What I Ate: Arame Seaweed Salad

This meal might have had the largest discrepancy between sound horrible and tasting great.

For those who don't know, arame is a type of sea vegetable, or seaweed. Sea vegetables, according to Brendan Brazier, author of the Thrive diet book that I've been experimenting with, are one of the most nutritionally dense foods in the world.

Sea vegetables contain "about 10 times the calcium of cow's milk and several times more iron than red meat," Brazier writes. They're also packed with minerals and have the world's richest source of electrolytes, which allow our cells to stay hydrated longer.

Arame is dark brown, almost black, with a crunchy texture. It's thin and comes in strips and has a mild flavor, so it's a good introductory sea vegetable for those of you who are interested in trying it out.

You must soak it in water for about 15-20 minutes to soften it up for this salad. Afterwards, you add some sesame seeds, hemp oil and fresh lemon juice. For a sweet, hot flavor, Brendan recommends adding some cayenne pepper and agave nectar. I swapped the agave for honey and used a little canola and sesame oil instead of the hemp oil.

Once it was done, the salad looked huge, and yet minimal. I simultaneously wondered whether I could eat it all and whether it would fill me.

Yes, on both counts. My only regret was the salad used up the rest of my arame and now I have to find some more somewhere in the MOV. I know Giant Eagle doesn't have it, so maybe I'll check Kroger this weekend.