Healthy Snacking?

And 8-year old girl told me she prefers healthy snacks over candies when I offered her some fruit gummies (that had 100% vitamin C and fat free!), and when I asked her what would be considered healthy snacks in Japan, she produced a bag of dried seasoned seaweed snacks.

I was skeptical at first. Sure I've eaten tons of seaweed, savory or sweet (in the Cantonese sweet tonic 清補涼/六味湯/Sâm Bổ Lượng), and I've also eaten copious amounts of season seaweed (nori and gim) as snacks, but these didn't look like anything but just dried seaweed! She urged me to try some, and I did, and what do you know, they were...yummy! ^.^


Regular flavor (left), pickled plum flavor (middle), and sesame flavor (right).

I couldn't find the exact brand the little girl had, but I found similar stuff, and then some, at my local conbini. Granted these bags are small, but eating the whole bag would only add an additional 38 calories for me to burn! Since these are of sweet and salty nature, of course sugar and salt were added, though nothing in comparison to hard candies which are pretty much pure sugar. Note of caution, however, that seaweed is not to be over consumed as it is a source of iodine and can be toxic in large amounts.

These regular flavored seaweed pieces are sweet and salty, and you can chew on them to savor the taste.

This one is has pickled plum (umeboshi) flavor, so in addition to being sweet and salty it's also sour.

The seaweed is seasoned with sesame seeds in this one and is crunchy like potato chips instead of being hard and tough meant for chewing and savoring.

Hubby has no interest in snacking on these, but I ended up liking them a whole lot!