The basis behind a ‘hot take’ is that it is a piece of commentary based on opinionated ideas. Here are some of the hot takes from a couple of LZHS's students.

For Courtney Morrison, sophomore, pizza must have bread, cheese, and sauce.

“Pizza is not pizza unless it has bread, cheese, and sauce,” Morrison said. “Omitting any of these ingredients means it is not pizza, but a glorified flatbread or some other gourmet creation. That is not pizza.”

While this ‘hot take’ may not seem very severely unpopular, Morrison claims that it is “always a huge debate” between her and her friends.

“Whenever I go out with friends to Mod Pizza, one of my friends always just gets bread, sauce, and pepperoni with no cheese whatsoever,” Morrison said. “I always say, ‘it’s not pizza, it’s got to have the three ingredients that define what pizza is.’ The almighty Google defines pizza as ‘a dish of Italian origin consisting of a flat, round base of dough baked with a topping of tomato sauce and cheese, typically with added meat or vegetables,’ and when the internet speaks, I listen. You can eat whatever you want, whether it’s just bread with sauce or literal butter on cardboard, but don’t go pretending it’s something it’s not.”

Her friends’ continual debate also made her realize the reason for this ‘hot take’.

“It’s unpopular because pizza is so popular,” Morrison said. “It’s become such a broad term now where everything that is remotely circular with something shoved on top -- like chocolate ‘pizza’ -- gets called a pizza and no one cares about its saucy, cheesy, delicious origins!”

Morrison says her strong position on this topic is mainly combated by those who cannot eat the certain ingredients she deems necessary.

“I see people agreeing once in a while, however, the general consensus is that I’m dead wrong and need to be inclusive for people with allergies or food preferences,” Morrison said. “They can eat whatever they want, just don’t call it pizza! Call me a pizza purist but I’ll slap a name tag on every glorified flatbread I see.”

For Nathan Gorska, sophomore, running is the best sport.

“I developed my opinion in sixth grade, when I just wanted to try out the sport and I didn’t really consider it to be something I [would] pursue in the future,” Gorska said. “Not a lot of people agree that running is a fun thing to do, most people hate running because it is a very big challenge for them, but when you find someone who enjoys the sport as much as you, people can make really good connections over it.”

Despite all the benefits he claims he has gotten from his liking of running, according to Gorska, he still sees a number of people continuing to disagree with his opinion.

“I think that my opinion is not popular because people struggle when they take their first couple of runs and look at it like a chore to stay in shape,” Gorska said. “Despite [this], I have really developed a love for running and all it has to offer. It [has] become one of the things in my life that I really looked forward to everyday.”

Finally, for Zoe Pavlu, junior, pineapple on pizza is perfect.

“I first tried it at a California pizza kitchen,” Pavlu said. “I had been wanting to try it for a while before, because I had heard that it was either good or bad. I think I liked it because not only is pizza good but pineapple is good too. I think I liked them both together because I liked them both separately before. I'm not exactly sure why I liked it to be [honest, I just] did.”

Even though she claims her logic makes sense, she knows that some people strongly disagree with her.

“I think it’s unpopular because people aren’t willing to try new foods, or to really try anything new,” Pavlu said. “If they were to be willing to try it I think people would actually like it. I occasionally see people agree with me though. It's more that people agree than they do disagree [right now], so I'm happy about that.”