Why seaweed should be rebranded as a vegetable – and eaten with every meal

Seaweed chef Prannie Rhatigan gathering seaweed near her home on Streedagh Beach, near Grange, Co Sligo. Photo: James Connolly

Anita Singh
© Telegraph Media Group Limited

Seaweed should be rebranded as sea vegetables – and eaten with every meal, according to a UN adviser.

Seaweed pancakes, seaweed tartare and even chocolate seaweed mousse should be on the menu in homes and restaurants, according to Vincent Doumeizel – who has written a book, The Seaweed Revolution, based on his work as a senior adviser for the UN Global Compact on Oceans.

He recommended drying seaweed and sprinkling it on meals.

"Start like this and get used to the taste. You don’t need a lot of seaweed to get all the healthy benefits,” he said.

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Decrying the “negative perception” of seaweed as a nuisance that spoils the beauty of beaches, Mr Doumeizel said: “Seaweed is clearly not a weed. It is not something unwanted in your garden. We should not call it a weed.

“It should be called sea vegetables – which is the exact translation of the word in Japanese and Korean, where they have huge experience of it and know how good it is for both the planet and the body.”

The macro-algae is good for the immune system and is packed with zinc, vitamins and protein, Mr Doumeizel said. When it is dried, it keeps for months – and loses none of its nutrients in the way vegetables do.

It forms part of a healthy diet in Japan and Korea, but Mr Doumeizel said Westerners were reluctant to eat it.

“You’ll find people saying: ‘I’m not going to eat that, it’s awful.’ My reply is: ‘Have you tried to eat raw potatoes?’ You need to learn to cook them. It’s the same for seaweed.”

Seaweed once formed a significant part of the diet in European countries, but fell out of favour.

Mr Doumeizel said: “Over thousands of generations we had a lot of seaweed – that’s why our brains grew so big, because these fatty acids were present in seaweed and fish oil.

“Then we lost the intimate connection with the ocean 1,000 years ago when we learnt to be efficient at cultivation on land.”

He added: “If it were used in animal feed, it would also have a momentous impact on the environment. We have one billion people starving on the planet. We are running out of solutions. But the world is not doomed.”

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