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Use of seaweed in a healthy diet
There is much that has been attributed to seaweed and algae. It has been acknowledged as balanced nourishment, a miraculous healing plant and important detoxifier.
Seaweed not only contains all of the minerals and trace minerals required for your body’s physiological functions but also in colloidal forms. This colloidal form is very important meaning that these minerals have retained their molecular identity while remaining in liquid suspension.
Colloids are very small in size and are easily absorbed by the body’s cells.
Minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, selenium and zinc to name a few. Magnesium, is required for the activation of more than 300 enzymes in the body and the calcium absorption, iodine in thyroid function, iron in blood oxygen exchange, and chromium in blood sugar regulation. Other vitamins and minerals are required for normal function and structure of the arteries, heart, kidneys, bone, and for the neuromuscular system.
In the past water was considered as the very source of life. Without water no life and the properties of water associated with rejuvenation and cleansing. Imbalances in the water of your body to cause illnesses like nervous problems, phobias, depression, lethargy, circulatory conditions such as low or high blood pressure, arthritis and other diseases of the joint and certain digestive ailments.
To assist people suffering from these illnesses it is recommended using food grown in water and the sea like fish, shellfish or seaweed. You can agree or disagree. Some people dispute these claims and call them anecdote, not proven or insufficient studied.
That all life started at the oceans (water), our common origin. As proof that seawater has almost the same proportion of minerals as the human blood.
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The main differences between land plants and seaweed is that land plants require a rigid structure capable of withstanding the constant pull of gravity, which marine plants do not need. They however do need a flexible structure to accommodate the varying stresses as result of current and wave motion.
Have to be flexible in order to survive. Contain more starch (polysaccharides) and less cellulose than land plants.
High-fibre vegetable foods including sea vegetables are the healthiest choices for human nutrition, and intake of these foods is associated with lowered incidences of hypertension, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, etc. While it is true that fibre is an important part of your diet, even
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necessary to protect you from some diseases, carbohydrates themselves are not necessary. Complex carbohydrates are hundreds or thousands of sugar units linked together. Some of the Polysaccharides and cellulose are indigestible by humans.
According to John Van der Veen, director of the division of nutrition at FDA's Centre for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, complex carbohydrates should make up about 55 percent of the calories in our daily diet, with fat making up 30 percent or less and protein the remainder.Another
reason is that the sea is rich on minerals and so are the seaweeds.The 1997 edition of Food Composition Handbook shows a 25–50% decline in the vitamin and mineral content of foods since the last survey done in 1975. Seaweed contain high amounts of calcium and phosphorous and are extremely high in magnesium, iron, iodine and sodium.
Land on the other hand degenerates in time and minerals get washed out and flow towards the sea. And the more the air becomes polluted, the higher the content of acid, the faster it will happen. Most of the soil has deteriorated so much that without fertiliser, weed killers and insecticides nothing will grow properly. Another aspect is the fact that most specialist agree that a healthy nutrition is the best and most powerful mean of preventing disease.
The mineral content of sea vegetables is that high, it might be at the root of most of their healing properties. Seaweed contains for example significantly more calcium than milk and more iron than an egg. Several theories have been put forth to explain the ability of seaweed to reduce heart disease and hypertension but the high mineral content of seaweed, particularly potassium, calcium, sodium, and chloride could be the answer.
Sea plants are much more potent than land plants. They contain hundreds of organic compounds (phyto-chemicals) missing in our processed food. Not the amount but the diversity counts.
We know many substances which are essential for our body but only needed in small amount.
Sometimes our body is able to produce them ourselves, in other occasions we have to get them through our food.
Iodine is one, omega 3/6 fatty-acids another. Vitamin B etc.
The post-war modern lifestyle (e.g. poor choice of foods, less physical activity) may be the primary cause of the so-called Lifestyle-related diseases. Despite this realisation, lifestyle- and obesity-related diseases are still spreading around the world. Some call it the new/modern plague because so many are affected by it.
Most people affected by it blame themselves; some are even stimulated to do so. In fact they are the real victims, these illnesses a biological response to bad food/lifestyle system.
The trouble is that you as an individual have neither little to say about it nor any real control over it.
It is the playing field of the big Corporations and the Government. You just buy /use the food that is available in the store. The food you can afford. You live in a space you can afford and environment that exist.
Demographic studies
( Japan) have shown that people who regularly incorporate edible seaweed’s into their diets have fewer problems from mineral depletion and live longer than other peoples.|
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Seaweed (kaiso) have been an important part of the Japanese diet for many centuries. Today, various types of seaweed are used extensively as soup stock, seasonings and other forms in daily Japanese cooking. They use in average one gram dried seaweed a person/day. The understanding how dietary habits of different groups of people related to their degree of health becoming very important. Cancer death among vegetarians is 39 % lower than among those who eat meat on a regular basis.
Detoxification:
Our cell’s need energy. During this process free oxygen (radicals) develop which have the potential to damage cells/DNA. For normal cellular maintenance, growth, and division, these free radicals must be sufficiently neutralised by antioxidant compounds, as certain vitamins (vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K , phytochemicals as well as other compounds. The body produces some of itself get more and others trough our food. To make sure that you do get enough of them it is recommended to eat enough vegetables and fruit. The biggest void in American diets is probably the use of green vegetables. Half the population hardly eats them at all. Vegetables like spinach, kale, collard and broccoli. An alternative could be the use of seaweed.An second void in the American diet is the extensive use of foods of animal origin and saturated fat as found in milk and red meat.
We dry and mill the different seaweed for easy use, storage and to increase shell life.
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Milled seaweed to be used as: Salt replacement, cold entrees, salads, cocktails. Hot entrees, stew, chowders, soup stock, omelettes etc. Use for Fish and seafood dishes, preparing meat products, sauce, sandwich, dessert, drinks.
The four most commonly used types of seaweed are Kombu or Kelp, Nori, Dulse of Dillisk and Irish Moss.
In Japan Nori (Porphyra species), Kombu (Laminaria species), and Wakame (Undaria pinnatifida) highly popular.
However more than 60 different species being used and eaten .In the west, seaweed is largely regarded as a health food and, however there is an upsurge of interest in seaweed as food supplement.
The Chinese and Japanese will stay among the greatest consumers of seaweed.
One of the reasons for the Japanese to use kelp (or kombu) in large amounts is the seasoning affect. It will enhance the taste of other vegetable dishes. A natural source of a flavouring substance called monosodium glutamic acid, the safe version of the chemical flavour-enhancer monosodium glutamate. Seaweed will not make food taste fishy - instead, it simply enhances the flavour of stews, rice, beans, pastas, grains, soups, and salads. Kombu is used to make dashi, a basic Japanese soup stock.
Dulse (palmaria palmate) is one of the oldest known seaweed used in the West.
Regulations for the gathering of Palmaria palmata (dulse, dillisk), a red seaweed, can be found in the Icelandic sagas of the 10th century. This edible seaweed has been used also in Ireland and Scotland for a very long time.
