given product renders any "common" understanding of its health effects effectively irrelevant.

It basically means that you can't compare a pizza made from the basic ingredients that you and I might normally expect to the contents of a hot pocket. Even comparing apples-to-apples, the ingredient list of a DiGiorno's frozen pizza would be wildly different from the basics of a pizza you could make yourself.

Fearmongering over these subjects never helps, but it is fair to raise concern over the unknown effects of the things you consume.

Most of them are not really artificial, just remnants of some other industrial process (oleoresin of paprika, corn syrup solids, etc).

You’re literally eating junk food.

What ingredients of a "real" pizza have been substituted for? That list includes flour, water, salt, yeast, tomato and cheese, which are roughly speaking the essential components of a pizza.

long list = bad

never heard of it = bad

can't pronounce it = bad

thinking = brain hurt

That pizza would be illegal in the Uk. BHA and BHP are banned over here

This appears to be untrue, based on a cursory google search.

"The flavor enhancers and preservatives BHA and BHT are subject to severe restrictions in Europe but are widely used in American food products."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/well/eat/food-additives-b...

"Subject to severe restrictions" is not banned, and that claim is unsourced anyway.

They're "approved" as E320 and E321 according to: https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/approved-additives...

Wheat, yeast, water

Tomato, basil, oregano

Milk, cultures

Salt, oil.

Whatever pepperoni is made of.

Did I miss anything?

Sugar for the base.

I made pizza yesterday, it was pretty much the above. I also added Tabasco for fun.

I suddenly crave an apple.

Using soy protein or other substitutes like this is relatively rare. Hot pockets use real cheese meat. The same is true of most food people buy at grocery stores or restaurants. Even hotdogs are generally either all beef, or a mixture of chicken and pork.

If TVP is cheaper than meat as an ingeredient, then why does buying TVP product at the grocery cost ~4x more than buying meat?

I suspect that sneaking it into prepared foods is easier (detail doesn't matter quite as much) and high volume (people who don't care what they eat), while presenting it solo is more difficult (needs to look/feel/taste/smell just right) and lower volume (people who make an effort to avoid meat).

Price discrimination. Buyers at whole foods or wherever are willing to pay a higher price for it, and they do.