Seaweed, get by with a little kelp from your friends

28th July 2017

I was going to write a blog about the health benefits and nutritional composition of seaweed, but the tide turned and I see that BBC rocked up first: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-seaweed. Sea la vie.

There are thought to be over 10,000 species of seaweed, reflecting its immense diversity, both in flavour and nutritional properties. So, I thought I would use our nutrition tables (you can have a free look here) to see how the nutritional composition differs between sea and land grown leafy vegetables.

You can see that the calcium content in kelp is similar to spinach, also in kelp the folate and iron content beats that of land grown leafy veg. The land greens win in the quantity of fibre and vitamin K. Though, as dark, leafy veggies go, these sea and land veg seem broadly similar.

Seaweeds have unique bioactive compounds not present in terrestrial food sources, so are a novel source of compounds with potential to be exploited in human health applications.

So, if you are getting bored with spinach and broccoli, why not add some seaweed to your five-a-day routine?