One day at home, I stumbled upon a dark green flat thing in front of my face, I was scared. There it was lying on my table till I finally reached for it with my hand. The thing crumbled and to my dismay my parents wanted me to put it in my mouth, and so I did.

After placing it into my mouth… I was welcomed into the world of delicious salty savory seaweed. That is close to how I experience seeing and eating seaweed for the first time when I was young and after having consumed this delectable snack, I had to look more into it just because it was seaweed which comes from the ocean, so it’s good for you right?

Yes it is, this yummy snack that comes naturally from the sea grown by Mother Nature and probably farmers…I have to be realistic here. But how is it healthy? Well there are multiple health benefits that you can attain from eating seaweed in small portions from nori, kelp or kombu according to Nadia Haris who wrote “What Are the Health Benefits of Eating Seaweed?” on livestrong.com.

In her article, seaweed contains natural fibers that act like dietary fiber which helps you digest and keep down the fat absorption which is backed up by Dr. Lain Brownlee and Professor Jeff Pearson with their seaweed study. In my case, I’ve never notice it but I could say that seaweed has kept me satiated with no hunger pains, which helps me from wanting to eat a much more calorie dense snack instead.

Seaweed also contains vital nutrients for your body, classified as a vegetable but is able to not only get you your daily minerals and vitamins in one simple snack, you also get your dose of iodine which is important for your thyroid function. For those who are interested in what nutrients seaweed contains, here they are: calcium, protein, B-12 and vitamin A.

Seaweed is also good for the heart due to it having heart-healthy fats also well known by the name Omega-3.  According to Dr. Oz from his website, one sheet of nori is able to get you the same amount of Omega-3s as in two avocados which is a lot and good for you.

This gives you a cheaper alternative to get in your Omega-3’s if you don’t prefer eating two whole avocados that could jeopardize your diet with loaded amounts of calories which would be close to ¼ of your daily calories.

So how do you eat them? Well there are multiple ways to consume seaweed because the supermarkets are your oyster. You can literally find a variety of seaweed in many supermarkets like Asian supermarkets or a few American chain markets that might have them.

The common seaweed food you might possibly see people eating would be the seaweed snacks which are shaped into strips instead of long and big pieces. These are the simplest versions of consuming seaweed since they tend to already have been seasoned and are great for snacking and no prep is required of any sort to snack on this delicious treat.

And then there is the big sheets which are used to wrap  sushi or you can use them in anyways you’d like to consume them, they are usually not seasoned though so check the package and make sure that you’re buying it for a specific purpose like snacking on or if you just like it plain, majority of the big sheet ones are plain flavored which means it is slightly healthier for you without the added seasonings. So go and snack on, I highly recommend it.