THE BENEFITS OF KELP: article from Organic Lifestyle Magazine

I found this article about kelp, from Organic Lifestyle magazine, today.  Rather than re-invent the wheel, I’m linking to it here, so that, if you don’t already know about all the good things about kelp, you can learn quickly.

I love just about any kind of seaweed (sea vegetable) out there , except Japanese kombu (this is good in cooked food, but I don’t cook food – if someone gave me some, I would grind it up and put it on food or else include it in a green powder).  I re-hydrate the dehydrated seaweed,  chop it fine, and include it any greens or other vegetable mix.  When I first started out eating vegan and, then, raw, I used kelp powder instead of salt.

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KELP SUSHI

KELP SUSHI

I soaked the Korean kelp I had found in the Korean market for 1 hour (the instructions said 40 minutes.) Then I rinsed it and soaked it for about 10 more minutes. Then I took the pieces out of the water and cut them to sushi piece sizes, and returned them to the water until I used them.

To assemble, I placed a pinch of parsnip/olive oil/apple cider vinegar mix on a piece of kelp.  Then I placed a small glob of grated carrot, some snow pea sprouts (cut in half), and some grated onion.  Then I rolled it all up and put it on a plate.

 

I found that longer sushi were hard to eat – we needed to cut them with a knife. Once they were bite-sized, they were easy to eat as finger food.  My room-mate dipped hers in soy sauce.

KELP NOODLES: What is in them?

 I read the ingredients on my kelp noodles this afternoon and was startled by the “chemical-like” name of one of the ingredients, so I have just spent a while looking up kelp and “sodium alginate”, to make sure that kelp noodles are, indeed, a decent food for me.

Here is what I have found out so far, aside from the fact that the noodles have, apparently, little nutritional value:

Kelp is a “brown algae. (In my very cursory investigation of the word “algae”, it seems to be used differently in different places. All sources do agree that this is a “seaweed”, or “sea vegetable )

According to various sources, Wakame, Kombu, Porphyra (the sea vegetable used in “nori”), agar-agar (also known as “kanten”), and alaria (also known as dulse) are common kinds of kelp available in the U.S. since the 1960s. 

Alginate, a carbohydrate derived from kelp, is used as a thickener or a “gel-ing agent” in the manufacturing of ice cream, jellies salad dressings, and toothpaste.

SODIUM ALGINATE (from Wikipedia)

The chemical compound sodium alginate is the sodium salt of alginic acid. Its form, as a gum, when extracted from the cell walls of brown Algae, is used by the foods industry to increase Sodium alginate is a good chelator for pulling radioactive toxins such as iodine-131 and strontium-90 from the body which have taken the place of their non-radioactive counterparts.

Well, for sure, kelp noodles are not a “natural” product, in that the kelp  has been way processed. The package says they are raw. Okay.  Somewhere at the beginning of the life of this product there was kelp that was raw.  How much? Is it really worth it for me to eat this product? Am I wasting my chewing power eating a non-nutrititive food item?  Is this junk food?

“Jap Chae” with Kelp Noodles

I like the Korean dish, “jap chae”, and I wanted something like it in raw. Now that I have all these kelp noodles, I decided to experiment with my memories, since the only recipe I could come across had ingredients I did not want to use.

MY AMERICANIZED JAP CHAE WITH KELP NOODLES

1 pkg. (12 oz) kelp noodles
2 T sesame oil
3/4 C onions, thinly sliced, or minced
1 med. carrot, julienned
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 scallion, finely sliced
1/2 C shiitake mushrooms, soaked and thinly sliced/julienned
1/2 lb spinach, washed, drained, and chopped
1 T vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 T sesame seeds
red pepper to taste*

1. Soak the kelp noodles for 10 minutes in cold water. Rinse, drain, and place in a large bowl. Cut noodles into shorter lengths.
2. Add sesame oil, onions, carrots, garlic, spinach, mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce, red pepper, and sesame seeds.
3. Toss to thoroughly coat noodles with sauce and oil and combine all ingredients.
4. Allow mixture to marinate for 20 mins., then place in dehydrator at 125 degrees for 20 mins., to soften the vegetables and noodles. (The noodles will not heat to 100 degrees in 20 minutes, but the vegetables will wilt and the noodles will become soft.
5. Remove from the dehydrator, toss again, and serve.

* I used some Chinese garlic-pepper sauce made with sesame oil and salt.