ITSU 12 Crispy Seaweed Thins (Waitrose) [By @SpectreUK]

I’m always looking for an alternative healthy snack to crisps and flavoured peanuts. Although I’m uncertain as to what first drew my attention to these 12 Crispy Seaweed Thins by Itsu, I do know that I found myself instantly in trouble with Cinabar for rushing from one side of the supermarket to the other exclaiming; “Oh! These look very interesting!” Good eyesight for a Foodstufffind, you see, though I was a little confused as to why there were only 11 rather attractive bikini clad women on the beach in the image on the front of the packet. I can only surmise that if I happened to be taking an afternoon stroll on such a beach that I would be lucky enough to have one seaweed thin left after sharing them out?

These seaweed thins were plucked from the sea around the coast of South Korea. I can only guess that they were squashed flat by the ever growing audience of men who were sat watching the 11 bikini clad women frolic on the beach. Moving on from the packaging before Cinabar gets her editing kit out, the 5g packet, yes 5g, had 32 calories with 0g of sugar and 2.65g of fat. Vegetarian friendly, the ingredients included seaweed laver, salt and olive oil (although personally I thought she preferred spinach? Oh... Olive Oyl). As you can see by the additional photo the seaweed thins were indeed thin and a little too big to put in your mouth in one go, unless of course you have a rectangular letterbox shaped mouth or no tongue in the way. Their sheer size meant that they had to be bitten of bent to be eaten effectively. The seaweed thins were very brittle, flaked and snapped when bitten or folded making them messy to eat, especially in the crowded canteen at work. Although there were no bikini clad women staring at me in horror whilst I slowly covered myself with small pieces of dark green seaweed, there were a couple of mature ladies looking at me very strangely from a nearby table. As I tried in vain to hoover up some of the pieces of seaweed I was covered in, I found myself coughing a little as some green shrapnel went down the wrong way. After over half the packet I became used to the mess and began daintily folding the seaweed and slipping it into my mouth like a professional (well, sort of). They tasted a lot like the seaweed you get in restaurants, but without the sushi, yet they were much much drier with a very pleasant salty seaweed flavour. I did enjoy eating the seaweed thins, although I felt a little embarrassed whilst I got used to their messy nature. They felt very healthy indeed, perhaps a little too healthy as I considered eating a couple of bags of greasy crisps afterwards to over compensate. However, I didn’t need to eat anything extra as the seaweed thins went perfectly well with my sandwiches and other odds and ends that I usually cram into my lunchbox. I’d eat these seaweed thins again as an alternative to crisps, but having said that, if I ever find myself surrounded by hungry bikini clad women on a beach somewhere, I’ll make sure I have a couple of bunches of bananas with me and also a packet of biscuits for myself!

By Spectre