Shiitake Mushroom Seaweed Soup - Healthy Food Tip and Recipe

healthy food tip and recipe

Today's Recipe If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
Try this delicious combination of seaweed and shiitake mushrooms to add an extra boost of minerals, especially iodine, to your Healthiest Way of Eating. Enjoy!
Shiitake Mushroom Seaweed Soup
Prep and Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

• 6 whole dried medium shiitake mushrooms
• 6 cups warm water
• 4 medium-sized pieces wakame seaweed
• 1 medium onion, quartered and sliced thin
• 3 medium cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 TBS minced fresh ginger
• 2 TBS dry vegetable stock powder
• 2 TBS chopped dulse seaweed
• 2 TBS soy sauce
• 1 TBS rice vinegar
• 3 TBS minced scallion greens for garnish
• salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Rinse mushrooms and wakame and soak in 2 cups of warm water for about 10 minutes, or until soft. Save water.
2. Heat 1 TBS mushroom-seaweed water in medium-sized soup pot. Add onion and Healthy Sauté over medium heat for about 5 minutes stirring frequently. Add garlic and ginger and continue to sauté for another minute.
3. When mushrooms and wakame are soft, slice the mushrooms thin and chop the seaweed. Cut out stems when slicing mushrooms and discard. Add to soup pot along with soaking water, and 4 more cups of water and dry vegetable stock. Bring to a boil on high heat.
4. Add dulse.
5. Once it returns to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes. Season with soy sauce, rice vinegar, salt, and pepper. Add minced scallion and serve.

Serves 4 Serving Suggestions: Serve with

• Chinese Cabbage Salad

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In-Depth Nutritional Profile for Shiitake Mushroom Seaweed Soup
Healthy Food Tip
You recommend alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) very strongly as a source of omega-3s. Yet, there seems to be growing evidence that the body is not very capable of converting ALA into useable forms of EPA and DHA.

Your question about alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) focuses very directly on the body and its ability (or lack of ability) to fully use this fatty acid to meet its metabolic needs. I'd like to give you a more complete picture of the relationship between ALA and other omega-3 fatty acids and explain how I approach this relationship in my book, The World's Healthiest Foods, and on the World's Healthiest Foods website (www.whfoods.org).
As you correctly point out, ALA is an omega-3 fatty acid that I strongly recommend readers consider in their Healthiest Way of Eating. It is the type of omega-3 fatty acids found in plant foods (such as flaxseeds and walnuts), while longer chain omega-3 fatty acids, like eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are the ones most concentrated in animal foods, such as cold-water fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel.
Like all nutrients, ALA is a fatty acid with functions all its own, in addition to being the starting point for formation of all other omega-3 fatty acids found in the body. It's important not to underestimate the importance of ALA in and of itself. For example, adequate intake of ALA has been linked in multiple studies to prevention of coronary heart disease.
As a general rule, persons who enjoy good health are able to metabolize ALA into a variety of other omega-3 fatty acids. As noted, EPA and DHA are two such fatty acids, although there are others as well. Metabolism of ALA into other omega-3 fatty acids requires two metabolic processes called desaturation and elongation. Enzymes are required to trigger these processes, and several nutrients are required in order for these enzymes to do their job. Specifically, vitamins B3, B6, and C together with the minerals zinc and magnesium are enzymatic co-factors that our body needs to convert ALA into EPA, DHA, and other omega-3 fatty acids.
It's worth noting that the same enzymes the convert ALA into EPA and DHA also convert the omega-6 fatty acid (alpha-linoleic acid) into other omega-6 fatty acids, including arachidonic acid (AA). In terms of its position in the fatty acid metabolic pathway, AA is the omega-6 fatty acid equivalent of EPA. Because the omega-6 fatty acids and the omega-3 fatty acids share this same basic enzymatic processing, our intake of ALA makes a difference not only in our supply of EPA and DHA but also in our supply of AA. Since AA is considered to be one of the primary pro-inflammatory fatty acids, intake of ALA may also be beneficial because it helps us keep our AA production in check by tying up the exact same enzymes that are needed to make AA.
As a general rule, it is always best to let a healthy body determine its own metabolic balance. This goal is best accomplished by giving a healthy body all of the nutrient building blocks it needs and then letting it decide which pathways to activate and which ones to suppress. By making sure that our ALA intake is optimal, we are giving our metabolism a chance to "gear up" or "gear down" in its production of EPA and DHA depending on the metabolic needs of the moment.
For individuals who have chronic deficiency of vitamins B3, B6, or C, or deficiency of the minerals zinc or magnesium, the situation is different. These individuals would not be expected to optimally metabolize ALA into EPA and DHA due to the reasons I've described. Similarly, individuals with certain genetic tendencies or chronic health problems may also be unable to generate the supplies of EPA and DHA that they need even when their intake of ALA is excellent. In these cases, it might be more important for the body to receive pre-formed EPA and DHA, ideally from food like wild-caught Pacific salmon or from supplements if whole food choices turn out to be inadequate.