Nowadays more and more people are getting aware of the consumption of their food and the ingredients present in it. Being gluten-free is more like a fashion rather than a health issue. If you are also one of them, who is choosing to follow a gluten-free lifestyle but confused about sushi, then you are on the right page.
Even though from the outside, the ingredients of sushi seem to be free of gluten, I will dive deep into the topic to give you an in-depth idea of which ingredients may contain gluten.
Basic Idea of sushi?
Even though sushi is an authentic dish by Japanese people, it is popular and loved by the whole world in the present day. Rice, vinegar, and raw are supposed to be the main ingredient of any sushi, but you will get a variety of sushi including several ingredients. But if we want to categorize sushi, there are only three vast categories that are mainly used worldwide.
3 Types of Sushi:
• Temaki Sushi: A cone-shaped sushi made using seaweed, rice, and other ingredients.
• Nigiri Sushi: Rice and raw fish are the main ingredients here. As for toppings, you can find cooked shrimp, salmon eggs, or sliced eggs.
• Maki Sushi: A type of roll sushi made using rice, seaweed. Other ingredients are added and a bamboo mat is used to roll them. They cut the roll into small pieces.
Bonus Type:
Although Sashimi is just raw fish without any rice or vinegar, people do keep this in the related category and mostly they are being eaten together as well.
Also Read: GLUTEN-FREE AND GUILT-FREE PACKED BREAD BANDS FOR YOU
Are ingredients in Sushi Gluten-Free?
Now let’s focus on the gluten part.
- · Cream Cheese: Free of gluten
- · Fish/Shellfish: Free of gluten
You can look for the term “tempura” to avoid. Because this term means the food is made with batter, which may contain gluten.
- · Fruits: Free of gluten
- · Imitation Crab: You can check the labels to confirm it is gluten-free or not.
- Imitation Crab can have gluten in it. It is just processed fish meat to taste like crab, but it has a possibility of having gluten.
- · Seaweed: Free of gluten
- · Sauces: Check the labels to confirm
- • A sauce has various ingredients, you can verify the ingredient to see the gluten status.
- · Soy Sauce: Contains Gluten
- • Soy Sauce is made of wheat and soybeans, which contain gluten. You can go for tamari soy sauce.
- · Rice: Free of gluten
- · Rice Vinegar: Check the labels to confirm
- • Vinegar is the main ingredient of every sushi and rice vinegar is gluten-free.
- • Even though people might worry that gluten-containing grain can be used to make vinegar, but after the distillation process only alcohol remains.
- • If something with gluten is added afterward then the gluten-free status cannot be guaranteed.
- · Wasabi: Check the labels to confirm
- • Remember that wasabi is made of rare vegetables.
- • Because of the circumstances pure wasabi can be considered expensive.
- • So you know the wasabi that comes with the sushi is far from pure and contains others.
While you are at any restaurant and concerned about the gluten-free status, it is best to ask for
the ingredients. Because you never know what they might contain. If you are skeptical, then it is
best not to consume it.
Does Sushi Contaminated have Gluten?
Shrimp, salmon are common ingredients to make sushi, while using a bamboo mat to roll it there is a possibility to cross-contact.
Both of these are two possible ways that cross-contact can be introduced to the surface area. We can conclude you need to make sure that the surface is cleaned before making gluten-free sushi.
Summary:
You need to study even the side dishes and dips or sauces served with sushi to completely make sure it’s gluten-free status. Because even if from the surface it looks like sushi is overall free of gluten, you never know what is hiding inside that sure you are dipping your sushi into.
Additionally, check for the cross-contact information as well, because, after all the effort, you don’t want to consume gluten because of this small mistake.
