Sticky rice balls, called onigiri in Japan, are a popular, portable lunch or snack food. You make them by wrapping fish and fruit in white rice, then coating or wrapping the ball with seaweed and seeds. Each recipe for sticky rice balls has its own nutrition profile. Consider the nutrition information for a "typical" lunch-size serving made with salmon, plums and nori.
Serving Size and Calories
A serving of sticky rice ball is one individual rice ball. These typically measure about half a handful. A serving this size contains 220 calories. Despite the protein content of the fish and seaweed wrap, most of these calories are from carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates
One serving of onigiri contains 44.2 g of total carbohydrates. These include 0.4 g of sugars and 0.3 g of dietary fiber, with the remainder consisting of starch and complex carbohydrates. According to Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, a good carbohydrate provides a mix of starch and complex carbs. This provides immediate energy as the simple starches break down quickly, along with lasting energy as the complex carbs digest more slowly.
Fats
A sticky rice ball contains 0.8g of fat. Unhealthy saturated fats make up 0.1 g of this fat content, along with 0.6 g of unsaturated fats. According to Willett, it's the ratio of unhealthy saturated fats to healthy unsaturated fats that's most important when considering the fat profile of a given food.
Protein
One serving of sticky rice ball contains 6.8 g of protein, about 13 percent of the USDA recommended daily allowance. This is evenly divided between complete proteins from the fish and incomplete proteins from the seaweed. A complete protein is one that provides all of the amino acids your body needs, but can't make for itself.
Micronutrients
A sticky rice ball contains between 4 and 6 percent of your daily requirement for vitamins B-6 and B-12, phosphorus, riboflavin and selenium. It contains smaller, but still significant amounts of vitamin A, copper, calcium, folate, iron, magnesium, pantothenic acid, phosphoruus, riboflavin, thiamin and zinc. This comes at the cost of 404 mg of sodium with every serving, nearly half your daily allowance.
References
- "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy"; Dr. Walter Willett, et al; 2006
- Spark: Rice Ball Nutrition Facts
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