Hi! Today I'm going to share with you 5 inexpensive Japanese superfoods
that will help boost your immune system.
I was born and raised in Japan. My mother is Japanese and my father is American
so I grew up in a household where we ate a lot of Japanese dishes.
I also attended a Japanese public school so in middle school
these ingredients were in our lunches and if you don't know anything about Japanese schools
we don't have a cafeteria, the students - we serve lunch to each other
and we don't get to pick our lunches. Every month the school board has a menu for the students
that they give to the parents to show what they'll be providing the students every day
and we can't bring our own lunches, there's no substitution.
You basically have to eat what they give you but I always looked forward to these lunches
because they were very healthy. Not that I really cared about that when I was younger
but it was really good food.
So the ingredients I am showing you today were often in our school lunches
Miso soup is a staple in Japanese cuisine and my mom taught me how to make miso soup
I think when I was ten years old so I've been cooking miso soup since I was a kid.
Miso soup is also very often served in school lunches
and also when you dine out, you'll see miso soup on the menu.
So miso soup is really easy to make
it's super healthy and even the ingredients you put in miso soup can be very healthy from tofu to seaweed.
If you are looking for an immune booster, I highly recommend miso soup.
Natto is another traditional Japanese food. It is fermented soybeans just like miso paste
but there is a huge difference.
Unlike miso paste, natto is slimy, sticky and stringy
so it's not very favored in Western cultures but if you are adventurous
and want to try it, I highly recommend it. It's very inexpensive and natto is known
to have a very unpleasant smell but nowadays you can buy natto that does not have a smell
and actually this is the one that I have here. It's still sticky and slimy but there is no smell to it.
Next is umeboshi or pickled plum.
I actually did not know that these had nutritional value and that they were a superfood.
I grew up eating this. You can often find them in rice balls
and also a lot of times sushi restaurants serve this
but this is what it looks like. And my mom actually she eats this every morning
and makes a shake out of it which that's a little bit too much for me.
I just like to have one on top of my rice and when I have dinner or lunch
and it's very sour and it also has a very high sodium count so it's not recommended
to eat a whole bunch of these. Just eat in moderation.
So I typically just have one a day.
The great thing about seaweed is it's low in calories and it's super high in nutrients
and Japan has a variety of seaweed.
I use this in my miso soup and all I do is I just take like a little pinch
and I stick it in my miso soup and the seaweed expands
so this little piece is gonna be pretty big.
Next up is my favorite since I was a little kid.
My mom said I loved this stuff since I was three which is unusual
because most kids don't like this at that age but it is gobo or burdock root.
It doesn't look like this when you buy it in the store.
When you buy it in the store, it looks like a big branch or a stick.
And I've already cut this up.
This stuff is super high in fiber and if you're not used to eating this
it could taste a little odd at first.
Some people have said it tastes like dirt which I don't think it does but I don't know.
I've always had this since I was a kid so maybe it does taste like dirt and I just don't taste it.
So where do you buy these ingredients? I always go to the Asian market.
I like to go to the Japanese supermarket. It's usually called Mitsuwa or Nijiya
but if you don't have that, a lot of the Korean markets also sell these items
and actually, I bought all of these at the Korean market because
I actually live closer to the Korean market than the Japanese market.
You can buy some of these ingredients in American supermarkets but it's typically priced a lot higher
which I don't like that it's priced so much more because they're very inexpensive items
so I don't like to buy them from American grocery stores
but if you can find an Asian market, I highly recommend going there and trying out these ingredients.
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