Roasted, Seasoned Seaweed from Being Blue Company at Costco

I am a member of the local COSTCO membership warehouse club. Every month or so, they send me several coupons which basically means that those items are on sale that month. I find that if I use a few of these coupons each month, I can more than cover the cost of my membership. ($50 a year in 2011, $55 in 2012) I recently went there to shop, and yes, I bought what I went to purchase, but I also veered from my shopping list and was subject to my own curiosity. I bought several things that were not on my list and I will not rush out and buy them again. One unplanned purchase was something that I might consider buying again, and that is roasted, seasoned SEAWEED.

My diet is probably closer to a typical American diet of processed food than it is to healthy Asian food, though I am a big fan of seafood and brown rice. I am trying to change that by adding more vegetables and healthy snacks into my food choices. This seems like an inexpensive way of doing that. Even if I didn’t like it, I was only out $9.99 and would have new material for an article at least! :-)

For $9.99 I got 27 individual servings of roasted, seasoned seaweed. Each serving comes in a small plastic tub which is sealed in a plastic wrapper. Three tubs are in a larger wrapped bag, and there are nine such bags in the box, packaged three by three. The box looks somewhat large, but it is very light. A serving size of seaweed is a mere 5 grams or 0.18 oz.

Before I ate my first serving, I asked a few friends at work and from various other places if they had ever tried seaweed. Out of about 20 people I asked, only one person even knew of someone who had ever eaten it. I asked him what he knew of the experience and he said that the person he knew who had eaten seaweed, thought it had a fishy taste. That sounded logical to me. I was expecting something like dried spinach or alfalfa sprouts or watercress. No one really knew how to eat it. Many asked how I intended to use it. I really was not sure.

As it turned out, the first time I had it, I ate it while eating hot dogs for supper. The second time, I ate it as a snack. I am still thinking of other ways to eat it, as I have 25 more packages to eat. So what was it like eating roasted, seasoned seaweed? It was not at all like what I was expecting and like nothing I had ever really experienced before. The best way for me to describe it? HMM. This writer is almost at a loss for words. The first thing I noticed that was unusual for me was the fact that it was not a pile or clump of seaweed like I am used to seeing washed up along the shore. I thought it would be like that, perhaps crunchy and salty. Instead, I opened the plastic tray and inside were several dark green sheets. I picked one up and put it in my mouth and I thought I had a piece of paper in my mouth, or perhaps a plastic wrapper. That was the sensation: a piece of paper or plastic, with a much more enjoyable flavor. I did not notice a fishy taste, but it was tasty, being a little on the salty side. After a few bites, I decided it must be an acquired taste, and I may have actually acquired that taste.

My side dish was only 30 calories but was a good way to get some fiber (8% of a day’s supply), Vitamin A (30%) and Vitamin C (20%). If I had chosen potato chips as my side dish or snack I would have had a lot more calories and fat. If I had chosen sauerkraut for my side dish, I would have had a lot more sodium. The seaweed package serving only contained 75 mg sodium. There is no cholesterol in this package of seaweed.

I have a little more than nine months to eat the remaining 25 packages before the “Best by” date and I think that is feasible. To the grocery store or convenience store owner, the packages inside this box have their own UPC bar codes, so you can buy the big box for $9.99 and sell either the individual serving units or the 3 pack of individual units or both.

As for how to eat them, I am still deciding. Surely I will experiment with different ways, but so far I like eating them as a snack, which is one of the suggestions on the package. Other suggestions are to serve it with rice or to use it like bread and make various hand rolls with it or use it as a topping for soups and salads. If you have ideas, please share them in the comments section.

The package was paced for the Being Blue Company and is a product of Korea. It contains seaweed, corn oil, salt and sesame oil.

I was snacking on some roasted, seasoned seaweed and one of my cats was in the kitchen with me. She wanted a treat and often will ask for what I am eating. While I was eating I accidentally dropped a piece of this seaweed on the floor. She sniffed at it, but did not eat it. I am surprised because both of my cats like to eat grass.