Customer Reviews

Eden Kombu, 2.1-Ounce Packages (Pack of 6)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to admit I'm a bit of a seaweed snob. I grew up eating seaweed so I'm not a stranger to it. I've been on a health food kick lately and started to cook a lot of miso soups, legumes, etc. Kombu is the quintessential ingredient for majority of the dishes I cook. It lends that famous savoriness (umami) that only comes w/ Excellent quality harvested seaweed from Japan (see, I told you...snob) ;-p.

When I first started back to cooking macrobiotic and raw food meals I purchased Kombu and Wakame from a lot of different vendors (coops, organic markets, asian groceries, online vendors, etc). As I started cooking with all the different brands of seaweeds, I noticed there's a distinct difference in taste between the brands. I have to say - Eden has one of the BEST seaweeds out there (texture, taste, no additives, clean).

Everything I cook has that hearty savoriness with the Eden brand. With other brands - the seaweed texture, color, and/or taste is subpar compared to Eden. I don't know what it is but when I cook w/ the other seaweeds - seriously - it just tastes as if something is "missing".

Since noticing the taste difference I wanted to know why Eden had one of the Best seaweeds... I went to Eden's website and read all the stories and research that go behind their products. I'm very impressed by their dedication in bringing Quality, Healthy, and Clean food to us! I'm now a Huge fan of Eden!

Since I grew up eating a lot of seaweeds - I know what good quality tasting seaweed is... and I have to say - Eden has one of the best out there! You have to try it!

Eden Foods is a great company if you ever research up on them. They take care to ensure that the products they sell are pure and clean. This is the only brand of Khombu, seaweed, and nori that I use, and it comes from Japan, not China. These strips are great for adding into soups for extra flavor...the umami like the previous poster said. I would not trust the other brand of seaweed I see at the coops...the Emerald one, because it comes from China, and there is hardly any oversight over there. Eden Foods also makes a good gomasio blend if you ever have a chance to buy it.

I've used Eden Foods Kombu for years to make Japanese soup stock for Miso Soup and as a natural flavor additive to any dish. It's very shelf stable and keeps for years, if you just want to have some in the pantry. I used it recently to flavor the stock for my standby Portuguese kale soup, with no fishy flavor at all unlike you get with nori -- my soup was delicious as ever.

With the concerns about getting iodine in your diet naturally, I used this kombu to cook rice and make a meat chili with canned kidney beans and diced tomatoes. Adds more flavor to anything boiled (it does contain a natural MSG from the sea) and sea minerals like potassium and calcium to your food besides the big iodine boost -- I completely recommend it.

As a vegetarian who loves Japanese food, I'm often stuck in a difficult position - even supposedly 'vegetarian' sea vegetables taste more fishy than I'm comfortable with (aesthetically). Eden's kombu is just fabulous pure unami, though: deep, complex, almost vaguely smoky, in a word - awesome, with absolutely no 'fishiness' whatsoever. Obviously, this is very high-quality kelp/kombu. I also have to express total mystification at the review that mentioned the 'green slime' - my kombu is nicely dry and chewy and just ready for munching, tossing in a vegetarian dashi, etc. Yum!!!

I have trouble digesting some vegetables and legumes, so I bought the kombu to soak with them for a day or so and it really helps with my digestion issues (gas cramps). One recipe in particular is my baked beans with venison; I sneak it in for added nutrition and no one is the wiser.

The kombu is of high quality and from an American company I trust.

I had been using Eden Kombu for years and always had good results. But the last time I bought some it was very different, and not in a good way. Within just a few minutes of coming into contact with water it oozed a green, gloopy slime. Edens Kombu had never done this before so I threw it out and started over with a fresh batch, same results, green slime. I had contacted Eden about it to see if there was something different about the product but never got a reply that explained in any way what could be the cause of this problem. So.....Eden! See Ya! I think they just dissmissed me as a quack or something but I,m quite serious, this stuff was NASTY.

There is better quality Kombu out there than Edens, you just gotta look for it.

Another quality product from Eden. Great for seasoning any type of soup or broth. Since the seaweed is from Japan I wonder if we should be temporarily wary of as a result of the tsunami / nuclear radiation disaster.