This recipe uses kombu a kelp usually purchased in dried form that can be used to flavor soups like a bay leaf in addition to being eaten in regular dishes. It is popular in many macrobiotic preparations.

The macrobiotic diet replaces simple carbohydrates with more complex, slower-burning ones like brown rice, quinoa, barley and millet.  These complex carbs release a continuous stream of glucose into the blood at a rate of about two calories per minute whereas the sugar from a chocolate bar burns significantly more quickly, releasing thirty or more calories [...]