TaxonomyPhaeophyceae
old name
Laminaria japonica
new name
Saccharina japonica
USE: Laminaria japonica
REFERENCES: Used as a food and for bio-compound extraction purposes. S. japonica (Kombu) is large, edible seaweed used in Japanese, Chinese and Korean cooking. It can be added to beans during the cooking process to help them become more digestible. It’s also used as a condiment and to make vegetable broth. This species is also used as food in Russia. S. japonica is the most economically important brown seaweed cultivated in China and is consumed as a marine vegetable in East Asia. Over the past thousand years, Chinese people have traditionally used this plant to cure edema, a symptom of kidney diseases.
