The nutritional benefits of sushi is a topic that has been debated for a long time and is often on the minds of sushi lovers. It is also somewhat pondered by those who consider sushi as an alternative food source to incorporate into their diet for better health or perhaps to offset the adverse effects of following a normal Western diet which is often high in unhealthy fats (trans). and saturated), red meat, processed foods, and calories.
But is sushi a better choice? It is Really healthy for you?
Perhaps the best way to make that determination is to take the most common ingredients used to make sushi and dissect them one by one. Separate them and try to find out if they are really healthy for you or not.
Let’s start with the most obvious key ingredient in this field; and the one that is the very definition of sushi… Sushi Rice.
sushi rice
Rice is a good source of protein (1 cup provides 25% of the RDA) and carbohydrates and is digested slowly, releasing its energy gradually. It’s also gluten-free (making it a great choice for those with wheat allergies), very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium free, and high in thiamin (vitamin B1 ).
Thiamine is a coenzyme that helps the body convert carbohydrates into energy (glucose), causing it to be burned instead of stored.
This may partly explain why people in Japan, where rice is eaten with almost every meal, have an obesity rate of only 3.2%, which is roughly 10 times LESS than it is here in the United States.
Rice vinegar
Rice vinegar has been accepted for over 2,000 years in Japan as having many medicinal health benefits. And all vinegars in general have been used in almost every country in the world for things ranging from flavoring and preserving rice, to a skin conditioner for use in cancer prevention due to its anti-cancer properties. Vinegar was even praised by the Babylonians, Hippocrates, and Muhammad.
Rice vinegar contains 20 different types of amino acids, of which 9 are essential because they cannot be created from other compounds in the human body.
Some of the purported health benefits of rice vinegars include:
- Strengthens the immune system
- low cholesterol
- Increases the body’s ability to absorb nutrients.
- Lower blood glucose levels
- Kills bacteria on contact, such as salmonella and strep.
- canned food
- lowers blood pressure
- Helps in digestion
- is gluten free
- Helps cure urinary tract infections.
- Reduces high blood sugar
- Helps in relieving pain and symptoms of sunburn, jellyfish stings, insect stings, and headaches.
- Helps neutralize free radicals that damage cells causing aging and degeneration.
- Reduces cholesterol formation by neutralizing some of the harmful oxidized LDL cholesterol
With vinegar, the list seems to go on and on and its positive health benefits seem endless.
nori
Nori is very rich in vitamins and minerals. Especially iodine, but it also contains A, B1, B2, B6, niacin and C. And compared to land plants, seaweed has 10 to 20 times more of these essential vitamins.
Nori is also known to help curb the formation of cholesterol deposits in the blood vessels and is high in protein (up to 50% of its dry weight).
It is also a good source of glutamic acid, an amino acid and neurotransmitter, which is important for learning and memory.
ginger
Ginger has long been believed to provide many beneficial medicinal benefits, from aiding digestion to preventing skin cancer to eliminating nausea.
In fact, the Chinese prescribed ginger as a remedy for digestive problems more than 3,000 years ago. And for centuries, the Ayurvedic tradition in Tibet and India used ginger to treat inflammatory joint conditions, such as arthritis and rheumatism.
Ginger has been used to treat foods for thousands of years in cultures around the world. It is one of the few foods that has stood the test of time and is still used today to treat the same foods that were used centuries and sometimes millennia ago.
The difference between then and now is that science and medicine are now starting to back up what some cultures have known for hundreds or even thousands of years: that ginger is, in fact, the closest thing to a cure for all diseases. superroots we ever can. discover.
wasabi
Wasabi is known to have antibacterial properties and is also rich in vitamin C, B6, protein, fiber, and the minerals calcium, potassium, manganese, and magnesium.
It also stimulates saliva production and aids in digestion.
Wasabi also contains compounds called glucosinolates that are converted by enzymes to ITCs (isothiocyanates) if water is present when broken down by chewing or grinding.
Current research is beginning to show that wasabi may be helpful in managing seasonal allergies and asthma and may also inhibit platelet aggregation (blood clotting) which could have applications in the treatment of heart attacks due to TIC.
There is also a growing evidence base that TKIs can work against cancer cells.
sushi grade fish
Almost everyone has already heard about the benefits of eating fish over other types of meat, especially red meat.
Just a small serving of fish provides up to half of the protein we need daily. It is also low in calories.
White fish like sea bass and red snapper have less than 100 calories per 3 1/2 ounces. Mackerel, eel and tuna have less than 200 calories.
Fatty fish such as tuna, salmon, lake trout, herring, and sardines are rich in omega-3 fatty acids that may be effective in preventing heart disease, stroke, and arthritis.
According to the Mayo Clinic, eating just 2 servings of fish a week (about the size of a deck of cards per serving) may lower your risk of dying from a heart attack. Especially if that fish is high in Omega-3.
In Japan, fish is eaten practically every day. Not surprisingly, heart disease and stroke are almost nonexistent in Japan compared to the US. In Japan, deaths from heart disease are about 30 out of 100,000. By contrast, in the US it is 106 per 100,000. More than 3 times higher.
Without a doubt, fish has to be one of the strongest ingredients contributing to the health benefits of eating sushi.
vegetables
All kinds of vegetables are used in making sushi.
Vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber. In populations where a good amount of fruits and vegetables are consumed, there are lower incidences of cancer.
Plants also contain phytochemicals that help protect the body from disease.
And one of the great things about the vegetables used in sushi is that most of the time they are used in their natural raw state.
Cucumbers, avocado, and carrots are usually sliced and used raw. If they are cooked, they are usually just blanched. Spinach, if used, is typically blanched.
All of this means that the vegetables used in sushi retain as many vitamins and minerals as possible because they are not fully cooked before use.
Green Tea
Although it is not officially an ingredient used to make sushi, it is normally present on the table of almost every sushi meal I have been served at a sushi restaurant.
For thousands of years and in almost every country in the known world, green tea has been praised for its supposed ability to improve health.
From eradicating simple viral and bacterial infections to controlling or curing degenerative conditions like stroke, cancer, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, the claims are many and some are hard to believe.
In fact, the evidence is so overwhelming that the chemoprevention branch of the National Cancer Institute developed a plan to create tea compounds to be used as cancer chemopreventive agents in human trials.
The evidence should be pretty strong if the National Cancer Institute is working on plans for human trials.
Summary
In general, sushi appears to be a very healthy food as long as you stay away from fusion sushi that incorporates deep frying, use low-sodium soy sauce, avoid or limit high-cholesterol shellfish, and avoid condiments like mayonnaise .
Using or ordering brown rice instead of white rice is also a healthier choice, although white rice is still a healthy choice, just not as high on the health scale as brown rice.
To close, let’s put it this way. If every American in the United States substituted one sushi meal for every fast food they would otherwise get, our health care costs would likely plummet, our life expectancies would likely skyrocket, and the quality of our lives would likely improve dramatically.