How many sushi restaurants does the place where you live have? There is a good chance that the counter is at least at 1. Sushi seems to be everywhere, but just how healthy is this Japanese snack?
Very popular
In the past, sushi has been extremely expensive and a real delicacy. You have to travel to Japan, so to speak, to taste really good sushi. Meanwhile, sushi has lost this exclusivity. In 2022 there are quite a few restaurant chains that only focus on this Japanese dish. In 2021, the Chamber of Commerce will announce that 914 sushi sellers are active in the country that year, compared to 491 in 2018. A big increase. The number of restaurants where you can mainly order sushi still seems to be growing. You can often also order other dishes from the same genre here, such as poké bowls. How healthy is this range?
What’s in it?
Of course there is endless arguing about what ‘healthy’ exactly is, but the fact is that the white rice in sushi does not necessarily have a positive effect on our body. This is because it contains so-called fast carbohydrates, which cause the blood sugar level to rise faster than, for example, the carbohydrates in brown rice. It is therefore not a good choice, especially for people with an (increased risk of) type 2 diabetes. After all, to get the sugar out of the blood, the body has to make insulin. In people with type 2 diabetes, this is not sufficiently available, so that the sugar level in the blood remains on the high side. This can cause all kinds of ailments, such as poorly healing wounds, poor vision and infections that often come back. To limit the negative influences of high blood sugar as much as possible, it is therefore important to pay attention to the diet.
Also read: Takeaway: Healthy or Unhealthy Choice?
Frying pan
In addition to white rice, some sushis also contain fried ingredients or they are dipped whole in the hot fat. Fried food is also not very healthy, because it usually contains a lot of saturated fat. After all, this type of fat raises cholesterol levels, which is not good for the blood vessels.
Of course there are also plenty of sushis that, in addition to the white rice, consist of fresh vegetables or seaweed. Those ingredients are of course good in themselves, but the white rice does not make it the healthiest food in the world. The soy sauce in which it is often dipped is also not very good, because it often contains a lot of salt. According to the Nutrition Center, 1 piece of sushi contains the following nutrients:
- 80 kilocalories of energy
- 1 gram vet
- 0.2 grams of saturated fat
- 14.5 grams of carbohydrates
- 2 grams of sugars
- 0.3 grams of fiber
- 3.1 grams of protein
- 0.77 grams of salt
It is not clear whether this is sushi with fried ingredients or without. For comparison: 1 bitterbal (weighing 17 grams) contains 44 kilocalories. It does contain more saturated fat (0.8 grams).
pokebowl
As mentioned, many sushi restaurants often don’t just serve sushi. The poké bowl is also increasingly on the map. In the Netherlands, this originally Hawaiian dish often consists of pieces of (raw) fish or meat, rice, soybeans, some fruit and some other vegetables. Also, the wasabi mayonnaise or soy sauce is usually not missing. How healthy is this dish? Again, it is often served with white rice and the sauces are not too healthy. If you make it yourself, you can of course make it as (un)healthy as you want. For example, replace the white rice with cauliflower rice, as in this recipe from Cook with MAX.
(Source: Diabetes Fund, Nutrition Center, archive, Metro, Noord-Hollands Dagblad. Photo: Shutterstock)