seaweed

You are currently browsing articles tagged seaweed.

The Need for Seaweed, Revisited

March 12, 2010 in Personal Health, Vegetables by bursty | 2 comments

Jake wrote this great post about a year and a half ago, and I think it bears revisiting.  As I’ve written over and over, eating seaweed is something that I thought I could really do without as part of the macrobiotic diet.  Who would ever think that eating seaweed made sense?  But the more I learn about it, the more I think that eating sea vegetables (sounds better than “seaweed“) is natural and makes a lot of sense.

Another lovely way of referring to them is “Neptune’s Garden,” as Sundance Natural Foods does in this informative page.  As they note, sea vegetables are nourished by underwater currents, and they soak in the abundant minerals available in the sea.  And did you know that sea water and human blood contain many of the same minerals in similar concentrations!?  The minerals in sea vegetables are alkalizing, and whole brown seaweeds like kelp contain alginic acid, which binds with toxins (heavy metals and radioactive agents) in the intestines, renders them indigestible, and carries them out of the body — almost magical!

One of the current goals around [Casa] AGAD is to incorporate more sea veggies into our diet — what are some of your favorite ways of mixing in some of these nutrient-rich and magical macrobiotic foods?

Addicted to Alkalinity

February 24, 2010 in Personal Health by bursty | 3 comments

Let’s do some macro basics today.  Macrobiotics is all about balance (I wish I had a nickel for every time I wrote that here!).  At it’s very core, it’s about balancing out the blood from it’s pre-macro [usually] acidic state to a slightly alkaline state.  The Happy Herbalist notes that a balanced diet contains 35% acid forming foods and 65% alkaline.  As it relates to macrobiotics, yin is acid and yang is alkaline.  Your typical meat-and-potatoes-eating American has a diet that is WAY too high in yin/acid-forming foods (think meat, sugar, eggs, butter/milk).  The typical [intentional] macrobiotic diet is higher in yang/alkaline-forming foods (think daikon, miso, seaweed, fermented soy).  {Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post delving deeper into acidic versus acid-forming, etc.}

Read the rest of this entry »

How to get your Zinc without killing animals

February 12, 2010 in News, Personal Health by bursty | 1 comment

Today’s topic:  Yet another reason to eat your sea veggies!

seaweedsaladTurns out, zinc is important.  Zinc deficiency affects many, many people the world over, leading to such tragic things as:  growth retardation in children, delayed sexual maturation, infection susceptilibity, impotence, immune suppression, and diarrhea.  As it also turns out, zinc is easiest to get in the form of animal protein. 

The zinc content of plant-based foods depends on how rich the soil it was grown in was with zinc, and zinc deficiency in soil is an ever-increasing problem as the world struggles to diversify the crops planted in a given plot of soil from year to year.  The RDA recommends 8 mg of zinc per day for women and 11 mg per day for men.  This can be difficult to get, as zinc absorption is also difficult, with only 15-40% of the zinc you take in through food actually getting absorbed.  The zinc in animal meat form is 4 times more available than that in plant-based forms.  Phytic acid, naturally occuring in the body and also present in some fortified products, prevents the absorption of zinc into the body by binding to it.  Dietary fiber (abundant in the macro diet) also prevents absorption. 

With all that said, some of the best vegan sources of zinc include:  peanuts, beans, whole grain cereals (fortified), brown rice, and whole wheat bread (fortified).   Pumpkin seeds provide one of the most concentrated sources of zinc in the vegan diet!  Other good sources are:  chickpeas (2.8 mg per cup), baked beans (1.6 mg per cup), vegeburger (1.6 mg), muesli (1.3 mg per 1/4 cup), tahini (1.1 mg per oz), sesame seeds, and dried yeast (0.8 mg per 1/3 oz.).  Read the rest of this entry »

Get Your Green On

November 5, 2008 in Personal Health by cooljuice | 5 comments

A recent post about kale sparked a conversation around dark leafy greens, and how and why a balanced macrobiotic diet needs to include several servings of them.

Why?

Because from a nutritional standpoint, dark green leafy vegetables (or Big Green, as I like to call them), calorie for calorie, are considered one of the most nutrient-dense foods available to humans. When it comes to minerals like iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium; vitamins K, C, E and B; and phytonutrients like beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin, dark leafy greens are the cream of the crop.

High in fiber, low in simple carbohydrates and full of nutrients, dark leafy greens aren’t just good for macros, they’re good for everyone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Farm Fresh: What’s my Local?

September 15, 2008 in Farm Fresh, Seasonal Eating by Andrew Lee | 6 comments

I’ve read a handful of macrobiotic books and I sense a contradiction.  Eat seasonally / locally AND eat brown rice and sea vegetables.  Well… what if I’m from a region that doesn’t naturally produce brown rice or sea vegetables?    I grew up in the middle of rural Minnesota.  We were landlocked.  The closest ’sea’ was Lake Superior, and I don’t think it has any wakame for sale.

Do I really need my sheets of nori flown in from the other side of the world?
Read the rest of this entry »

The Need For Seaweed

June 13, 2008 in Personal Health by cooljuice | 6 comments

Hijiki, wakame, kombu, nori…usually if I can’t pronounce it, I usually don’t eat it. But in the case of sea vegetables, I have to eat my words.

Like most normal people, when I think of vegetables I think of tractors and dirt and farms and all things earthly. Being macro has challenged that paradigm for me by opening my mind (and mouth) to the fruits of the sea.

Since we have cut out or dramatically reduced meat and dairy products and heaped up on whole grains and vegetables we have been enjoying more varied, complex proteins and carbohydrates. The thing that vegans and macros need to watch out for is deficiency in essential minerals and proteins. Whole grains cover many of these, but tacking on sea vegetables to your diet can give true balance to a no-meat and dairy diet.

Read the rest of this entry »