Does Wasabi Paste Kill All Bacteria in Raw Fish? Some love it, some hate it, but many believe that wasabi paste - the green and spicy preparation served with sushi - is capable of eliminating all bacteria from raw fish. Paula Teixeira, professor and researcher in the area of food safety at the Faculty of Biotechnology at the Universidade Catolica in Porto, begins by explaining that, in fact, the wasabi root – from which this paste is made – has compounds with “antimicrobial activity”.
However, underlines the researcher, this does not mean that the wasabi paste consumed, for example, in sushi restaurants is capable of killing all the bacteria in raw fish. And there are several reasons why this extrapolation is groundless.