Bull Whip Sea Kelp Nereocystis leutkeana

Bull Whip Sea Kelp Nereocystis leutkeana
pictured are 1 lb. 12" x 10" bags 

Bullwhip kelp can be eaten and enjoyed dried like chips, it can be baked in breads, casseroles, cookies, lasagna, fried in pancakes or stir fries, and put in salads, salad dressings, smoothies, soups/stews and steamed with vegetables.

Ryan Drum, PhD AHG specializes in Seaweed Therapies and Thyroid issues. Ryan believes in true patient autonomy: the freedom and right to choose one's caregivers independent of their official certification.

From his website www.ryandrum.com

"Which Seaweeds Are Best To Eat?

Nori (several species of the red algal genus Porphyra) is probably the most popular seaweed for eating, both historically and today. It is yummy in soups, re-wetted in salads, just as a dried snack, toasted lightly in a dry iron skillet, deep-fat-fried with cooked rolled oats as the Celtic "Laver Bread", and as a food wrap in sushi. Nori sheets are a manufactured food product. Nori was eaten abundantly by indigenous peoples wherever both occurred. It tends to have a sweet, meaty flavor pleasant to most palates.

Dulse, another red alga, is another easy to eat snack but quite salty and often a little fermented in the marketplace; its relatively high fatty acid content results in rancidity after a year or more in storage.

The large brown"kelps" (Kombu/Laminaria groendlandica, Sugar Kelp/Laminaria saccharina, Wakame/Alaria spp.) can be eaten just dried but usually are easier to eat when cooked with grains, legumes or miso soup broth.

The bright green dried fronds of the local giant kelp, "Bull Kelp"(Nereocystis luetkeana). are a great snack, salty and high in vitamins and minerals (up to 50% dry weight), particularly potassium, protein and free amino acids.

Other brown algae, Hijiki/Cystceria geminata, Sargassum/Sargassum mutica, Sea-palm, are usually best cooked with wet food as in soups, miso broth, grains, legumes, vegetable pies and stews.

Sea Lettuce (Ulva lactuca and Monostroma spp.) has a strong seafood taste and odor but is easy to eat as a snack or in salads since it is quite delicate after drying and crumbles easily into tiny tender pieces.

How Long Do Seaweeds Keep After Harvest? In proper storage, most totally-dried sea vegetables stay nutritionally and medicinally secure indefinitely. The minerals do not degrade; the phycocolloids slowly fragment over years; the pigments slowly fade, especially the chlorophylls; fats slowly become rancid; proteins fragment slowly to polypeptides and amino acids.

Proper storage ideally means that the sea vegetables are stored in completely air-tight waterproof opaque containers (not paper or plastic bags) at temperatures less than 70 degrees F, in the dark. Do not store dried sea vegetables in a refrigerator or near sources of strong odors. Dried sea vegetables are very odor-absorptive. They also tend to be aggressively hygroscopic, (they absorb water from the air) which is why dry storage is essential. Some sea vegetables such as Nori, improve in taste and texture for at least 20 years in dry storage, becoming sweeter as complex carbohydrates fragment to simple sugars, and meatier as proteins fragment to amino acids.

What Health And Nutritional Benefits Can Result From Regular Seaweed Consumption? From my perspective, sea vegetables are an essential component of all therapeutic diets. Seaweeds, eaten regularly, are the best natural food sources of biomolecular dietary iodine. Seaweeds do not seem to accumulate fat-soluble pesticides and industrial wastes such as PCP, PCB and dioxin, unlike marine animals; the latter are also good sources of dietary iodine. Land-based vascular plant iodine content tends to be low. No land plants are reliable sources of dietary iodine. Food crops grown on mineral-depleted soils from poor agricultural practice usually contain inadequate amounts of dietary iodine. Iodine is the essential element in most thyroid hormones, natural and synthetic. Iodine is also essential for the maintenance of normal mammary gland architecture and salivary gland health.

A note: What exactly does "eaten regularly" imply? To me, it means eating 5-15 grams of dried seaweed(s) at least twice a week. An ounce (29 grams) a week is slightly more than three pounds a year. My personal consumption is around 10 pounds a year (4kg). I usually suggest consuming brown seaweeds and red seaweeds in the year at a 2:1 ratio; roughly 2 pounds of brown algae and one pound of red algae. Regular consumption of sea vegetables in the diet encourages resident intestinal microflora to develop sea vegetable digestive enzymes; most of us can so adapt in 4-6 weeks. Prolonged or heavy intermittent antibiotic use can severely reduce a human's seaweed digestive capacity. Just eating sea vegetables is only a beginning; for optimal health effects, one must also digest the sea vegetables and absorb nutrients from them.

Dietary Minerals: Sea vegetables are excellent sources of most minerals, especially: potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, nitrogen, iron, zinc, boron, copper, manganese, chromium, selenium, bromine, vanadium, nickel; often better sources than meat, whole milk, or eggs and usually better than any land plants. This means that high-quality sea vegetables can be used to compensate for the frequent low mineral content of food plants and animals grown "factory-style" on mineral-depleted soils. (See: Bergner).

Active Removal Of Radioactive and Heavy Metal Toxic Cations: The phycocolloids, Algin in all brown algae, and Carageenan and Agar in many red algae, aggressively trap metallic ions. The isolated colloids and/or the seaweeds containing them can be used to remove heavy metals from our food and bodies and carry those metals out in the stool. Although many seaweeds contain some radioactive elements, careful research indicates that these elements are usually not released into our food or bodies. Powdered Kelp(s), algin, even sodium alginate, are effectively used to move radioactive and heavy metals out of the body. The metabolic process is slow and deliberate. The Swedish government first recommended a 5 gm/day dose of powdered Kelp, Algin or sodium alginate as both a detox treatment and a protective treatment against radioactive fallout circa 1954. The United States Atomic Energy Commission did as well in about 1956; this was later rescinded in about 1960, so as not to alarm the public unduly. Unfortunately, we are regularly taking in radioactive isotopes from the total world contamination by continual radioactive fallout from all nuclear power plants, weapons facilities and past nuclear ÍtestsÎ. We are all radioactively hot. We have no choice. All of our food, air, soil, and water is contaminted. Any way we can reduce our total body burden of radioactive isotopes will help our health., by reducing our personal exposure to ionizing radiation from radioactive isotope decay in our respective bodies. (See: S. Schecter and S. Smith). Dietary phycocolloids also bulk and soften the stool, soothe the GI tract, and help relieve chronic constipation. CAUTION: Red seaweeds high in Carageenan can irritate the inner bowel lining in patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, CrohnÌs disease, or ulcerative colitis, probably by local lining astringency water extraction.

Vitamins: Most sea vegetables are excellent sources of the known vitamins (A, B's, especially B12, C, D, E, and K) as well as essential fatty acids. Powdered Bladderwrack has been mixed with olive oil as a safe effective alternative to cod liver oil. Nori is very rich in vatamins A & C. Special Therapeutic Uses: Lower Respiratory Problems: Phycocolloid carageenan gel, boiled out of red algae, notably Irish Moss (Chondrus crispus), Grapestone (Gigartina spp.) and Iridea, is both partially digested and absorbed as small globular polymeric masses. This gel is effective long-term treatment for damaged lungs, particularly after pneumonia, smoking, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and possibly Mycoplasma and Chlamydia.

Lung Function: Regular consumption of Hijiki and Sargassum, brown algae, seems to aid respiratory function, improving lung capacity and gas exchange efficiency.

Herpes Outbreak Relief: The red alga, Dumontia, is dried, powdered, encapsulated, and used as a genital herpes suppressant. Sources for Dumontia are listed on the net under genital herpes. I discourage using Dumontia because of very limited amounts of wild plants. Prionitis Lyallii, a much more abundant tidepool red alga from California to Alaska, is used similarly. It has not been tested clinically or in any long-term treatment programs.

Shingles Outbreak Relief: Three different red algae harvested in Southeast Alaska by R. Ellis and Natasha Calvin, are also dried, powdered and encapsulated and taken in prescribed dosages regularly to suppress outbreaks of Shingles, Herpes zoster. They are called Alaska Dulse together.

Erectile Dysfunction: Tropical species of Gracilaria, an agarophyte red seaweed, are used to prepare a male virility drink variously called Seaweed Drink or Sea Moss Tea in the Caribbean.There seems to be improvement in both desire and performance. Local demand was sufficient to foster nearly total elimination of these seaweeds on many islands. The drink is prepared similarly to the respiratory gel described above, namely, by repeatedly boiling the same algal mass until no more gel remains. I tried the drink on Caye Caulker several times and concur that desire for coital intimacy seemed to be enhanced.

Tissue Repair: I use a broth of powdered Sagassum muticum (a large local brown alga) and unpasteurized 3 year old Barley Miso paste for all cancer. radiation, chemo, post-surgical, and wholebody impact trauma (acute auto crashes, falls) patients. I recommend twice daily, AM and PM, mixing 15 ml of miso paste with 5 gm of Sagassum powder in about 300 ml of hot (120 F) non-chlorinated water. For cancer patients I also recommend 15 ml fresh pressed sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella) juice from live plants twice daily with food. For trauma patients I recommend 20-40 Hawthorn berries (Crataegus oxycantha or C. monogyna) or 5 ml Hawthorn Tincture three times daily with food. Japanese studies show very positive clinical and preventative anti-tumor, anti-metastatic success using seaweeds, especially Sargassum.

Nervous Disorders: Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Hyperactivity, Insomnia, Depression, Hostility and Schizophrenia are often markedly improved if not resolved by regular consumption daily of 3-5 gm powdered kelp, especially Bull Kelp (Nereocystis). I assume here we are treating basic long-term malnutrition, especially mineral deficiency. Hay Fever and Asthma are also helped by 3-5 gm powdered kelp daily.

Bladderwrack: Bladderwrack (Fucus spp.) has many therapeutic uses. I find the best results develop when small pieces of the whole plant are eaten with food; next best way is ingestion of encapsulated powdered dried Bladderwrack; alcohol and hot water extracts seem to be the least effective. Regular consumption of 3-5 gm daily can normalize a swollen prostate, especially in early stages. An external poultice or soaking in Bladderwrack baths, the hotter the better, can relieve sore joints and achy muscles; it may stimulate cartilage regrowth. Regular consumption of Bladderwrack can also lower chronic high blood pressure, promote healing, and improve sleep. Much of the iodine in bladderwrack presents as di-iodotyrosine(DIT) , an immediate precursor of the thyroid hormones Thyroxine (T4, made from two condensed DIT molecules by thyroid peroxidase in the thyroid follicles) and tri-iodothyronine (T3, made from the condensing of one DIT and one MIT).This makes Fucus spp the sea vegetables of choice for treating thyroid disorders by providing the immediate precursors for T4 and T3. Indeed, Fucus seems particularly effective in treating early stage hypothyroidism. Positive results have obtained in both hypothyroidism and Graves' hyperthyroidism cases.

Phytoestrogens: Many seaweeds contain significant amounts of lignans which are readily converted by intestinal microflora to non-steroidal estrogenic molecules which bond preferentially to ErB, the recently discovered estrogen receptor site. There are often more lignans in selected seaweeds than in legumes, whole grains, vegetables and fruits.This may explain their apparent therapeutic and preventative value against estrogen-driven neoplasms.

Cardiac Troubles: Regular consumption of Kombu (Laminaria spp.) tends to result in lowered blood pressure, plaque removal from arteries.

Breast Cancer: Regular dietary consumption of Wakame and other brown algae may prevent breast cancer. Fucoidan:Fucoidan is a sulfated polysaccharide extracted from many brown algae with hot water. It is a potent antiviral; it can inhibit virus attachment onto host cells, inhibit cell penetration, and inhibit viral intracellular replication. It shows strong activity against Herpes Simplex 1 HIV 1 and H-Cytomeglovirus. It also inhibits lung metastases. It shows strong antitumor activity by enhancement of inflammatory responses and upregulation of leukocytic phagocytosis. It is more antiproliferative than comparable doses of Heparin. All human cells studied are found to have receptor sites for Fucose, the end-group sugar on Fucoidan.This molecule is perhaps most important in the therapeutic future for seaweeds. I hope that it will be given as whole seaweed powders rather than industrial extracts with their inevitable contaminants. Pretreatment with Fucoidan significantly reduces hemorrhagioc shock pooling increase in the vascular bed after surgery.

Research continues. Eat sea vegetables today!!!

Bibliography:

Louis Dreuhl. Pacific Seaweeds.Harbour Publishing. 2000
R. O'Clair and S. Lindstrom. North Pacific Seaweeds.Plant Press. 2001

Suggested Reading: 

• Sea Vegetables . E. McConnaughey ISBN 0-87961-151-0 Nature Graph Pub., Inc., P.O.Box 1075, Happy Camp, CA USA 96039 
• Sea Vegetable Celebration. Shep Erhart and Leslie Cerier. ISBN 1-57067-123-0 Bookn Publishing Co. 2001 
• Sea Vegetable Cookbook & ForagerÌs Guide. E & J Lewallen 1983 Mendocino Sea Vegetable Co., P.O.Box 372, Navarro, CA USA 95463 
• Cooking With Sea Vegetables. Sharon Rhoads ISBN 0-394-73635-4 1978 
• The Sea Vegetable Book. Judith C, Madlener 1977 ISBN 0-517-52906-8 Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., Publishers 
• Seaweeds of Cape Cod and The Islands. John Kingsbury & Philip Sze. Bullbriar Press, RR1, Box 332, Jersey Shore, PA 17740 
• Diet For The Atomic Age .Sara Shannon 1993 ISBN 0-941683-26-5 
• The Healing Power Of Minerals . Paul Bergner 1997 ISBN 0-7615-1021-4 
• Fighting Radiation and Pollution. S. Schecter. l997. ISBN 1-878412-04-3 
• Thyroid Dysfunction. R. Drum. 1999 In: Medicines From The Earth. pp.72-75.

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