Should we all be eating seaweed?
It’s turning coffee blue, has been hailed as a weight-loss cure and is touted as a potential cancer treatment. So is seaweed – basically the stuff most us are at pains to avoid at the seaside – a nutritional powerhouse? Sue Quinn wades into the debate
Your Health.
THE SANE VIEW
It seems a vocal band of people in the UK are beginning to think sea vegetables ought to be appearing on more menus. Consumer research company Mintel reports the number of new seaweed products on the market has doubled over the past two years. Supermarkets and online food retailers now stock everything from seaweed-spiked salt and pasta to oaten biscuits and ready-meals, while spirulina, a type of bluegreen algae, is being added to various products to lend colour and nutrients. Algae lattes – bright blue caffeine drinks pimped with seaweed – are even popping up in hipster coffee shops, however unpalatable they might sound.
Celebrities, as ever, are leading the trend. Jamie Oliver has called seaweed “the most nutritious vegetable in the world”, claiming he shed two stone by incorporating it into a healthy diet. And Heston Blumenthal says the NHS should be using seaweed to season patients’ meals instead of salt. The claims are big. So what’s the truth?