Wakame & Lima beans, synergy in a quick salad
Vietnamese or Korean style seaweed salad with sesame seeds, sweet onion and apple cider vinegar. ...Plus lima beans.
Wakame seaweed makes instant salad and is a compact pantry item with a long shelf life. It is iodine rich and has fucoidan which helps protect against breast cancer. Lima beans are low in oxalate, and easy to digest, but are goitrogenic (thiocyanate). The synergy of iodine rich seaweed with a protein rich legume makes a salad with nutritional power.
Caution: It is important to not eat raw or undercooked lima beans as the precursor chemical contains hydrogen cyanide. Cooking makes it convert to thiocyanate which is still an antinutrient that impairs iodine metabolism and can add to risk of goiter. (Loren Courdain, PhD, The Paleo Answer, page 144-145)
Wakame seaweed salad for one serving -
Presoak 1-3 tablespoons of the dried seaweed, five or more minutes, it can sit a while if you get busy. Amount to use depends on your appetite, or it keeps well for a day if you make extra. It grows! Kids could have fun with this! So can adults ;-)
Drain the seaweed and add 1-2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
and a couple tablespoons or slices of raw sweet onion, sliced thin or chopped small.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or soy sauce if you prefer that and tolerate it.
Add a 1/2 cup of cooked & chilled limabeans (more resistant starch bonus). *I made a pound last night - they had been one of my ice packs - bless their little frozen beany hearts.
Add salt to taste (unless soy sauce was used - that is adding salt to it) or hot pepper or other seasoning if desired and enjoy!
Portion - this is a side dish amount
This amount would be a side dish that provides some protein rather than being a full entrée. Serve with some Tandoori chicken for an international mix-up. Or Vietnamese style salad rolls that have a protein filling. Ginger stir fry with a meat, fish or organic tofu sounds good too, skip the rice for a moderate carb diet. The lima beans are a carbohydrate equivalent.
For a vegan entrée, protein from 1 1/2 cups beans 🫘 would be a main dish equivalent, and no other carbs would be needed for the meal because the beans are high carb. Have veggies with them, like the Wakame seaweed, and a healthy oil. Or some nuts and seeds which provide fats and protein and a little carbohydrate.
Fats are needed in a meal to make it seem satisfying to the brain.
The lima beans in this particular recipe had some avocado oil added before they went in the fridge. The sesame seeds are providing fats too.
This earlier post has images of dried seaweed products including Wakame and a link to the post about fucoidan and breast cancer.
Most people in modern life cultures likely could use more iodine than we get because we are getting too many goitrogenic substances. Extra iodine is generally protective however glutathione production and adequate antioxidants are also needed to protect the thyroid from oxidative aspects of iodine metabolism. That topic is in a different post, part of or the last in the Hashimoto's series:
*I do have a couple drafts on iodine or/thyroid in the works but still need to work on them.
** Happy Mother's Day!
Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.