Can you guess what the the oldest human food in the Western Hemisphere was? If you guessed hot dogs, try again! Researchers discovered cooked and partially eaten seaweed at a 14,000 year old site in southern Chile. Archeologists found 9 species of seaweed rich in trace minerals and marine algae in one of the most ancient human settlements in the Americas.
Seaweed may sound like a strange thing to eat if you haven’t developed a taste for it, however it’s been part of the human diet for millennia, with good reason. Ounce for ounce, seaweed is higher in vitamins and trace minerals than any other class of food. When you think about it, it makes sense.
There are important health benefits to be gained from adding seaweed to our diet. The nourishment of the ocean strengthens these trace mineral rich plants and in turn they strengthen us. As our air and water become more polluted, minerals are removed and depleted from our farm lands, and they wash down to the sea, where the wild seaweeds incorporate and filter them. When we eat seaweeds, we take these minerals back into our bodies, and these minerals help us maintain an alkaline condition in our bloodstream, which is a healthy condition, resistant to fatigue and stress.
Seaweeds have admirable qualities: they are strong, flexible, tenacious, prolific, and they are the oldest family of plants on earth. They are the blood of the ocean. Seaweeds link us to the primitive vitality of the ocean. They strengthen our own primitive glandular system and nervous system.
Seaweeds do contain salt however don’t fear salt. Salt is necessary to all of life. If you are willing to sweat and work your body you can move salt through you, and in the process, you will be actively replenishing your life and adding to your bodies request for trace minerals. Your body is an antenna, it has the ability to receive and transmit and your body can’t receive and comprehend at its optimal level unless it contains all the trace elements that are required to balance it. As the old saying goes. It’s about quality not quantity. It’s as simple as this. If you eat the more complex salts of seaweeds, you will have less craving for simple junk food salt, and you will find yourself becoming more whole, satisfied and healthy.