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I remember clearly the first time i tried whole leaf laver seaweed. I was at the Portland Raw Food Festival, and had stopped by a booth selling Main Coast Sea Vegetables. I picked up a bag of Laver and tried some, i pretty much finished the entire bag right then and there. Something about this sea weed felt like just what i needed, and my body was craving more and more. Looking back it was obvious my body was calling out for minerals. Well, i have never turned back from that moment, and now i use sea veggies as an absolute staple in my diet and am all the better and healthier for it! I’ve also tried just about every kind i can get my hands on because i love them that much.
As you can see, sea vegetables are such a well rounded source of some incredible nutrients, supporting our bodies in all kinds of ways. Our bodies have a great affinity with the ocean. In fact our own blood is very similar in elemental composition to that of pure ocean water. It makes sense that we would be greatly nourished by the plants growing in the sea. Adding sea vegetables to the diet can also be very grounding and help to connect us with this watery planet Earth. Sometimes i forget our home Earth is mainly ocean!
Here are a few sea vegetables that are readily stocked on the shelves here at RawGuru.com . Of course all are raw, sustainably harvested, and free of pollutants and contaminants:
Consuming sea vegetables regularly can seem like a foreign concept to many Westerners. Start a conversation about dulse, arame, laver, or hijiki and most won’t now what in the world you are talking about. For myself personally I couldn’t really imagine my life without sea veggies. They are such an awesome way to become more mineralized, and they are actually extremely versatile and can be used in a variety of different recipes. People are probably most familiar with roasted greenish black nori as this is what sushi is wrapped in. nori does also come in a raw, sun dried form which works great for wraps of all kind! A simple snack I like to make is take a nori sheet, mash up some avocado, add some whole leaf dulse (another favorite of mine), some sprouts, tomato slices and red bell pepper, roll up and ingredients and crunch right in!
Recently i tried RawGuru’s new sea spaghetti and was so instantly impressed with this form of seaweed! I’ve been literally craving it everyday since and have been experimenting with different ways of using it in recipes. The sea spaghetti comes in longish, thin, very firm sticks. This seaweed only takes about 15 minutes to soak and soften up. You can use the soak water to water plants with as a fertilizer. After soaking, the strips become very soft and very easy to chew. They are not gummy and indigestible like other forms of seaweed, in fact they are completely soft and tender. They definitely have a seaweed flavor but it is not overly intense and fishy, and would work really well with a variety of different sauces and dressings.
They can be added to your usual green salads, or you can try making an Asian inspired cabbage sesame salad with the following ingredients: green and purple cabbage shredded, sesame oil, sesame seeds, a pinch of salt, a dash of Coconut Aminos, and soaked sea spaghetti “noodles”. Massage oil and salt with the cabbage and then add remaining ingredients. Add other julienned veggies of your choice or herbs like cilantro. I’ve noticed how satisfying my meals are when i use the sea spaghetti. Many forms of seaweed are extremely salty and it can be more salt than the body actually needs. Sea spaghetti on the other hand isn’t very salty at all and doesn’t require any extra rinsing, just a quick soak. My one and only disappointment with my sea spaghetti is that the bag ran out much too quickly! = )
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