How to Eat Pizza with Acid Reflux- A Verdict from GERD Sufferer

Do you have that hellish fiery GERD and want to know how to eat pizza with acid reflux? I can relate to it because I have been suffering GERD for the last 10 years and I have succeeded at eating pizza, pasta, and acidic foods without stressing my stomach. 

Want to know what I did for it? Read this article, and soon you’ll be saying a big “YES” to a pizza.

Before we get into the tips for eating pizza with acid reflux, let me ask you a few questions:

• How many times a week do you want to eat pizza?
• Would you love to eat 1-2 slices of pie or 3-4 or even more?

• Do you want to order pizza at a restaurant, or is it about preparing specialized GERD-friendly homemade and healthiest pizza?
• What if your acid reflux is gone forever?

Excited!!!

Whatever be the case, you can eat pizza with acid reflux. Yes, you can eat. But before we get into the ways to eat pizza with heartburn, let’s see what GERD or acid reflux means and how they affect you.

What are Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease and Gastroesophageal Ulcer?

Whenever you load your stomach with acidic foods, or carbs the stomach acid reacts to it, which is a usual way to work. However, things go wrong when a muscle named the sphincter doesn’t react to the stomach acid flowing upwards into the esophagus.

What prevents these muscles from functioning properly?

Get an answer for it, and you’re on your way to fix GERD and eat pizzas.

The primary purpose of the lower esophageal sphincter muscle is to stop that flow of stomach acid into the esophagus when there is food inside the stomach and the digestion process is going on. Since the lower esophageal sphincter muscle doesn’t react or react slowly to the stomach acid, this causes acid reflux. If this continues to happen, it’s known as GERD Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. 

Hence, GERD’s mild stage is usually called acid reflux; later on, it’s called GERD when it becomes severe enough to turn into Gastroesophageal Ulcer.  You think starvation is better than eating.  It’s devastating.

Gastroesophageal Ulcer is also known as a peptic ulcer that causes irritation and inflammation in the upper lining of the stomach, where the stomach joins with the lower esophagus lining. 

Hence, acid reflux is the symptom of GERD and Gastroesophageal ulcers. Low stomach acid and sphincter muscle are caused by certain minerals and vitamins’ deficiencies like Vitamin D, potassium, iodine, zinc, Vitamin B3, and calcium. So, you need to fortify your body, actually.

What is Causing you to Have Symptoms of Acid Reflux?

Now, when you know the symptoms or ailments preventing you from eating pizza, let me ask you one more thing before figuring out the right way of eating pizza, despite having acid reflux.

• Is your acid reflux because of low stomach acid?
• Is your acid reflux because of increased stomach acid?

Perplexed?

Yes, it’s the road to identifying the root cause of your heartburn and figuring out eating your most loved foods.

Well, it’s a vicious cycle, in fact, because you take the proton pump inhibitors to treat the high stomach acid, which lowers the acid PH significantly, then to deal with it, the stomach produces more acid, and the cycle of low and high stomach acid continues.

Come on, you’ve to get rid of the cause!

You can do it!

Tips to Deal with Acid Reflux: Top Natural Remedies

It’s easy to eat pizza with low stomach acid. You can follow some natural remedies to help with the stomach acid amount.

• Use Dry Corriander Powder after Meal for Miraculous  Benefits

Eating one tablespoon of dry coriander powder twice a day after meals will miraculously reduce heartburn issues. You can also add a 1/5 ratio of green cardamon seeds. Avoid adding Cardamon, however, if you have low blood pressure or hypotension.

• Start taking apple cider vinegar

Taking apple cider vinegar regulates your low stomach acid and eliminates heartburn.

• Eat Fermented Veggies

Add fermented veggies to your food like kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickles. These will act as probiotics and improve the acid amount in your stomach.

• Try Ginger

Ginger is well-known for its anti-inflammatory effects, which are critical for lowering inflammation caused by low stomach acid. It’s also been approved as an alternate treatment for acid reflux and other gastrointestinal issues. More research is needed, however, to prove its effectiveness in improving stomach acid.

Remember, you’ll need to fix your low stomach acid, which is not about pizza eating only, but it causes the bacteria overgrowth in the small intestine which could have been killed had your stomach acid been normal. It’s also known as SIBO is associated with IBS-like symptoms, such as abdominal pain, bloating, and flatulence.

• Treat your stomach acid

As said earlier, you can use apple cider vinegar to treat stomach acid. 

Make sure you don’t go for traditional medicine that treats stomach acids primarily not the cause: PPIs

Tips to Eat Pizza with Acid Reflux 

Treating the acid reflux isn’t easy; it’ll take some time. Should you not eat pizza during this period? NO!

You can eat pizza by following these tips that I have also been following.

• Get the less Acidic Alternative Sauces for Tomato Sauce or Barbecue Sauce

Since pizza’s barbecue sauce base and other tomato-based sauces like tomato sauce, marinara red sauce, make iconic red sauce for your pizza, they all are acidic food and may increase acid reflux. You’ll need alternate sauces on your pizza that don’t include tomato sauce and taste more like a light sauce option for your stomach because you need to lessen acid. You can use the white cream sauce with zero fats.

• Neutralize Acidic Ranch Sauce Using Baking Soda occasionally and temporarily only

Companies offer ranch sauce that is an acidic dipping sauce. You can use sugar or baking soda to neutralize the acidity and raise the pH to a more basic level. 

Sugar is a common component of tomato sauce. However, baking soda provides the same goal and is employed by medical practitioners to help patients with acid reflux symptoms.

• Choose Fat-free or Low-fat Cheese Like Goat Cheese Pizza

Traditional pizza has fatty cheese. You may pick from a variety of alternative cheese choices, including fat-free cheese, or instead, you can choose low-fat cheese for your Pizza. Low-fat cheese is readily available in the market along with other cheese options. 

• Prefer Non-Acidic Vegetables

Opt for non-acidic veggies for toppings, including non-acidic sauces like olive oil-based sauce or white sauce with no fats. Acidic veggies like olives, jalapenos, tomatoes, and pineapples will cause more acid to harm you resultantly. You can add green peppers, broccoli, carrots (shredded), cauliflower, spinach, or mushrooms to prepare non-acidic delicious pizza to have tasty food during acid reflux.

• Add Fresh Ingredients

Add fresh ingredients. It’ll help your stomach quickly process food. Fresh ingredients also serve essential nutrients, usually missing from packed products or brands. Brands also contain preservatives that may worsen the acid reflux problem. 

• Opt Lean Meats

For meat topping, choose lean meats or simply choose chicken and similar toppings such as turkey and red meat. Lean meats have low-fat content and are relatively very good for acid reflux compared with pepperoni, sausages, pork, and beef. 

Chicken has low fat, so it prevents acids that aggravate GERD. Other toppings that you can include as a substitute are prawns. 

• Have a Small Quantity of Barbecue Sauce

If added in large quantities on pizza, barbeque sauce, and BBQ can be dangerous as they will increase acid reflux. But the small quantity of barbeque sauce is OK for the person suffering from acid reflux, as a small quantity of barbeque sauce will have low acidity.

• Get Thin-Crust Pizza or with Fewer Carbs. 

Neapolitan pizza is a better option for those suffering from acid reflux, unlike Sicilian Pizza, which has the thickest crust and does not care about the pizza ingredients.

So, you can order pizza with a thin crust to avoid acidity caused by the hardest breakdown of carbs in case you have low stomach acid. The keto-friendly diet can also significantly help you in such cases, as it has helped me. The reason is the carbohydrate-rich diet is acidic and triggers your stomach acidity.

• Chew your pizza

Chew your food and pizza slowly, as if you’re digesting it in your mouth only. It’ll help with the further breakdown in the stomach without stressing your stomach.

After reading all the fantastic tips to eat pizza with acid reflux, hopefully, you won’t spend the night regretting eating pizza. 

How do I Eat Pizza with GERD Frequently? Lifestyle Changing Tips.

I take certain measures about my pizza and ingredients; you can also go for those. Markets provide GERD-friendly foods, but you shouldn’t risk your health by eating food outside the home. For GERD, just like acid reflux, you’ll have to ignore spicy foods and fatty foods, including liquids like milk or cheese sauce. 

• Use fresh vegetables and fruits. I try not to miss a big bowl of fresh vegetables salad. It improves digestion as the vegetables act as pre-biotics and reduce stomach acid. You can also do the same. That will provide much-needed nutrition and may also help reduce acid reflux.  Also, eat a big plate of salad a few hours before eating a pizza. Make sure you use non-acidic vegetables. Like cucumber, lettuce, celery, carrots, broccoli, asparagus, sweet potato, and beet. Avoid using cabbage, it can be gastric. The same goes for the fruits. If you love to eat fruits, choose those which are not acidic.

• Eat a soft and fiber-rich diet. Nuts, oatmeal, whole grains, fennels, ginger, and parsley intake can ease the acid.

• Cut off other acidic foods prior to eating a pizza. It’s not the pizza only to call for acidity. These can also be other foods and drinks which aggravate the situation. So, when you’re looking to eat a pizza ( anyone with acid reflux issues thinks twice before eating) should count other foods that they underestimate but they blast when the pizza comes. These can be:

• Hard drinks
• Soft sugary drinks
• Caffeine (tea, coffee, and chocolates)

By simply keeping a check on all these,  I can enjoy a slice of pizza or entire pizza. I don’t mean to reduce the number of coffee or tea, but you can prefer a half cup instead of a full one.

Make your own Easy-to-Digest GERD Friendly Pizza.

You have known many ways of eating regular pizza despite stomach acidity issues. But would you like to know how to eat pizza with acid reflux every day?

Yes, it’s possible! With little investment in any best commercial pizza oven for home, you can make the healthiest pizza for you and your family every day. This low-carb pizza can be heaven. Here is the recipe

FAQS

• Who is at risk of GERD or acid reflux? 

GERD often strikes anyone who are careless with their food intake; not eating healthy food, not getting vitamins and mineral-rich diet,  way too stressed or on some medication….You weren’t born with it, you developed it. But it can affect people who have issues like obesity, bad eating habits, low mineral absorption, and smoking habits. 

• What first aid can help lower acidity in the stomach?

The best first aid you can have is:

• Mild hot Ginger tea
• 1cup of cucumber juice
• Or 1 tbs of dry coriander powder

Ginger tea will help the sphincter control stomach acid. It’ll also significantly reduce the inflammation of the upper stomach lining. 

• Can I eat fries if I have acid reflux?

Fried stuff adds to discomfort especially, if a person is suffering from acid reflux. Hence, fries and other similar fried foods that seem delicious are dangerous during acid reflux.

• Can I eat Pasta with acid reflux?

Yes, you can eat properly cooked, soft pasta combined with low acidic sauces. Yet, eat it in moderate quantities. You can follow the guidelines we’ve mentioned above for eating pizza with GERD.

• What is the difference between heartburn and acid reflux heartburn?

Heartburn is one symptom of acid reflux. However, you might have acid reflex but not heartburn as I have. 

• Is cheese OK for acid reflux? 

A light cheese portion with low fats is OK for acid reflux. However, full-fat cheese will worsen acid reflux so before eating cheese, you must guarantee it has low fats.

• What snacks can I eat if I have acid reflux?

The best snack to have during acid reflux is Pretzel. Pretzel is a dough; it is ready to eat after baking in the oven and has many nutritional benefits like high fiber.

Note: It’s not medical advice, yet my personal research and experience with living with GERD. 

1 JUMBO TIP that has Changed my Life in 2022

After suffering from GERD for less than a decade, I finally overcame it. Besides adopting all the above-mentioned changes in food, I have found it’s about flour types, majorly.

And in flour, gluten can be a major cause of GERD, but you have to figure it out first. So, in my case, yes, gluten has been making me sick, and only whole wheat flour with high fiber and less gluten could save my life. I can eat bread and tortillas regularly now without getting sick.

So, please look for a whole wheat pizza crust or make it at home. You’ll be enjoying an Eden-like life.

2023 Brought me One Step Closer to GERD-free Life. 2024 is Going on…

Initially, I wrote this article in 2021. I kept learning about my acid reflux issues, and things changed positively in 2 years. Finally, by the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, I’m here almost GERD-free…
How?
Dietary choices changed; I went stress-free…, and GERD symptoms triggered, cortisol hormone was lowered, and now I can eat anything from pizza to shwarma or BBQ.
The key is not to skip your favorite meal, but go moderately, make correct choices, and just know the cause and get it fixed with the help of your healthcare professional.

Final Thoughts

The best advice I can come up with as a patient with acid reflux is to identify the actual cause of acid reflux: low or high stomach acid. 

So, treat the certain nutritional deficiency that deprives your sphincter muscles of proper functioning, change your lifestyle, prioritize certain foods and avoid others (especially complex recipes that are combined with carbs, fats, and protein at the same time), and adopt your personalized recipes to enjoy whatever you want to eat.

GOOD LUCK!

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace professional medical advice. Seek medical attention before making any changes based on this content. While we strive for accuracy, we cannot guarantee it. Use at your own risk. We accept no liability for any outcomes.