 Hi, I'm Ines Ort, a contributor here at Food Unfolded, and today I want to talk to you about a very versatile organism. You have probably seen headlines and heard promises about it for years. It's in toothpaste, cosmetics, paint, pesticides, and in some of your favorite foods. I'm talking about algae. For a few years now, I've seen it everywhere. And I wanted to better understand whether it's just a hot trend we will follow for a while and then abandon like it's happened with many superfoods or whether algae should and will become a new staple food in our diets. Let's dive in. First of all, I was surprised to find out that there are thousands of types of algae ranging from giant kelp forests to close to invisible single-salt organisms. So yes, the algae species is very diverse. But it can be divided into two big categories. If we call it seaweed, we are usually talking about macroalgae, multicellular marine algae that look like proper plants. They can be red, brown, or green and are found in many dishes like soup, snacks, or sauces. The so-called superfoods, like chlorella and spirulina, instead are microalgae and are miniscule single-salt organisms, hard to see with the naked eye. They are easy to grow and packed with protein and nutrients. Because of this, they are often found in tablets or capsules and used as nutritional supplements. Doing my research, I realized that while it may seem like everyone's talking about algae these days, the relationship between humans and algae spreads across centuries and continents. During the Greek and Roman empires, seaweed growing in the Mediterranean Sea were routinely used as fertilizer and medicine. In fact, Roman writings from the second century AD contained the oldest known evidence of seaweed as a fertilizer. And as early as 100 BC, records indicate that ancient Greeks used a species of red algae to treat infections from parasitic worms. In Japan, everyday cooking involves using 21 different seaweed species. The most important seaweed species in Japan include nori, kombu, and wakame, which have now become somewhat popular across the globe. Moving to Central Africa, spirulina grows abundantly in Lake Chat and is collected and dried and made into a sauce, which is widely consumed by the Kanembu people of Chad. In Wales, a type of seaweed called laver has been consumed since at least the 1600s. It is cooked, mashed, and often enjoyed on toast, oatmeal, and more recently, chefs are innovating by adding it to pasta dishes and seafood pizzas. The difference between the past and the present is that, until a few decades ago, we mostly harvested seaweed in the wild, but farm production today is increasing quickly. 96% of seaweed production is now in cultivated farms, with countries in East and Southeast Asia dominating global seaweed production from aquaculture. But what do seaweed farms look like on the ground? At scale, seaweed farming looks like plots of coastal waters with lines of kelp or different seaweed species growing vertically down from lines strung across the surface of the water. In Europe, though, most seaweed is harvested wild, but farms are increasing. And algae farming is increasing for a specific reason. Scientific institutions have been pushing to make this happen. This is because algae holds immense potential to transform our food, agricultural, and aquaculture systems. For example, in 2020, the UN Global Compact published The Seaweed Revolution, a manifesto for a sustainable future, which called for international efforts and collaborations to drive seaweed production to the next level. But let's take a quick step back. Why does our agricultural food system need transforming in the first place? On land, agricultural expansion, driven by the need to meet the growing demands for food and materials, has resulted in significant deforestation, leading to the worsening of climate change and biodiversity loss. Cultivating algae for food and other uses has emerged as a sustainable alternative with multiple environmental benefits. Because seaweed grows vertically and with significantly fewer chemical inputs than land crops, seaweed farms use less space and can attract aquatic life, boosting the marine ecosystem. When farmed right, seaweed can sequester carbon, repair ecosystems, and create resilience against flooding in coastal areas. Since algae can serve as a substitute or supplement for food, animal feed, and biofuels, farming it has the potential to reduce the demand for terrestrial crops and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. As you might know, a large source of greenhouse gas emissions comes from ruminants, or more specifically, their burps. These are responsible for 30% of global methane emissions. How does this relate to seaweed? Well, there is a red tropical species called asparagopsis, which is notably high in a substance called bromoform. Bromoform disrupts an enzyme used by certain gut microbes to produce methane. And so, when eaten, it inhibits the microbial processes that produce methane in the stomach of ruminants. Several startups are already producing livestock feed with this seaweed in order to drastically lower methane emissions from cows. And in a few studies, scientists found that sheep burped out 80% less methane when they were fed 3% seaweed in their feed over 72 days, while beef cattle burped out 98% less methane when they were fed just 0.2% seaweed in their feed over 3 months. So that's methane. But what about CO2? Just like trees, seaweed sequesters CO2 as it grows in the form of blue carbon. However, unlike trees, seaweed does this without competing for valuable land. This is due to the vast and largely untapped expanse of the ocean, which offers abundant room for them to grow. To put this into perspective, think about this. Today's wild kelp forests cover only 76,000 square kilometers. That's around the size of Austria, or nearly 2% of the fertile ocean. For scale, half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture, and more than three quarters of this is used for livestock production. However, algae serve a broader purpose beyond addressing greenhouse gas emissions. Another important concern is the issue of overfishing, a topic you might know a thing or two about. The intensified exploitation of seafood, fueled by growing consumer demand and a lack of clear fisheries restrictions, has led to a critical decline in fish stocks. This depletion highlights a significant problem in the sustainability of our seafood consumption. Seaweed could offer a promising solution by serving as a delicious and sustainable alternative to overfished species. Its culinary potential is practically limitless, offering many unexplored fishy flavors and textures. In addition, algae is low in fat, but packed with protein, minerals, essential vitamins like B12, A and K, and micronutrients like zinc, iodine and iron. This means that algae could be used as an alternative to fish and other seafood from a nutritional point of view. But still, there is no such thing as a silver or blue bullet to solve massive issues like overfishing, biodiversity loss, or climate change. There are some risks involved with scaling up anything, and this includes algae. For example, if the algae grows too much or isn't harvested properly, it could start decomposing and releasing all the sequestered CO2 back into the environment. Similarly, it could block out light and disrupt nutrient availability, which would impact other light-sensitive species and disrupt the whole ecosystem. While the ocean covers a huge area, we still need to be mindful of these potential issues. All in all, after reading about the benefits of algae production and consumption, and even despite its limitations and potential worries, my perspective has changed. It doesn't seem to me that we see algae everywhere. In fact, it seems that we don't see it around us nearly enough. So here's an idea. There's more to the seed than just fish. Whether it be animal feed or human food, both in the form of traditional dishes or novel foods serving as an alternative to known seafood, algae has the potential to ease the strain on both overexploited land and sea ecosystems. That is, if we develop ocean farms in different ways than we have developed land farms. By tapping into its many forms, we can help mitigate climate change, biodiversity loss, and ensure a sustainable future for our oceans and our coasts, while still enjoying the bounty of the sea.