Melissa: Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. According to the USDA, there are ninety five and a half million cows in the United States and one and a half billion cows worldwide. All of those cows all over the world are doing what cows do.

[mooing]

Yes, they're mooing, but they're also burping and pooping. As they pass all that gas, each cow releases about 220 pounds of methane a year. That's a gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. In fact, livestock are responsible for about 15% of all human induced greenhouse gases worldwide. Does this mean we all have to stop drinking milk and eating cheese if we’re going to save the planet? Okay, let’s leave that conversation for another day but we can talk about what we can do to reduce the amount, this heat trapping gas that cows burp out. One of the surprising answers may be seaweed.

Adding a particular strain of seaweed to a cow's diet can actually make a huge difference in the amount of methane produced by these bovine belches. All of this is to say that we can see weed benefit from seaweed. Joining us to tell us if kelp is on the way is Jaclyn Robidoux, a marine Extension Associate with the University of Maine's Sea Grant program and a seaweed specialist. Welcome to The Takeaway Jaclyn.

Jaclyn: Thanks for having me, Melissa.

Melissa: All right, first, are kelp and seaweed the same thing?

Jaclyn: Yes. For starters, kelp is a type of seaweed, but seaweed is a broader term that actually applies to marine macro algae, so those large algae that are going to be living in salt water or the ocean. Kelp is one of them.

Melissa: This is a bit like squares and rectangles?

Jaclyn: You got it. That's an analogy I use all the time. Similarly, kelp is one type of seaweed and there are many different types of kelp, which only further complicate that but, yes, not exactly the same thing, not interchangeable.

Melissa: What role does kelp play in the ecosystems where it's found?

Jaclyn: Seaweed is obviously, and kelp also is super important for the marine environment. It's going to be providing habitats, specifically kelp is a habitat for many species. You can think of those giant kelp forests, but it also is really important for water quality. Similar to plants on land, seaweed is going to be up taking carbon dioxide and nutrients and producing oxygen. Really important for keeping coastal ecosystem health in check.

Melissa: Coastal, but then how does this end up having anything to do with all those fabulous cows?

Jaclyn: Where the seaweed and cow connection comes in is there's been some work on the West Coast looking at incorporating seaweed into cattle feed and cattle diets. Some really surprising results with one specific species of red algae, which is actually not a kelp, it's called asparagopsis. When that's incorporated into the cow feed, they see a really pretty dramatic results for methane reduction. Where kelp comes into the picture is now seeing the results of that, we're starting to think about, are there other species of seaweed that might have similar methane reduction abilities when incorporated into cow feed? We're just the tip of the iceberg here with the seaweed and cow conversation.

Melissa: Here's what makes me nervous. Americans in particular, but not exclusively Americans, many nations around the world, like our beef, maybe probably more cow than we really need to but as soon as we need to then feed the cows and we create a market for cow feed, whatever that is. Whether it's in this case, largely corn, those waving fields of weed and corn and all of the things we see that really don't so much feed people, just feed the cows that then feed the people, here's where I get nervous. Do I want a market of harvesting seaweed at the same level in our delicate marine ecosystems?

Jaclyn: It definitely would be-- in order to meet the demand for cattle feed, we're talking about a pretty large seaweed market, and right now, we're also really at the beginning of farming seaweed, at least for the United States. One benefit here is that seaweed is good to farm for the marine environment. It doesn't require fertilizer, it doesn't require fresh water, so those things that are traditionally associated with agriculture, those really costly and environmentally costly inputs, we don't really have to deal with in the same way. Large seaweed farms are a bit different than large agriculture farms, but we are still really early on in the seaweed space here.

Melissa: Wait, I can have a kelp farm?

Jaclyn: Yes, you can. In some states in the United States, you could be a kelp farmer, Melissa.

Melissa: I now suddenly want to be a kelp farmer. I'm still struggling. My tomatoes are all still green on the vine today and I'm out there singing a little song to them to redden up so I can make some tomato sauce. But I'm not sure if I've got kelp farming in me. What would it take, just if you have a sense of it, to grow and harvest seaweed or kelp?

Jaclyn: I'm based in Maine and we have a quickly growing seaweed industry here in the state. We started commercial production in about 2010 and have been going since. What it takes is quite a lot. I think the first thing folks should know about kelp and growing kelp is that it is actually a winter crop. Folks are out on the water in Maine winters deploying the small seaweed seed and then letting it grow over the winter. First and foremost, you got to like the cold. Second, you probably need a boat and a good sense of humor.

When we think about the future of seaweed, what we're seeing right now, at least in Maine, is a lot of folks who already have backgrounds on the water, whether it is lobstermen or mussel farmers, or other marine businesses who are diversifying to incorporate seaweed as a winter source of income, which can sometimes be tough in states like Maine.

Melissa: As a North Carolina girl who gets seasick just on the ferry in New York, I'm going to say I'm sticking with chicken farming for now, so here we go, [laughs] and tomatoes, backyard chicken and tomatoes. Let's go to a quick lightning round just because we want a few like kelp takeaways here. Nori or gim, that's the stuff that we use to pack into to sushi, it comes in those little addictive single serve packs. Is that kelp or is that seaweed?

Jaclyn: You’re right, I find it to be super addictive. That is a seaweed. When we think about seaweeds, they're broken down into three categories and that has to do with their pigmentation. There are brown algae, which is like the kelps, they're habitat forming, usually large and then there's also red algae, which that is what a Nori is. Believe it or not, that green color that it gets, what's in a sushi is actually what it looks like once the pigments have been cooked off, but if you were to find that in the wild, it's usually a deep purple to reddish color, so that's a red algae. Then the final category of seaweeds is actually green algae. If you were to wander the beach in a high nutrient area, you might see some of that very vibrant green usually. It's pretty easy to identify.

Melissa: Can I eat it if I just see it as it's washing up on the beach around me.

Jaclyn: Depends on the water quality where the seaweed is found. Seaweed is really good at uptaking nutrients. That can be a benefit, but that can also mean that if it's in an area of low water quality, it could be uptaking some of those nutrients and compounds that you might not want to eat.

Melissa: Maybe then go through this point. It's described sometimes as a super food. I'm not quite sure what a super food is, except for my famous cornbread, but is kelp a super food?

Jaclyn: Yes. Kelp does contain many compounds that are not usually available in land plants. When you think about the concentration of marine micronutrients that seaweed has access to just because it lives in the marine environment, there really is a lot of potential for it. Whether that's with iodine or vitamins, there's a lot of concentrated nutrients within seaweed. Along those lines, a little goes actually quite a long way when it comes to human diets.

Melissa: Again, much like my cornbread. I want to know on a final one here. Okay, we can eat it, although maybe not just straight off the beach, depending on your water quality and we can potentially use it for lowering some greenhouse gas emissions if we're Maine farmers out there on the water in the cold with our good senses of humor. What else can we use seaweed in kelp for?

Jaclyn: Right now, most of the seaweed that's being farmed in the United States is going to food markets. What they are doing is, it's obviously people are a little unfamiliar with eating seaweed here. What we've really seen make a difference is those value added products. By value added products, I mean, things like- -seaweed salad, seaweed, kimchi. We just had a seaweed burger launched here in Maine, which is really exciting. Thinking about ways of incorporating seaweed into people's diets that are exciting and a little bit more consumer-friendly than just a big old plate of kelp. We can obviously use seaweed for food, which is one of my favorite ways to interact with it.

A couple of other uses too that we're starting to experiment with are looking at seaweed for bioplastic, so synthesizing plastic films out of seaweed that is compostable and biodegradable. Then also on a larger scale, thinking about what is the potential for farming seaweed for biofuels. Taking the compounds within seaweed and synthesizing that into a biofuel.

Melissa: Can I have seaweed in my lipstick, in my toothpaste?

Jaclyn: Another great call out, seaweed in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals is another use for it. Seaweed bath bombs or seaweed health and beauty products can be really popular. Seaweed has for a long time been associated with youth and anti-aging, which lends it itself really well to a lot of cosmetic uses, so definitely yes to that.

Melissa: I really feel you've opened up a whole new seaweed kelpy world to me today. Thanks so much for joining us on The Takeaway Jaclyn Robidoux.

Jaclyn: Thank you so much.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.