Beauty Foodie: Gomasio

If your skin and your taste buds have been looking for a little extra something of late, you’ve gotta get gomasio. Gomasio is a condiment made from toasted whole sesame seeds and sea salt that has existed for years as a staple of a macrobiotic diet, where it’s used in place of table salt. I love gomasio for its beauty nutrition boost, and its unique – earthy, nutty, addictive – flavor. Sprinkle a few teaspoons of dry gomasio over salad, grains, cooked vegetables, popcorn, etc. (you’ll have a hard time finding meals that it doesn’t go well with) and you’ve got a boost of iron, calcium, amino acids and protein, as well as a much more nutritious way to lightly salt your food. One teaspoon is about 15 calories, with 80 mg of sodium (about 3% or your RDA).

My favorite gomasio for beauty and health purposes is seaweed gomasio, and I recommend this version over the basic sesame and sea salt mix. Seaweed gomasio contains tiny, pulverized flakes of dry seaweed like dulse, nori or kombu, which give the condiment an even bigger nutritional boost from trace minerals and iodine. (Seaweed is one of my 7 Unlikely Beauty Foods) The iodine in seaweed is processed by the thyroid gland to become thyroid hormone, which stimulates energy production and growth of hair & nails. Lots of us are low in iodine, and low on opportunities to consume seaweed, unless we’re eating sushi. But a sprinkle of seaweed gomasio means a little boost of nutrition here and there, enough to pack some extra trace minerals in your diet. I’ll bet that you love the taste as well.

You can make your own gomasio by lightly toasting sea salt and sesame seeds and grinding them with seaweed so that the sesame oil coats the other ingredients, but it’s more convenient to pick up a jar at the grocery store and give it a try before you commit to the process! Whole Foods stocks Eden Seaweed Gomasio, a personal favorite, but you might have to do a little searching; it’s usually high on a shelf where few eyes look. Time to give it a little more attention in your beautifying diet.

 

Main Image: foodoro.com