Re: Carageenan/incredible sea veggie pudding

[Guest guest]

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> precautionary principal applies to my avoidance of Carageenan...

> for just 2 examples see -

>

> http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/carandcolcan.html

>

> http://www.healingcrow.com/scdwisdom/LWscd/lwscd_9.html

>

> Dedy

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I recently made a great discovery about the preparation of sea

vegetables. I regularly make large batches of teas by cooking sea

veggies for a few hours and adding various spices and things, and

also animal stock. I've never been satisfied with my routine for

consuming the heavily cooked sea veggies that remain after straining

my tea. Sometimes they're too soggy for pleasant eating as is, and

I debate adjusting the cooking time for this, which conflicts with my

desire to cook the living heck out of them to release more minerals

and make them more digestible, while other times they are quite nice

eaten plain, " bowl of greens " style. In general, I've mainly used

Alaria and Kelp (from the very very very highly recommended

incredible source of <http://www.alcasoft.com/seaweed/> that anyone

in the know swears by--amazing food!), and the Alaria is a much

weaker plant that gets soggy after lengthy cooking, but is delicious

at the right texture, while the Kelp is durable, thick stuff that

hardly loses it's great firm texture even after hours of cooking.

I've experimented with blenderizing the cooked sea veggies with

enough of the tea to make a slightly thicker drink, which works okay

and can be very flavorful, but with the Kelp there are too many large

particles because the stem is so thick, and it's not a satisfactory

drinking texture. Also, the thick mass of blenderized sea veggies

tends to separate and settle out of solution, requiring shaking,

which still fails to really give an evenly distributed, smooth drink,

with too much inconvenient sediment in the end. Overall, while not

ideal, this approach is pretty workable, especially with Alaria, and

I've had many enjoyable sub-batches of delicious " thick tea " . I've

have tried powdering the sea veggies while they're still dry, but I

only have a blender/food processor and it doesn't make a suitably

fine powder at all; in fact, it's very ineffective. I debate

obtaining sea veggies from a source that offers them in finely

powdered form, which would make tea-making much easier, but I'm also

hesitant to compromise my loyalty to Maine Seaweed Co, which only

offers the whole plant form, not to mention I harbor some possibly

irrational deep-seated attraction to this unprocessed form. I also

use the small (maybe an inch or two) pieces in every soup I make,

where it's eaten just like any soup veggie.

Now for the great discovery: The other day when I was straining my

tea I put the wet, soggy Alaria in the blender without adding liquid

to make a drink. I had a quick and dirty aim in mind along the lines

of the Gazpacho paradigm, expecting little more than a passable way

to eat the soggy Alaria. Yet after sitting in the fridge for a few

hours I went to try some and it had a wonderful pudding texture and a

divine, subtly sweet flavor, with a little personality from the

spices that had simmered in the tea for a few hours (I think it was

cassia cinnamon, star anise and cloves that time, but I try a

different combination every time). Overlooking the fact I used

extremely gelatinous deer stock in the tea, my reverie on the ideally

smooth pudding texture somehow vaguely left the carageenan or other

mysterious polysaccharides said to be in sea vegetables as the likely

explanation in my mind, although I know next to nothing about these

things. That's why this thread on carageenan caught my eye. Of

course, upon reflection, perhaps it was simply the gelatin that gave

it the great texture, but one way or another it's a great recipe I'll

be repeating often. Nevertheless, I have often noticed a gel-like

quality to sea veggies by themselves, so the speculation is not

unjustified.

I'm keen to learn more about the role, in any, of carageenan in this,

and the worries about carageenan also pique my interest, although I

would never ever give up my sea veggies, no matter what any studies

suggest! Much like the articles that will go on about CLA and it's

manufacture and effects and so on, without ever mentioning cows and

grass, or the ubiquitous hype about Co-Q10 that never mentions the

sublime delights of fresh heart steak, the first article linked above

sadly typifies so much " nutritional " discourse by referring to only

to hyper-processed and isolated substances instead of food, not even

mentioning the looming observation of significant sea vegetable

consumption in many traditional cultures, which is relevant both as a

historical caution against overreacting to these paltry scares from

laboratory science and as a pointer to the practical issues for

current sea veggie lovers. Quite sad to be so absent from the

thoughts of commentators on this topic. Nothing with carageenan in

the ingredient list should be eaten anyway when you get down to it,

since foods with a " list " of ingredients shouldn't be eaten in the

first place! (Unless one wants to advertise the virtues of a

homemade dish at a potluck or something...)

I certainly hope it's just another case of " food source vs

industrially bastardized source " ...

As a side-remark to my thoughts about powdered sea veggies above,

some may be amused to know that " kombucha " as a word in Japanese

refers to tea ( " cha " ) made with powdered kelp ( " kombu " ), a drink

which is neither common nor obscure in Japan, while the stuff

called " kombucha " in English is descriptively called " koucha-no-

kinoko " ( " fungus (kinoko) of black tea (koucha) " ) in Japanese, and

I'm told the country has seen thriving subcultures of kombucha

enthusiasts since the 60's or so. Much confusion has ensued among

Japanese speakers, and this lexical conundrum is nothing short of

bizarre!

Mike

SE Pennsylvania