What is the best way to select and prepare sea vegetables?

When purchasing sea vegetables, look for ones that are sold in tightly sealed packages, avoiding those that have evidence of excessive moisture. Some sea vegetables are sold in different forms, so you can choose the type that will best suit your culinary needs. For example, nori can be found in sheets, flakes, or powder. Sea vegetables can be found in natural foods markets, Asian food stores and select supermarkets.

One of the great things about sea vegetables is that you don't have to reserve them for just Asian recipes, like miso soup or sushi. When you start thinking about them as a vegetable from the sea, you will begin to see that you can incorporate them into many dishes just as you would vegetables that grow on land. Tossing them into salads, adding them to soup, and sprinkling them in vegetable and fish dishes are just some of the many ways that you can easily use them.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the selection of these World's Healthiest Foods, I must also tell you that sea vegetables have become a topic of ongoing concern with heavy metals. In the world of marine biology and marine ecology, sea vegetables are widely recognized as plants with an excellent ability to take up minerals from the water and hold onto these minerals in their cells. While this ability makes sea vegetables a rich source of many wonderful minerals, including magnesium, calcium, iron, and iodine, it also means that in waters that have become polluted with heavy metal elements-including arsenic, lead, and cadmium-sea vegetables can also act like a sponge in absorbing these unwanted contaminants.

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