Secrets of Super Seaweed; It's Nutritious, Delicious and Abundant in Ireland. Try This Fascinating Plant for Food and Beauty
Health boosting, delicious in taste and fascinating to study -- what's not to love about seaweed plants? 'Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.' I love this quote by 20th-century Austrian writer Hermann Broch as much as I love living by the sea. The magic of the coastal landscape, especially here in the West of Ireland where I live, has such a strong pull. It is one of the main reasons I moved home after living away for some years and now not a day goes by that I don't catch a glimpse of a sliver of the ocean through the hills or catch the scent of salt-laden air on the breeze.
It is a beautiful landscape with its majestic mountains, the seemingly endless expanse of ever-changing ocean and the rugged landscape full of marram grasses, rare wild orchids, and shores laden with seaweed. I love this wild landscape, dotted with delicate gem-like blooms which invite you to move closer and slow down.
Our many shorelines are treasure troves for beachcombers and foragers. Here on the West Coast, there is an abundance of unspoiled beaches, many of which have a diverse offering of a plant that has a very unique way of growing -- seaweed. Having evolved at the very beginning of time, these plants are fascinating to study and while I have often admired them for their unique beauty and growing habits, I have always craved to know more about these plants which have so many uses in health and nutrition.
Recently I got the chance to spend the day with Prannie Rhatigan. Hailed as Ireland's leading seaweed expert, Prannie is a medical doctor with a lifetime experience of harvesting, cooking and gardening organically with sea vegetables. Author of various cookbooks, including Irish Seaweed Kitchen as well as Irish Seaweed Christmas Kitchen (which recently won best gourmand book in the world in the seafood category in Macau, China), Prannie took me on a foraging walk along the coastline where I could finally learn a little more about these incredible plants.
Having grown on the coastlines rather than the land, these plants have evolved in a very different way to land plants, and Prannie tells me that this means their internal chemistries are very different. As they do not have roots, seaweed absorbs nutrients directly into their tissues from the water which surrounds them. They also differ from land plants by being able to use photosynthesis in all their tissues, while most plants do this only in their leaves.
When it comes to the health benefits of seaweed most of us know there are many. It is no wonder, with the plants absorbing the seawater around them that all the minerals in the sea can be found in these plants.
Prannie tells me that the plant basically contains every nutritional need, but without excess calories.
Red, green and brown seaweeds contain minerals, vitamins, trace elements, fiber, protein, carbohydrates and fats in varying degrees. Seaweed is being studied worldwide for the very specific bioactive and compounds it contains and the links to the many health benefits in areas such as cardiovascular health, inflammation, cancer, obesity and diabetes.
The practice of gathering seaweed is an ancient one here in Ireland and while not as common as it used to be, it is once again on the increase today