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Click here to read the original article The seaweed superfood revolution could end world hunger and save the planet BYLUCY SHERRIFF November 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM GMT+1 Seaweed is a vastly underutilized resource for food and carbon sequestration. COURTESY OF JEFF SIEBERT/WWF Every winter, Briana Warner searches for scraps of seaweed from the cutting room floor, so she can spread it over her garden before putting it to bed for the season, but it’s often gone. “I work at a seaweed company, and even then it’s hard to get hold of,” the CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms says with a laugh. “The farmers take the scraps at the end of every week so they can feed it to their pigs. It’s in high demand.” Seaweed is having its moment in the sun: Use of the marine plant is a rapidly growing trend that could aid in everything from global food security to climate change. Seaweed grows quickly, contains many vitamins and minerals, and produces up to 11 times the biomass of wheat and corn. It’s vastly underutilized despite its rapid growth rate, and recent studies reveal it could absorb as much carbon as the Amazon. But despite its far-reaching benefits, America has [...]

Click here for the original article Profile of Vincent Doumeizel, Senior Advisor on Oceans to the UN Global Compact     What seaweed needs first is a name change. Seaweed, some 12,000 types in all, holds the key to an array of world problems like hunger and global warming, if only the plants could get the chance to show what they can do, says Vincent Doumeizel, a seaweed specialist and Food Programme Director at the U.K.-based charity Lloyd’s Register Foundation. “Let’s call them sea vegetables, so that people can understand how delicious they are. Let’s call them sea forests so that people can find a way to protect them,” he said in an interview with the United Nations Global Compact, where he serves as Oceans Advisor. “It’s not something unwanted you have in the garden. It’s the greatest untapped resource we have on the planet,” he said. “The first thing we need to do is change the name.” To hear Doumeizel extol the virtues of seaweed and its vast potential is like listening to hear a preacher preach. He has just written a book “La Révolution des Algues” (“The Seaweed Revolution”), currently available in French but due to be translated into English, [...]

Click Here for Original Article The newest superfood is good for humans and the planet By Casey Barber, CNN Sign up for CNN's Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style. Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that will boost your health for life. (CNN)When most of us read the words "plant-based diet," we tend to think of foods such as kale salads and grain bowls or trendy meat replacements. But there is one nonmeat option that's gaining traction as the newest superfood: seaweed. Seaweed -- yes, the brownish-green ribbons and bundles of oceanic plantlike matter that wash up on beaches -- is in fact edible. Nori, the papery sheets used to wrap sushi rolls and as a ramen bowl garnish, is likely the most well-known and enjoyed seaweed, but these large, leafy algae come in hundreds of colorful varieties, including wakame, kombu, red dulse and sugar kelp. Seaweed helps to support other marine life and to clean the water surrounding it. When out of the water, it can bring more nutrition and minerals to our diets. "Even though we try to eat healthy, we're relying on land-based, soil-based agriculture for the most part," said Sarah Redmond, founder and owner of Springtide Seaweed in [...]

Process water from the food industry is an excellent fertilizer in land-based seaweed cultivation. Not only does the seaweed grow faster; its protein content also multiplies. In this way, process water can go from being a cost to becoming a resource in the food industry. Can macroalgae, such as sea lettuce, become a competitive source of protein in the foods of the future the way soybeans are today? Seaweed naturally has a lower protein content than soybeans, but with fertilizer that difference decreases. A scientific article from researchers at the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology shows that process water from food production can serve as an excellent fertilizer in seaweed cultivation. The seaweed grew more than 60 per cent faster, and the protein content quadrupled with the addition of process water. "The protein content of soybeans is about 40 per cent. By using process water, we have increased the protein content in the seaweed to more than 30 per cent," says Kristoffer Stedt, a doctoral student at the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. We already know that algae grow better in the vicinity of fish farms in the sea due to nutrients in fish faeces [...]

KEY POINTS A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. describes seaweed farming as being “dominated by countries in East and Southeast Asia.” Toward the end of April, a project dubbed the U.K.’s “first dedicated seaweed industry facility” celebrated its official opening. The U.S. is also home to an emerging sector, with the NOAA stating there are now “dozens of farms” in waters off New England, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Like many coastal communities around the world, people living by the sea in the United Kingdom have harvested and consumed seaweed for centuries. In Wales, Welsh laverbread — made from cooking a type of seaweed called laver — is a culinary delicacy so revered that it enjoys Protected Designation of Origin status. Seaweed’s uses do not end at the dinner table, either: Today, it’s found in everything from cosmetics and animal feed to gardening products and packaging. With concerns about the environment, food security and climate change mounting, this wet, edible treasure of the sea — of which there are many varieties and colors — could have a major role to play in the sustainable future of our planet, and the U.K. wants in on the act. Toward the end [...]

Seaweed ecologist Dr Sophie Steinhagen inspects the crop at the seafarm in the Koster archipelago in Sweden. From high-protein food to plastics and fuel, Swedish scientists are attempting to tap the marine plant’s huge potential “You can just see the buoys of the seafarm,” Dr Sophie Steinhagen yells over the high whine of the boat as it approaches the small islands of Sweden’s Koster archipelago. The engine drops to a sputter, and Steinhagen heaves up a rope to reveal the harvest hanging beneath: strand after strand of sea lettuce, translucent and emerald green. “This is one individual that we would collect now and keep as a parent, because it’s growing very fast,” she exclaims. In summer, these waters teem with sea kayaks and yachts from neighbouring Norway, but for Steinhagen and the seafarming group at the Tjärnö Marine Laboratory, spring is their peak season. For one thing, it means less animal and plant life on the seaweed.“When you buy a lettuce, you don’t want to have a caterpillar in there. The same is true for seaweed: you don’t want a crab or snail eggs”. More importantly, spring is also when sea lettuce yields the most protein. In fact, experts believe that seaweed could [...]