Hi, seaweed is Korea's finest specialty along with Korean ginseng. It exported 2 hundred million dollars worth of goods in 2015 and has been increasing every year, with exports surpassing 4 hundred million dollars in 2017. It is larger than ginseng and Korea is the world's top exporter. In July 2017, the Korean seaweed was adopted as an Asian standard by the International Food Standards Commission.
When foreign tourists, especially American, or Japanese tourists, come to Korea, they can easily buy them. In particular, some people recommend it as one of the must-buy items when they travel to Korea.
When you think of the beach, seaweed is not necessarily what you want to envision. We're guessing you'd rather picture clear water, white sand and no seaweed in sight. However, seaweed isn't so bad. In fact, it's rich in nutrients and can actually be quite delicious. You may not want to swim in it, but you sure as hell want to eat it.
A few years ago, seaweed in the culinary sense would have meant sushi to most people in the world. You might have thought of seaweed salad or perhaps even kombu, which is used to make the Japanese broth called dashi. You probably would not have thought about snacks sold in local grocery stores all over America, or other parts of the world except Asia. Seafoods snacks, however — those flat sheets of roasted seaweed — have soared in popularity in recent years.
A graph from Google Trends shows a spike in searches for the term "seaweed snack" in 2011, where before, the term practically didn't exist at least according to Google.
What's behind this exponential growth? For one, seaweed is really good for you. It's high in soluble and insoluble fiber, and also high in protein. According to BBC News, depending on the variety of seaweed, protein could make up between seven to 35 percent of the plant's dry weight. And "some species like laver(Porphyra spp) contain as much as 47 percent protein."
While seaweed does contain vitamins, such as Vitamin A and C, HuffPost Healthy Living explains that the portion size of seaweed typically isn't enough to make it an important source of these vitamins. However, the more important health benefit seaweed provides is iodine. Iodine is necessary for a healthy thyroid, which regulates hormones.
"iodine, I" is a metallic, black-purple-colored, high-chain inorganic substance that controls metabolism in the body. Healthy adults have an iodine content of between 15 and 20 mg, and between 70 and 80 percent are present on the thyroid.
The difference between the "good iodine" that our bodies need and the "bad radioactive iodine" leaked from the worrisome Fukushima nuclear explosion in Japan is in the isotope. The iodine has more than 30 kinds of isotopes, the most stable is 127I, which is essential to our body. However, those generated during the nuclear explosion or nuclear bomb test are different, 129I and 131I.
By the way, do you know about IDD, iodine deficiency disorder? It has been revealed that soldiers who were drafted into the U.S. army in areas around the Great Lakes during World War I have much higher incidence of thyroid tumors than those from other regions. It is due to iodine deficiency disorder, which is also called IDD, a common endemic disease in people in mountainous areas far from the sea.
In the 1920s, Ohio's soil was very low in iodine content, leading to a large number of iodine-deficient thyroid species, which have since been reduced by steadily supplying iodine to Ohio residents.
Around 2 billion people worldwide are exposed to the risk of iodine deficiency, and about 800 million of them are suffering from deficiency symptoms. In the case of iodine deficiency, the thyroid grows and does not function properly, so
pregnant women are more likely to have miscarriage, stillbirth, and birth defects, including blindness, when iodine intake is less than 25μg a day, and may develop Cretinism after birth.
However, iodine deficiency disease can be prevented with a sufficient intake of iodine, which in the West World sells table salt and cooking oil with added iodine. Edible salt, which is also available in the U.S., is permitted to add iodine and must be marked for inclusion.
However, we, South Koreans are less likely to suffer from iodine deficiency due to the high intake of seaweeds and other seafood. It has an iodine content of 136,500μg of kelp, 11,600μg of dried seaweed.
By the way, an unhealthy one can lead to all sorts of symptoms, from fatigue to depression to trouble with weight management. According to HuffPost Healthy Living, not many other foods contain iodine, which means seaweed offers a unique benefit unmatched by most other foods.
As Americans and all the people around the world become increasingly health conscious, nutritionally rich foods like seaweed are getting more attention. Food companies and marketers are paying attention to consumer demands and pushing healthy food products, fueling and reinforcing trends. (Look no further than the recent Greek Yogurt craze and pervasive use of the word "superfood," which is nothing more than a marketing term that has simply exploded in recent years. Seaweed, of course, has been deemed a superfood by the powers that be.)
So, what are you waiting for? From now on, you’d better enjoy nutrient and delicious seaweed snacks for your health. This is not an advertisement. Don’t get me wrong, please. All I want with this video clip is let all the people in the world know the excellence of Korean seaweed snacks, and the wisdom of Korean ancestors, who started to eat seaweed about 1,500 years ago. Jesus, it’s amazing, isn’t it?
It is said that Korea was the first of its kind among South Korea, China and Japan to start eating seaweed, and that it was later transferred to Japan and China through trade. The first literature on seaweed was published in 1425 on the book which is called Gyeong-sang-do-ji-ri-ji and it shows the origin of eating seaweed.
By the way, Korean seaweed is called Kim in Korean. Do you know how it got its name? It is said to have originated from the last name of Kim Yeo-ik who lived from 1606 to 1660, and he succeeded in planting Kim for the first time in 1640. So, seaweed was named after his last name, and it’s interesting, because if it had been some other last name, for example Mr. Park, or something who originated seaweed, its name would have been Park, right?
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