*This post is dedicated to AL.ME’s #1 fan – Thank you Saba! 

A few years back I visited a little island off of the coast of Zhuhai (China) and found an elderly couple collecting seaweed. They were bending over and reaching around rocks that were covered in barnacles and salty sea grass. When I asked why they were collecting this brownish, bumpy seaweed and putting it into big plastic bags they said, “We’re going to make soup with it.” And I just thought… Chinese people have horrible taste buds… Slimy seaweed in homemade soup must taste awful!

But then a couple months ago I was on the phone with my mom who was walking along a beach near her winter home in Florida. She was looking for sharks teeth, as she does most mornings, when she bumped into a fellow snow bird gathering seaweed into a shopping bag. When she asked what he was doing he said that he was a doctor and that the seaweed has great medicinal properties. By the end of their chat, she had realized she was talking with a doctor who gives speeches around the country on cancer prevention. And this man in particular was sending all of the seaweed he collected to his brother’s clinic in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

What they do is boil the seaweed until it creates a broth which cools and becomes a gel. Research done at the University of Florida suggests that by consuming seaweed this way you will “raise antioxidant enzyme levels that enhance your body’s ability to prevent cancer and inflammatory disease. Antioxidants protect the body from free radicals and molecules that can damage cells and lead to chronic health problems over time.”

Here’s a video reporting what researchers at UF have found about the benefits of seaweed in your diet. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the seaweed found off the coast of Florida seems to be particularly beneficial in staving off prostate cancer – the most common cancer in men.

 Where do you get it?

Much of what you find on store shelves is imported from Asia which is cheap and often processed. (International shipping puts additional stress on our oceans which negatively impacts sea life.) You’ll find lots of Asian markets with Korean and Japanese snack foods containing dried, salty seaweed. (Kids in these countries often just eat sheets of seaweed as a snack after school!) On the other hand, you could choose from many options available domestically. Commercial seaweed cultivation in America is not new and harvesting seaweed is a growing business.

Take Maine for example – In 2012 alone, 15 million pounds of seaweed was harvested there, which is double what was harvested in 2007. Unfortunately, the state is now grappling with the issue of how much can be harvested freely from rocks along the coast and how much should remain in order to preserve the local ecosystems. Much of the harvest is dried, milled, and sent to factories to become fertilizer, animal feed, or nutritional supplements. A plan for how to manage “rockweed” collection will be determined by the state legislature this year. However, there are still responsible options for buying your seaweed locally.

Maine Coast Sea Vegetables is a company selling “sustainably harvested and certified organic” seaweed products. They are dedicated to the rediscovery of this ancient super food and have been around since 1971. This is the kind of home-grown, sustainable behavior that can be a solution to the problem of over-harvesting along our coastlines.

On the Pacific coast, you can visit Rising Tide Sea Vegetables, which harvests their seaweed in environmentally friendly ways. On their FAQ page there is an explanation of how their hand-harvested product is different from machine-harvested, factory seaweed sourced from Asia and shipped over. Although I’m sure there is plenty of hand-harvested seaweed coming from Asian coastal areas too.

If you care to support the American Sea Vegetable business, I’d also suggest buying this wonderful product from one of these companies. Enjoy!

NOTE: The recipe for the seaweed soup pictured above can be found at Korean Bapsang. Another awesome recipe can be found at Dining with Outlaws.

Let’s start with a few well-known online shops in North America:

Amazon.com’s grocery section is loaded with Asian food options.  If you have Amazon prime you obviously won’t have to worry about the cost of shipping. It’s probably worth visiting Amazon first to see if you can find what you are looking for. For those in select areas, you can try Amazon Fresh which is just like Peapod or FreshDirect.

Asian Food Grocer is a trustworthy shop that provides much of what you expect to find in a standard Asian market. Here are a few products that I commonly use in my cooking:

Lee Kum Kee’s Hoisin Sauce is something I use for a sweet, seafood flavor.

Lee Kum Kee also makes a Black Bean Garlic Sauce which I use for home-style pork ribs. Yum!

Actually, just about everything in the Asian Food Grocer’s “Quick and Easy Asian Cooking” section is delicious and, as the title implies, very easy to use.

Marukai’s eStore is a Japanese food shop online which serves North America. Some of my recipes have ingredients that you can find at their shop. Check out their amazing variety of fish options for at-home sushi making!

Also, one Japanese product that I enjoyed a lot in China was Key Coffee’s Drip On brand singles.

If you are looking for a Korean food shop online, look no further than Koamart. When I’m cooking authentic rice porridge and need a side of Kimchi, this imported option is really good. Although the best kimchi is homemade, I think most westerners won’t taste a big difference.

For ethnic ingredients that are not limited to East Asia, I suggest visiting the eFoodDepot, which has an interesting selection of Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Thailand, Bangladeshi, Iranian, and more. You might be surprised by what’s on offer there if you are looking for a wider “Eastern” selection.

Generation Tea is also a reliable online shop, specifically for buying tea. The West Lake Longjin Tea in particular is a great flavor. It’s a little expensive, but it’s worth it! Other teas you’ll find at Generation Tea include dark Pu-er, Oolong, Black, Herbal, White, Green, and more! This shop has the most comprehensive offer of tea I’ve seen online and ships domestically (US).

Why not try shopping for healthy and delicious food online?

+ “Cauliflower has vitamins and minerals, and when eaten with chicken it can make stronger bones.  Combined they also improve the detoxing power of your liver and give your immune system a boost. With that you will fight colds much more easily.” Perhaps a little cauliflower in the traditional Chicken Noodle soup recipe would help.

– Combining honey and Spring Onions can create “attract toxins”, “hurt your eyes”, and “in serious cases even lead to the loss of sight.” Yikes, this is a pretty bad combination!

Here’s a decent recipe for Stir-fry Cauliflower and Chicken at Nibbledish! Take a look:

+ When you eat both mushrooms and toufu together, they help “reduce excess eat and clear toxins”, along with assisting in the “increasing air intake and excreting saliva”. From a Chinese prospective, these reactions are beneficial to your body. A mushroom/toufu dish is also a good combination because they “reduce phlegm/mucus, are anti-cancerous, reduce blood fat and blood pressure.”

– “The meat of shrimp contains [a kind of non-poisonous] arsenic, but when combined with tomatoes it will  restore some arsenic properties, also known as ‘white arsenic'”, and so, this combination should be avoided.

I’m pretty sure this means sliced tomatoes combined with shrimp in a sauce pan, rather than shrimp and cocktail sauce. This doesn’t mean you should stop eating them since any food in moderation won’t hurt you.

Here’s a decent recipe for Sugar Snap Peas, Mushrooms, and Toufu! Take a look:

+ Shrimp contains “high levels of protein and calcium”, while Chinese cabbage is “somewhat high in nutritional value”. If you eat both of them together you’ll “prevent constipation, gum bleeding, and scurvy”. The best way to cook them is to “lightly fry them in a pan.”

– Eating both chicken and celery together will “do harm to your vitality [energy], and reduce the effectiveness of your immune system.” Because of this you will be more likely to attract various kinds of disease” so make sure you don’t pair these two foods together too often.

At Chinese restaurants you will find celery cooked with other vegetables and meat. Just yesterday I had celery lightly fried with lotus root. Take a look:

+ Here, green and red peppers and water spinach are “both composed of vitamins and minerals.” By consuming both of these together “blood pressure declines while headaches and toxicity are reduced.” This combination also helps “prevent diabetes.”

– Pears and duck (as well as goose meat) should not be consumed together because they “do harm to the spleen and, if eaten together often enough, can lead to kidney inflammation.

So, there you have it! What is interesting to note is that eating pears after a meal, according to suggestions from older Chinese folks, can be very helpful to your digestive process. Anyone who is having a pear after dinner should remember to avoid it after a nice roast duck dinner!

Watermelon is still probably ok…
 

“NanRu” is a red fermented bean curd which is often used as a thickener in Chinese food. It also gives the food a distinctive, somewhat spicy aroma. I use it in my Beer Duck recipe, but it can be used as part of a sauce for many other recipes.

Dou Ban Jiang (Chinese Bean Sauce) (asianliving.me)

Recipes for Healthy Kids (oldwaystable.org)

Get ready to drool over this extremely fragrant and commonly used ingredient in Chinese food. I call it by its directly translated name, “bean sauce” (豆瓣酱), but it is also referred to as “Chile Bean Sauce” which you’ll notice in the first photo. The regular flavor is not spicy at all, rather it puts a fermented, savory soy bean flavor in your dish. There are a variety of bean sauces available at your local Asian market. If you see one with writing on it that looks completely Greek (or Chinese) to you, make sure to take clues from the photo on the label. The red hot chiles (peppers) are a sign you’ve found the spicy version!

Were you looking for Dou Chi, another fermented bean ingredient?

Look for one of the following or buy online:

[seo_thumb_gallery category=”China” gallery=”Doubanjiang” skin=”black” size=”small”]

Another popular root that is common in the Chinese diet, and many other Asian diets, is Ginseng. In fact, American Ginseng is one of the most popular in the world. I even see it in small local markets here in Zhuhai. I see it popularly used out here in soups, often with other Chinese herbs, chicken bones, Gou Ji berries, and Zao Zi. This kind of soup can be purchased warm and ready to eat at any Fujian style dumpling shop. (I’ll post a simple recipe for making this at home soon.)

Ginseng is also consumed by steeping some dried slices of it in hot water, like tea. I sometimes do this before going to bed in order to reduce “Qi” in the body. I also suggest this drink as a replacement for evening teas or coffee.

Here is some health-related information from Wikipedia, and sourced therein:
“Both American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) and Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng) roots are taken orally as adaptogens [a product that increases the body’s resistance to stress], aphrodisiacs [you can guess…], nourishing stimulants, and in the treatment of type II diabetes, as well as sexual dysfunction in men.

Other information: The English word ginseng derives from the Chinese term rénshēn (simplified: 人参; traditional: 人蔘), literally “man root” (referring to the root’s characteristic forked shape, resembling the legs of a man).”

For vinegar, I don’t taste much of a difference between brands, although color is important. Dark vinegar, or “Chen Cu” 陈醋, is the standard in China and the famous ones always come from Shanxi province 山西. While cooking with a very experienced coworker, I learned that a particular brand is famous here: Dong Hu, literally East Lake brand. You could search for it, but I’m not sure if it is available outside of China.

Medicinal benefits: A study has shown that putting vinegar in the food you eat can increase satiety, which leads to less food intake.[*2000] This is a great natural benefit for people fighting obesity. Other potential benefits include fighting infections, but there are other things out there which are more effective.

Apple (cider) Vinegar is a common drink I see in supermarkets here. Some studies have hinted that it could help with conditions such as diabetes and obesity. Maybe you should get a bottle and try sometime. Shake things up a little!