What do you get when you put together two of the healthiest and most nutritious foods on the planet?
… A fantastic salad and party favorite that makes you crave for more!
Try one of my favorite combinations by dipping into your quinoa salad with Lotus Chips (Original Flavor) seasoned with curry powder.
YUM!
During this COVID-19 epidemic, we need to maintain a strong immune system so our bodies are able to fight off cold, infection, and viruses.
“Eighty percent of your immune system is in the gut, so when it’s healthy, we tend to be able to fight off infections faster and better,” says Yufang Lin, M.D., of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “When it’s not, our immune system is weaker and more susceptible to fighting off infection.”
So how do Lotus Chips figure into the goal of maintaining a strong immune system?
In Japan, the Lotus Root is the vegetable for auspicious occasions because it symbolizes bright futures ahead.
The custom is to look through the holes of a cut lotus root to try to get a glimpse into the future.
And wow, have we ever been more hungry for a peek into the future more than now?!
What a tumultuous year it has been so far…
I’m delighted to share a wonderful party treat for poke, sashimi, and sushi fans out there.
Some friends came over to our place recently for quick dinner before we headed out to Circus Center, a very entertaining acrobatic cabaret(highly recommend!) here in our neighborhood in San Francisco.
One of our friends brought over a bowl of poke, so we broke out the wasabi flavored lotus chips, and created the perfect party holiday party hors d’oeuvre!
Did anyone else spot our lotus chips on HBO’s Silicon Valley season premiere? For our team, our product’s appearance on the show was an exciting moment. Because Pied Piper represents more than just a fictional company on a show – it is the quintessential startup in the tech industry.
Of course, it comes as no surprise that this techiest, geekiest, most disruptive company would be snacking on Good Roots Lotus Chips. What else would make the cut?
For a small food brand, it was a dream come true. Good Roots on HBO? Yes!
Wonder how we did it? Here’s the story of how it happened…
The lotus is certainly one of the most meaningful and symbolic plants in the world. It is the most sacred flower for Buddhists and admired throughout Asia, and the “water lilly” is also popular in gardens in the West. Since the beautiful lotus flower springs up from muddy and challenging surroundings, the lotus became a symbol of hope and transcendence. The lotus is also a sign of wealth, knowledge, purity and things achieved through adversity and challenge.
What we at Good Roots care most about is the root of the lotus of course…
The lotus root is embedded in the mud or silt at the bottom of the pond. The lotus root is a “rhizome,” meaning the root grows horizontally as a line of interconnected root stubs connected by “nodes.” So when you are viewing raw lotus root in the food store, you are actually seeing one root stub (internode) of many interconnected internodes that feed the lotus flower. For freshness and transport purposes, we receive our lotus root as connected internodes.
Well, this is our first blog, so what to write about? I suppose writing a little more about the Good Roots story, how we started, and how we got to this point is the best jumping off point for this first blog. In future blogs, I hope to write more about different subjects like complementary dishes, cooking process, nutrition, store partners, and the Good Roots team. But back to our story…
I was born and raised in Kagoshima, Japan, where the root of the lotus flower is known as “renkon.” Renkon is most commonly used as an accompanying root vegetable for a variety of dishes, rice plates, and soups. Lotus are grown in Japan but are also frequently imported into Japan from other countries including China, where they are prominently farmed and known as “lian ou.” Renkon chips, or lotus chips, are more common as a special side dish in restaurants in Asia and much less likely to be made at home. They are typically made by an experienced cook and the lotus root itself can be hard to tame on the stove top.