Wasabi is the name given to a pungent spice comonally found in Japanese restaurants and served with sushi and sashimi. It is green and is normally consumed as firm paste.

In the last decade or so Japanese style foods have become readily available in Western countries. With this increase in availability wasabi has entered the language of nearly every country in the world.

So what is wasabi?

It is not is a natural product, it is man made.

What makes up wasabi is dependent on who the manufacturer and what their attitude is to meeting the labeling requirements in the countries they sell their wasabi in.

In most cases these manufacturers are solely focused on the bottom line and ride roughshod over many countries labelling regulations.

Because of this the most common ingredients in wasabi powder are;

In our research we have found 95.8% are solely made up from these ingredients. The Wasabi List which lists the products checked and the results found can be downloaded here.

With some manufacturers the artificial colours may be replaced with a green colouring such as spiralina, chlorophyll, turmeric and very occasionally (less than 1%) powdered leaf of the Wasabia japonica (True Wasabi) plant.

Artificial flavours can be almost anything, although chili seems to be the most common..

In addition there are stabilisers, emulsifiers, fillers that just increase the product volume. This is especially true with ready to eat wasabi paste in a tube.

Most of the additives are FDA approved, but have been shown to cause cancer in a number of studies.

Most contain GMO's

Most mustard these days is grown from GM seed, which not only introduces GMO's into your body, but also contributes to killing the worlds bee population. Without bees and other insect pollinators most crops, fruits and flowers will not provide food or pleasure for future generations.

Healthy Japanese Foods

Most people agree that Japanese food in general is healthy food and is good for you.

The use of manufactured wasabi which contains GMO Mustard (an undeclared allergen on most products), together with cancer forming FDA Approved Additives now makes this orginally healthy food into an unhealthy one.

With Namida 100% Pure Wasabia japonica powder you get the True Wasabi with no additives of any sort. It can be purchased here.

Using Namida 100% Pure Wasabia japonica powder made into a paste with your otherwise healthy Japanese Food ensures you keep away from GMO's, undeclared allergens, cancer forming additives and more.

The ready made pastes in tubes that seem to be available almost everywhere these days have even more additives than a powder, and none of them actually contain any of the real plant (Wasabia japonica) that wasabi derived its name from.

Wasabi List

You can get a list of all the wasabi products we have checked to find out what your favourite wasabi product contains here.