November 2015
Sea vegetables are not nearly as harshly shunned in North America as previously. Their pleasures and benefits have carried them through a phase of widespread misunderstanding into one of growingly popular appreciation. For many good reasons, they have been valued by cultures the world over for thousands of years.
Potent, efficacious, delicious, and versatile, sea vegetables are used in soup, stew, broth, porridge, salad, sushi and rice balls, desserts and aspics, vegetable dishes, pickles, breads, baked goods, and in preparing foods for storage and travel. They bring culinary versatility and a warm flavor with an abundance of important and rare forms of nourishment. Sea vegetables cleanse and rejuvenate. It is difficult or unwise to ignore them as there are no counterparts or alternatives to them.
However, today it is especially important to choose sea vegetables with care, just as all food should be chosen. Many sea vegetables now on the market are grown in areas and environs that are sadly inappropriate for producing food for human consumption. They are grown specifically for export to the U.S.A. and would never be introduced or accepted into their domestic markets. Water quality, harvesting methods, and every step in their handling are crucial to what is found in stores.
The finest quality sea vegetables are those from Eden Foods. We are extremely fussy about every small detail associated with EDEN Sea Vegetables.
Essential, Rare Nutrients
Culinary sea vegetables, like their land plant compatriots, are sunlight dependent. Land plants primarily draw nutrients from the soil, but sea vegetables predominantly draw nutrients from the sea they are immersed in. Consequently, they offer nourishment of types and at levels not found in land plants. Nutrition contents vary according to the type, but over 34% of dried sea vegetable weight is comprised of nutrients that are important to us. Seawater contains virtually every mineral on Earth. Amazingly for instance, there are about 20 million tons of gold in solution in the world's oceans. Sea vegetables provide a healthy array of nutrients like calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, iodine, zinc, sulfur, chloride, vitamins A, B complex, C, D, E, K, together with a rare trace mineral profile similar to that of human blood. They also contain saccharides and phytonutrients that are particularly efficacious, bracing, and rejuvenating. This makes the widely underappreciated sea vegetable one of the best sources of nourishment for human beings that exists. In many of the world's self-care and nutrition systems, it is believed sea vegetables are particularly nourishing for, and rejuvenative of, the nervous system.
Distinctive Cleansing Properties
The increasingly, criminally polluted environment and its consequences make a certain property of sea vegetables increasingly important — their bio-cleansing attributes. Traditional healers have long known that sea vegetables can help us purify and cleanse. Research now supports this and has identified several compounds responsible for these detoxifying and immune enhancing qualities. They include lignans, fucans, and polysaccharides like alginic acid and fucoidan found abundantly in brown sea vegetables like EDEN Kombu, Wakame, Wakame Flakes, Mekabu, Arame, and Hiziki.
Alginic acid protects the plants from damage by the sea's constant movement and it facilitates the absorption of the ocean's nutrients. At the same time it eliminates wastes and rejects unnecessary or harmful elements. When we eat sea vegetables, these polysaccharides act in a similar manner in our body. Research lead by Dr. Yukio Tanaka at McGill University in Montréal demonstrated that alginic acid in sea vegetables binds with heavy metals rendering them into forms that are harmlessly eliminated. Dr. Tanaka's research shows how this alginic acid attaches to and draws out pollutants that are already stored in our bodies, thus “lowering the body's burden.” Fucoidan, another polysaccharide, has been found to protect the body from heavy metals. It also functions as an antioxidant enhancing the immune system while fostering healthy metabolism, enhanced energy, and appropriate weight control.
In 1927, Professor S. Kondo of Tohoku University, Japan discovered that people routinely eating sea vegetables had particularly long and healthy lives. The unique and rare nutrients abundant in seaweeds makes EDEN Sea Vegetables well worth the effort to incorporate them into an American diet.
Purity Responsibility
Eden Foods has supplied the finest Japanese sea vegetables since 1968, and added Canadian dulse in 2005. Due diligence and knowledge about every potential source ensures the finest of each variety is procured for an appropriately discerning clientele. We completely avoid industrial spawned counterfeit sources from polluted waters.
Since the Fukushima disaster, all EDEN food imported from Japan is multi-radionuclide tested, both in Japan and in the USA, to ensure purity that allows us to continue to enjoy and share EDEN Sea Vegetables. We know of no other company that does so. For us, it is basic common sense and beyond the shadow of doubt our responsibility. Please read this article for more information and a very relevant ocean current map.
EDEN Sea Vegetables are renowned for their purity, superb flavor, and remarkable nutritional content. They are wild or cultivated and sustainably hand harvested from environmentally protected waters off Japan and Canada. Each is prepared using solely, traditional artisan methods.
