I recently spent over a month travelling with two calorie-conscious girlfriends. During our trip, we ate a lot of sushi because one, it's delicious; two, it's a healthy choice amongst the array of deep-fried and fat-filled offerings that dominate the dining landscape; and three, we were right by the ocean and reveled the opportunity to get fresh seafood. But I can't help but wonder: with all that rice, is sushi really the best choice calorie-wise? It has lots of valuable vitamins and minerals like omega 3s, but if you're watching your waistline, would it be better to choose something else?

Let's investigate. An average sushi meal that we had would consist of a California roll (6 pieces), possibly another roll of something with a bit of pizazz, let's say a shrimp tempura roll (again, 6 pieces), and maybe a serving of edamame if we were really hungry. How many calories and fat would be in this meal? Would it be:

a) 962 cal, 46 g of fat
b) 863 cal, 31 g of fat
c) 555 cal, 26 g of fat
d) 231 cal, 2 g of fatThe answer is B) 863 Cal, 31 g of fat. That's not bad when you compare it to most fast food meals, but it's definitely not as low-cal as most people assume. Plus, if your watching carbs, this meal would have a ton of them, 111 g of them in fact. So here's my suggestion: if you're counting calories, stick with just one roll, or better yet, order sashimi (fish with no rice) -- it's low in calories, free of carbs and high in protein. If that just won't fill you up, supplement your meal with Miso Soup (85 calories per cup) or edamame (100 calories per serving)

You can check out the counts of most of your sushi favourites here.