The bottom line of healthy eating is that you need to understand what’s going in at dinner time. Ever read the ingredients in ‘healthy’ cereal bars? You might be shocked by just how much sugar you find!
Sushi is different.
Everything is fresh (we never store ingredients overnight and only use items on the day of purchase in our sushi delivery London takeaway stalls) and there are no sneaky ingredients like preservatives or artificial sweeteners. Sushi is an artful, simple, healthy food that’s maintained pride of place in Japanese culture since the 7th century.
But what about modern sushi bars?
Bars like ours came into play around the early 1800s when national and international travel in Japan became more accessible for both native Japanese and visiting traders. This modern ‘takeaway’ sushi is a sped up version of what Japanese have been eating for thousands of years. The first incarnations of sushi were much more slowly prepared and featured lots of difficult pickling steps (in part, to help preserve food for tougher times).
Sushi as we know and love it was created by enterprising sushi chefs looking to capitalise on a swift market of visiting businessmen, tourists and busy natives – made at the side of the road on a stall using fresh rice, fish, vegetables (and some of those traditional pickles!) The maki style of sushi (long rolls cut into segments) is indicative of the artful yet hasty sushi preparation of those first street chefs.
And the health part?
You don’t need to read our sushi delivery and takeaway blog to know fresh fish and veggies are healthy, but do you know why?
Seaweed (nori in Japanese) is always thinly prepared and toasted before rolling. High in vitamin A, B-complex niacin and vitamin C, seaweed is great for digestion (if you want to know more about the health benefits of seaweed, we wrote an entire blog entry on it not too long ago – it’s fascinating stuff!)
Rice – aren’t carbs bad? Not at all! Well, if you eat your own bodyweight in pasta, you’re probably not going to be running any marathons, but we all need a sensible amount of carbohydrates to fuel our bodies. Sushi rice is white, so it’s not as healthy as brown rice, but it is low in fat and contains no sodium. Complex carbs, in moderation, are essential for fuelling our bodies (especially ours – running up and down stairs delivering sushi central London and outwards!)
The fresh fish and meats we use are all excellent sources of protein and minerals. Fish like salmon, tuna and crab is low in unhealthy saturated fats but high in nice healthy omega-3 fatty acids, which helps to lower cholesterol and blood pressure (that’s a healthy heart, in other words!)
As for the fresh veggies – do we really need to explain how beneficial a healthy amount of fresh, expertly prepared vegetables is?
And don’t forget the ginger! Picked ginger is typically served alongside sushi to do two things – cleanse the pallet between sushi dishes to enhance the impact of flavours, and aid digestion.
