In the future, we can eat seaweed instead of animal meat

From kelp burgers to sea bacon, sustainable food entrepreneurs are innovating to appeal to hungry human omnivores.

When vertebrates first stretched out of the sea some 390 million years ago, life on land was good: an oxygen-rich atmosphere and virtually non-existent competition for food, with well-defined boundaries. between the ocean and the land. Until 2022, life on land becomes more vibrant. Earth's population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion people by 2050; Experts estimate that food production will have to increase by 70% to keep up with that growth.

The agricultural intensification methods used in the past will soon no longer be a good option due to the huge impact they have on the environment. These trade-offs include 'disruption of natural habitats and threats to biodiversity, greenhouse gas production from land clearing, fertilizer and livestock farming, and nutrient depletion. from fertilizers that harm marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems."

According to a 2018 farm-to-fork preparation study, which analyzed 40,000 farms that produce 90% of the food consumed on the planet, we must give up meat and dairy products if we want to stay on track. themselves in the coming decades. Americans spent $1.4 billion on retail plant-based meat (found in 19% of households) in 2021, representing a 2.7% market share of all packaged meats sold odd.

 
Seaweed has been a staple food in the East Asian diet.

Plant-based food companies Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods - two familiar names in the now-popular US fake meat market - claim that their burgers use significantly less land and water say, produce less greenhouse gases than comparable companies like beef burgers.

Although seaweed has been a staple food in the East Asian diet for hundreds of years - Koreans consumed 20.4 pounds of seaweed per capita in 2020, for example - it is still a highly nutritious food. level in Western countries. Mark Kulsdom, a former animal rights activist, says seaweed needs branding.

In the Netherlands, for example, people are very interested in this type of food. Royal kombu (aka sugar kelp) is harvested from the Netherlands' first organic seaweed farm, enriching and flavoring Dutch Weed Burger's soy pate. It is served on a microalgae green bun, garnished with a sauce of sea lettuce.

The described burger has 1 outstanding and special feature, which is a combination of familiar flavors and new flavors. People don't need to associate it with a meat substitute, but rather see it as a standalone plant-based burger.

The Dutch Weed burger is also vegetarian, but for the meat-eaters who crave meat. A decade after launching the first product, he and his partners now make about $1.4 billion a year from burgers. They seem to be making people rethink and readjust their habits.

To Kulsdom, he seems to be trying to change the culture of eating. He believes that sometimes people have to take a slightly unorthodox approach to things. When everyone gets what they already know, it's not fun anymore. When their curiosity is awakened, that's when new things and ideas can enter their mind.

AKUA, a kelp-based meat substitute company based in Brooklyn, New York, in partnership with GreenWave (a non-profit network of farmers who regenerate the ocean), offers farm-raised products. Grow its own seafood from sustainable farms in New England. Founder Courtney Boyd Myers, an entrepreneur who has long prepared seaweed as a home-made treat, fulfilled his environmental promise following a 2016 visit to GreenWave's Connecticut farm. AKUA was born three years later to spread the word.

AKUA founder Courtney Boyd Myers (right) harvests some kelp.

In 2008, researchers discovered 14,000-year-old pieces of seaweed in southern Chile that were pressed into cakes and chewed like tobacco. The scientists found that all nine seaweed species recovered at the site are "excellent sources of iodine, iron, zinc, protein, hormones and a wide range of trace elements, particularly cobalt." , copper, boron, and manganese," with secondary beneficial effects including aiding cholesterol metabolism, increasing bone calcium absorption, antibiotic effects, and increasing the body's ability to fight infection.

Boyd Myers explains the company uses a combination of sugar and lean kelp - a new variety of sugar kelp - in all of its products, including beef jerky and burgers. AKUA's Hot Pepper and Lemon Kelp Jerky contains a type of microalgae known as spirulina. While Kelp Burgers and Krab Cake have "water lentils" or duckweed, which contain up to 45% protein. In the future, they want to incorporate different types of seaweed in their products, as long as they are grown in a sustainable way.

Like Kulsdom, Boyd Myers admits that seaweed requires a thoughtful supply. Their Kelp Jerky is more than 70% kelp, but the reality is that kelp is too luxurious for the average consumer. AKUA is in the process of reorganizing it. She says the company has reduced kelp by about 30% in its Kelp Burger recipe, combining its flavor with more familiar flavors like tomato, extra virgin olive oil, black beans and quinoa. People really love burgers, regardless of whether they like seaweed or not.

Seaweed products.

In a restaurant setting, though, explaining what a kelp burger is to customers through the menu isn't as straightforward as most professional chefs would like. Boyd Myers says her company's plant-based krabs will win much faster in food service for this reason. Most people will immediately understand what a plant-based cake is and the fact that it's made from kelp - a plant from the ocean, which really makes sense.

She also argues that these dishes are well worth making. Kelp grows very quickly, which makes it even more efficient than most terrestrial plants at absorbing carbon dioxide and converting it into biomass and oxygen. Our oceans are among the biggest absorbers of carbon dioxide, so kelp forests and kelp farms have an important role to play in combating climate change, helping to disinfect the oceans.

The researchers hope to one day sequester large amounts of carbon by sinking kelp into the deep ocean. A 2019 research review found that the technology needed to do this at a meaningful scale does not yet exist. However, the more than 48 million square kilometers of ocean suitable for seaweed farming could benefit at least 77 countries, by acting as a carbon sink that buffers nutrient-rich waters, hypoxic and acidic. Offshore seaweed isn't the only solution to climate change, but it does provide an invaluable new tool for a more sustainable future.

 
Kelp grows very quickly.

The category of meat of plant origin includes similar products, that is, those intended to match the look, texture and taste of animal meat. These products now accounted for 90% of US sales last year, with black bean and vegetable products making up the remaining 10%.

Umaro Foods has launched seaweed bacon at three eateries in San Francisco, Nashville and New York City. The company's patent-pending protein is a functional substitute for heme, the red precursor of hemoglobin, which allows a number of products of plant origin and meat imitation, with the same color and properties. increased umami taste. Co-founders Beth Zotter and Amanda Stiles intend to make headlines with innovation.

They believe you can't blame people when they eat less meat. You have to create something that tastes good and still delivers the nutritional ingredients people expect. Seaweed bacon is a famous product for vegetarians. It's like a drug that makes people feel like they're being eaten completely. They are really excited to offer new products that allow people to give up meat.

Seaweed bacon.

Kelp is relatively low in protein, but Umaro Foods has found another aquatic plant that can supply it in batches. The type of seaweed we're using today is red algae, especially nori, which is actually 40% protein - even higher than soybeans, Zotter explains. Zotter says they see the potential in technology and even traditional farming programs to increase the protein content of seaweed and turn it into a high-quality, large-scale protein source that can compete with beans both cost and scale. Currently, Umaro's four strips of seaweed bacon have a proprietary protein ring at 240 calories, providing one gram of protein.

Zotter and her colleagues aren't just looking for seaweed for protein. Bacon uses protein but it also uses hydrocolloids, which are the gels that make seaweed soft and spongy. Those hydrocolloids are being used by her company to create a fat analogue. One of the things that makes bacon so delicious is how much fat it contains. Hydrocolloid in seaweed is used to coat vegetable oils like sunflower oil and coconut oil, basically creating the palatability, crunchy texture and release of animal fat. This is one of their patent pending innovations.

At New York's Egg Shop, one of the first three restaurants for seaweed bacon, tasters were extremely pleased with the dish's rich, crisp flavor. The Umaro Foods team hopes to build on the momentum of alternative protein success stories like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods to lead meat eaters to more sustainable and scalable alternatives. . They extremely welcome companies like Zotter's. There's always room in a growing market for a lot of competition, to make products that are going to get better, and that's good for everyone.