Pizza starts on a farm
Pizza. It's one of our favorite foods!
Americans eat about 350 slices of pizza per second. That means, as a nation, we eat around 100 acres of pizza each day. Picture an acre as about the size of a football field.
And speaking of acres and fields, every pizza ingredient starts on a farm somewhere. Today, there are about 2 million farms in the United States. It takes a number of farmers growing and raising different things to make sure you have the toppings you want on your pizza. Let's take a look:
What are your favorite pizza toppings? Take our quick poll, and see how you compare!
Who loves pizza the most?
According to Zippia.com, the state that loves pizza the most is Connecticut. A whopping 29 states prefer cheese pizza over all other types of pizza. HOWEVER, North Dakota, New Mexico and Georgia all list Hawaiian as their favorite. (Interestingly enough Hawaiians don't much care for pizza and their favorite is NOT Hawaiian. It's Caprese!)
There are several days devoted to pizza throughout the year:
- Feb. 9 is National Pizza Day
- June 23 is National Detroit-Style Pizza Day
- September 5 is National Cheese Pizza Day
- September 20 is National Pepperoni Pizza Day
- October 11 is National Sausage Pizza Day
- November 12 is National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day.
Activities for kids
- Draw a round pizza crust. Use a ruler to divide it in half. Next divide it into fourths. Finally, divide it into eighths. How many pizzas do you need to give everyone in your class one slice?
- On a paper plate, draw your favorite kind of pizza. See if you can add a topping from each of the five food groups. Visit https://www.myplate.gov/ for more information about the five food groups.
- Ask your classmates what type of pizza they like best. Draw a bar graph to show their answers.
- Download our Pizza Activity Page (word search and coloring).