Cultures the world over have known sea vegetables to be a valuable food source for thousands of years. Macrobiotic knowledge that sprang up in the 1960s emphasized sea vegetables for unique nourishment. This caused accelerated culinary interest and a broader acceptance. Macrobiotics extolled sea vegetables’ trace mineral benefits for nervous system function and repair. Since then, studies have verified and explained the value of sea vegetable. Rare, essential nutrients, unique polysaccharides and phytonutrients are abundant in them, yet difficult and commonly impossible to obtain elsewhere. Unique tastes of some sea vegetables may take a moment to appreciate, but their varied and potent benefits make this a very worthy process.
Long Valued Relations
Eden Foods was founded upon macrobiotic principles and has supplied pure, macrobiotic-quality sea vegetables from Japan to the natural food industry since 1968. North Atlantic Dulse was added in 2005. EDEN Sea Vegetables are renown for their purity, superb taste, and potent nutritional value. Eden’s keen interest, due diligence, and accumulated knowledge about vegetables from the sea ensure the finest of each kind. Wild or cultivated, they are hand-harvested from environmentally protected areas designated as national natural treasures.
Eight different EDEN Sea Vegetables are offered, some in multiple forms; whole leaf Wakame, instant Wakame flakes, Mekabu, Kombu, Arame, Agar Agar Bars, Agar Agar Flakes, whole leaf Dulse, Dulse flakes, untoasted Nori, toasted Sushi Nori, toasted Nori Krinkles, and seasoned Nori Strips. Nori is the most popular because it is the sweetest, and is widely used to make sushi.
Rare, Essential Nutrients
Sea vegetables have a profound and positive impact on the body and overall well-being by providing a complete spectrum of imperative trace minerals not found in land vegetables. Many essential trace minerals are missing in modern diets. They are readily available in sea vegetables. According to Professor Moriteru Arasaki, University of Tokyo, sea vegetables “… have more minerals than any other kind of food.” They contain every mineral essential for human health, plus an array of cleansing phytonutrients, fat metabolizing and eliminating polysaccharides, as well as vitamins A, the Bs, C, D, E, and K. They contain important selenium, often lacking in land vegetables due to mineral depleted soil and over processing. Sea vegetable minerals are in a chelated, colloidal form that is easy for us to assimilate. Vitamin B12 is rare in the vegetable kingdom, but EDEN Nori, Nori Krinkles, and Sushi Nori provide 35 to 40% Daily Value (DV) per serving. Vitamin B12’s importance is accentuated for those not eating dairy, meat, or eggs.
Cleansing Properties
A further valuable property of sea vegetables is their cleansing effect. This action is linked to alginic acid, a polysaccharide abundant in brown sea vegetables like EDEN Kombu, Mekabu, Wakame, Wakame Flakes, Arame, and Hiziki. We are polluted with heavy metals from poorly managed industry and agriculture. Barium, mercury, lead, cadmium, and radioactive strontium are just a few of those pollutants. Dr. Yukio Tanaka at McGill University in Montréal demonstrated alginic acid, abundant in brown sea vegetables, binds with heavy metals (including radionuclides) rendering them into forms that can be harmlessly eliminated by the body. Dr. Tanaka’s research shows how seaweed’s alginic acid attaches to and draws out the pollutants that have accumulated, “… lowering the body’s burden.”
Immune Enhancing Benefits
Interest in the tonic value of sea vegetables began in 1927 when Professor S. Kondo of Tokyo University, Japan, observed people regularly eating sea vegetables had particularly long and active lives. Scientists have since identified particular antibacterial, antioxidant, and immunity enhancing properties of sea vegetables.
Fat Metabolism
One particularly beneficial compound is fucoidan, a polysaccharide found in the cell wall of brown seaweeds such as EDEN Kombu, Wakame, Wakame Flakes, Mekabu, Arame, and Hiziki. Scientific analysis shows that fucoidan acts as an antioxidant and enhances the immune system. It is also a renowned fat metabolizer and helps burn fat. Within the molecular structure of fucoidan is the sugar fucose. Fucose fosters vital metabolism. Mekabu, the flowering sprout of wakame, is highly valued for its abundance of fucoidan. Mekabu’s satiny texture is from the fucoidan of its cell walls.
Purity Assurance
When selecting sea vegetables, it is important to make a high-grade, pure choice that is suitable for human consumption. Choosing EDEN Sea Vegetables is the best way to do that. Eden Foods completely avoids counterfeit sources from polluted waters. EDEN Sea Vegetables are appreciated for purity, superb taste, and unique nutritional value. Each one is prepared using the high art of old artisan methods.
After the Fukushima disaster, Eden began to test all food procured from Japan for radionuclides. The food undergoes testing before leaving Japan. It is tested again upon arrival in the U.S. by Eden independent labs and the FDA. There have been thousands of tests and performed by prestigious laboratories. Eden Foods and its Japanese suppliers continue to do exceptional, effective work in dealing with this, as it must be.
Culinary Variety
Sea vegetables add culinary variety to meals. In becoming familiar with sea vegetables, begin with the mildest varieties; Agar Agar, Wakame Flakes, Arame, and Nori. Odorless, tasteless EDEN Agar Agar Flakes and Agar Agar Bars make delicious vegetarian gelatin-like desserts, pudding, custards, pastry fillings, and aspics. Use EDEN Arame in salads, baked goods, or sautéed with vegetables. Nori is the wrapping for sushi, used to make rice balls, or as a garnish on noodles and soups. Try adding EDEN Instant Wakame Flakes to miso soup and make traditional dashi noodle broth with mild EDEN Kombu. Sprinkle EDEN Nori Krinkles and Spicy Nori Strips on noodles, rice, and salad. EDEN Hiziki has unique taste. It is commonly used in vegetable dishes or as small side. After it is soaked, blanched, and rinsed it is sprinkled on green salad with dressing. It goes well with protein dishes and enhances most any plate. For dozens of free recipes using EDEN Sea Vegetables, visit edenfoods.com/recipes. For step-by-step, color photos and sushi instructions see edenfoods.com/sushi.
A Principled Natural Food Company
What principles? Macrobiotic principles have guided Eden Foods since its beginning in the late 1960s. Understanding and appreciation of them have grown over 54 years. The same principles continue to be used to evaluate and test our thinking for validity.
Translating these principles to dietary preferences leads to a fundamental conclusion that pure whole grain being the majority (at least a significant part) of one’s diet is the goal. That done, most everything else will take care of itself at all levels; personal, mental, physical, emotional, societal, economic, political, spiritual, environmental, and interpersonal.
Improved insight and judgment result.
Transition from commercial American food to a healthy diet based around whole grain is no simple task, but it is a basic necessity to accomplish freedom, harmony, and to nourish intuition. This does require a focused persistence. Considerable experience and knowledge about food, its uses, and benefits are available to help those wishing to make this transition.