What is the difference between wakame and arame

Hijiki has the most calcium of any sea green, mg per grams of dry weight. Nori porphyra, laver is a red sea plant with a sweet and meaty taste when dried. Nori's fiber makes it a perfect sushi wrapper. Nori is rich in all the carotenes, calcium, iodine, iron, and phosphorus.

Arame Eisenia bycyclis , is one of the ocean's richest sources of iodine. Herbalists use arame to help reduce breast and uterine fibroids, adhesions, and through its fat soluble vitamins and phytohormones, to normalize menopausal symptoms.

Arame promotes soft, wrinkle-free skin, and enhances hair leaving it glossy and soft. One of my favorites, it has a sweet, salty taste that goes especially well as a vegetable, rice or salad topping.

Bladderwrack is packed with vitamin K -- an excellent adrenal stimulant. It is still used today by native Americans in steam baths for arthritis, gout and illness recovery. Wakame alaria, undaria is a high-protein, high calcium seaweed, with carotenes, iron and vitamin C. Widely used in the Orient for hair growth and luster, and for skin tone. Dulse palmaria palmata , a red sea plant, is rich in iron, protein, and vitamin A. It is a supremely balanced nutrient, with times more iodine and 50 times more iron than wheat.

Tests on dulse show activity against the herpes virus. It can be a valuable herb for sexuality for men. It has purifying and tonic effects on the body, yet its natural, balanced salts nourish as a mineral, without inducing thirst.

For more on details on the cultural history of dulse and its nutrition, take a look at Dr Kevin Currans website: Ethno Herbalist. Irish Moss chondrus crispus, carrageen is full of electrolyte minerals including calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. Its mucilaginous compounds help with detoxification, boosts metabolism and strengthens hair, skin and nails.

It is sold by the Japanese and Koreans in large sheets 8 in x 8 in for wrapping sushi, or as smaller strips 4 in x 1 in either for sushi or to be eaten on its own as a snack. These strips can be highly addictive, so be careful not to eat too much. In addition, very fine nori strips as well as nori flakes may be sprinkled over rice and other foods as a condiment.

The flakes are sometimes mixed with other ingredients such as dried chilli, sesame seeds, small dried fish, dried krill which look like tiny shrimps , or even with brightly colored unnatural condiments. Likewise, some nori sheets come with sugar, MSG and other not-so-healthy ingredients. There are also nori sheets flavored with wasabi, chilli and other ingredients. When buying such products, check to make sure that the ingredients are all natural.

There is a great variation in the price and quality of nori. Some cheap types don't taste good when eaten on its own or as a sushi wrap, but can be added to soups or used to make special dishes like nori condiment. The Chinese sell nori in the form of round "cakes".

In Europe and North America, laver is one of the commonly eaten seaweed types similar to nori. Apart from nori, wakame is probably the most widely consumed among edible seaweeds. This is the seaweed that you would find floating in miso soup and with the universal popularity of Japanese cuisine - and now Korean cuisine as well - many people would have eaten wakame, even if they do not know its name. Another popular way to serve wakame is as a simple salad with cucumber and vinegar. Click here for more unusual seaweed types recipes using wakame.

Wakame is also one of the more widely studied seaweeds and research shows that it can help burn fatty tissues in the body. Wakame is used in Oriental medicine for blood purification as well as to improve the function of the intestines and sexual organs. It is said to help regulate menstrual cycles and produce beautiful skin and hair - although most seaweed types probably do this as well. Kombu or kelp comes in long, thick strips. These are brown seaweed types that typically grow in deep, cold waters and they can grow up to 60 metres long.

Kombu strips are hard and not always eaten. It is commonly used by the Japanese for making dashi, or soup stock, where the kombu is used only to flavour the stock, and then discarded. However, when cooked till soft, they make delicious dishes as well. Incidentally, the flavor enhancer monododium glutamate or MSG was invented by a Japanese scientist to imitate the special flavor which the Japanese call umami.

This might be translated as "pleasant savory taste" and is considered by the Japanese to be among the "five basic tastes:, the others being sweet, salty, sour and bitter.

For some reason, the Japanese left out pungent! But there is a big difference between kombu and MSG. While MSG is harmful to health, kombu and other sea vegetables contain natural glutamates that promote health. Don't listen to MSG propaganda claiming that factory-made and natural glutamates are the same. They are not! Apart from making soup stock, kombu is often cooed with rice especially brown rice and other whole grains as well as beans.

Kombu adds nutrients - mainly minerals - to the dish and is said to make whole grains and beans more easily digestible. It can also be prepared as a side dish, such as shio kombu , a dish of kombu seaweed and shiitake mushrooms, seasoned simply with shoyu soy sauce. Hijiki is another brown seaweed, which comes in the form of short, fat strands. A friend's daughter, who recovered from cancer as a young child from following a macrobiotic diet, described hijiki seaweed as being like "black worms".

Well, a more positive description would be "black speghatti". This is a very strong tasting seaweed and can be quite delicious once accustomed to the taste. The strong taste suggest that hijiki is extremely rich in minerals. Among seaweed types, hijiki it is richest in calcium and contains about 14 times as much calcium as milk. Hijiki belongs to the family of seaweed types called sargassum and this was the seaweed used by Chinese physicians to treat goitre as long ago as the first century AD.

It's greener and falls apart in your mouth quicker. Kids who grew up on Japanese condiments laden with MSG are usually fond of iwanori tsukudani from the brand Gohandesuyo. Nori Porphyra This is probably the type of seaweed that people see the most in the U. We are crazy about rolls in the U. Nori , sometimes referred to as laver, is made out of red alga. Nori is produced by a drying process and comes in neat square or rectangle sheets. Although most commonly seen as the "black wrapping" of a roll, nori is also great right out of the bag.

The crispy texture is irressistable. Unlike some other types of "seaweed" you do not soak nori in water. If you do so - it will fall apart. That's a mouthful. Wakame is most commonly seen in miso soup.

Before that stage, however, it's usually dry at least in the states and rehydrated. Wakame must be hydrated and consumed, unless you like scratch marks on your esophagus. Dry wakame is super convenient because it never goes bad. When I don't have salad greens on hand, I can always rely on these shriveled dudes for a fantastic wa-fu salad.

If you get a mouthful of hydrated Undaria pinnatifida in your mouth, you will find it to be slippery and potentially slimy. The texture is the pull here - since it doesn't taste very strong. Thicker parts of the wakame can be described as crunchy or "kori kori" in Japanese.