This article was written for publication in The Montreal Gazette.

It is said to be the world’s most popular food. We are talking pizza! Although I’m a fan, and know all about “four-cheese pizza,” I’ve never come across “pizza quattro stagioni,” or “four-seasons pizza,” that is divided into four sections with each section representing one season of the year. Prosciutto and olives represent winter, artichokes spring, basil and tomatoes summer, and mushrooms represent autumn. Of course, there is always a base of tomato sauce and cheese.

Sounds yummy to me! But apparently not to the rainbow lizard, the most colourful lizard in the world. We know this thanks to research carried out by a group of scientists in Togo, West Africa, where these lizards commonly scoot around, even in urban areas. The research, which I would hardly describe as “cutting-edge,” was prompted by an observation made by one of the scientists. A male lizard, recognized by its vibrant colours, unlike the mor drab female, was seen climbing a tourist’s table to steal a piece of four cheese pizza! This was surprising since the lizards generally prefer to dine on insects. What attracted them to the pizza, the scientist wondered? Was there something special about the four-cheese variety?

An experiment was devised whereby plates of four-cheese pizza and four-seasons pizza were placed on the ground about 10 meters apart from each other and 10 meters from trees where the lizards were previously spotted. Cameras were set up to document the appeal of the two menus. Within 15 minutes there was a feeding frenzy, but shockingly, only the four-cheese pizza attracted the lizards. The multipart pizza had no appeal at all! What chemical cue attracted the lizards to one pizza but not the other remains a mystery.

Of what practical use is this study? The only one I can think of, is that should you ever have a rainbow lizard as a pet, and should you want to spark some gustatory delight in said creature, offer him a slice of four-cheese pizza. Although this study will not take anyone’s breath away, at least no significant research funds were wasted. Expenses were limited to the cost of the pizza slices.

Maybe the lizards could be coaxed to eat the four seasons pizza if they were fed it with electrified chopsticks. That takes us back to 2011 when Japanese scientists Hiromi Nakamura and Homei Miyshita published a paper, “Augmented Gustation Using Electricity” in which they described improving the flavour of food by passing a small electric current through the tongue via food. The positive terminal of a battery pack worn on the wrist was connected to one chopstick and the negative terminal to the second one. A current then passes through any food picked up with the chopsticks as long as it contains some moisture and electrolytes, which is the case for almost any food, including pizza. When the food picked up with the chopsticks comes into contact with the tongue, the taste buds sense the current and somehow become more sensitive especially to sodium ions. Since sodium ions are responsible for saltiness, and saltiness is a major component of flavour, the food becomes tastier.

Although at first this study was looked on as quite “offbeat,” it has actually turned out to have a possible practical application. Professor Miyashita has partnered with the Japanese beverage company Kirin to produce an “electric spoon” powered by a rechargeable lithium battery that will add saltiness to food without adding any salt. An electric current runs through food placed on the spoon that then enhances the saltiness detected by the tongue. This could be of particular appeal to the Japanese population, one of the highest consumers of salt in the world at about 10 grams a day, double the recommended amount. Although pizza is not low in salt, (about 5 grams per two slices) maybe lizards would prefer some added saltiness. You wouldn’t eat pizza with a spoon though. But Professor Miyashita has also pioneered an electric fork! I guess that is the one to use when feeding four seasons pizza to a rainbow lizard.

Pizza is also hefty in calories, and you probably want to keep your lizard nice and trim. How about mixing some powdered polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) into the pizza dough? Astonishingly, that is exactly what was suggested in a 2016 paper published in the “Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology.” “Satiety is complex,” the researchers said, “with a significant contributing factor being the stretching of the stomach due to the volume and mass of the ingested material.” They therefore suggested that artificially increasing the volume of food with a bulking agent that cannot be metabolized would cut down on caloric intake. Polytetrafluorethylene, better known as Teflon, is heat resistant, contributes no flavour, and is inert, meaning it will not undergo any reaction within the body. Supposedly any that is ingested will come out the other end. For people struggling with weight loss, the authors propose that one part Teflon mixed with three parts food will substantially improve satiety and reduce calorie consumption.

The paper references trials in which rats fed enormous amounts of polytetrafluoroethylene experience no adverse effects and also documents the safe use of Teflon in surgical procedures. Studies demonstrating no passage of particles sized larger than 20 nanometers into the blood stream from the intestine are also described. The size of the particles proposed as a food additive is larger. While the authors are probably correct about ingested Teflon of the appropriate particle size having no direct effects on health, there are other issues to consider. What happens to all the PTFE that exits the body? It ends up in the environment and eventually breaks down into smaller particles, the dreaded “nanoplastics” that dominate many a headline. These may then eventually make their way into our body through food or drinking water in particle sizes that can indeed be absorbed and that can conceivably cause mischief. So, feeding PTFE to people is not a good idea. Neither is feeding it to rainbow lizards.

What do studies about lizards’ appetite for pizza, the improvement of flavour with electrified chop sticks and the use of PTFE as a food bulking agent have in common? They have all been awarded the IgNobel Prize, a parody of the Nobel Prize, that “first makes people laugh then makes them think.” Well, I think the lizard study is amusing but useless, the electrified chopsticks possibly have some practical application, but the proposal of adding Teflon to food should not and will not stick.

Anyone know where I can find four season pizza? Not being a lizard, I’m ready to go for it although I’ll skip the winter quarter with prosciutto and olives. Too salty.

@‌JoeSchwarcz