WARRNAMBOOL foodies are invited to volunteer their taste buds for a project that could form the basis of a new industry.
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Taste tests will start on August 9 on a range of locally harvested seaweed, comparing them to types commercially available from Japan.
Deakin University marine biologist Alecia Bellgrove said the taste trials were the first step in a move towards possible commercial harvest of local seaweed. “We need to find out how their taste compares to the types eaten in Japan — they are completely different types,” Dr Bellgrove said.
There are many types of seaweed growing locally but six types will be used for the taste tests.
The local and Japanese seaweeds will be prepared to the same recipes and tasters will be asked to assess them.
“They will be blind tests — the tasters won’t know what they are eating,” Dr Bellgrove said.
Among the types to be tested will be bull kelp which accumulates by the tonne on Warrnambool beaches.
The kelp will not be collected from beaches.
Dr Bellgrove said she had used kelp as a soup stock.
“I liked it,”she said.
Most seaweeds have to be processed to make them suitable to eat.
Dr Bellgrove said they have natural defences that make them difficult to eat and hard to digest, but these were easily broken down by boiling or drying. She said there was considerable potential for a seaweed industry if suitable types would be identified.
“There’s a huge number of species — it’s very likely that some will be good to eat,” she said.
Dr Bellgrove said all seaweed was safe to eat.
“It’s not like picking mushrooms and not knowing which ones are going to poison you,”she said.
‘‘They all have very low toxicity.”
They are also rich in iodine and zinc, elements in which many Australians are deficient due to low levels in Australian soils.
A commercial seaweed industry would have to be based on farming, not harvesting from the wild, Dr Bellgrove said. ‘‘Harvesting large quantities from the wild would have a detrimental effect on the environment,”she said.
Dr Bellgrove said the idea for the project came partly from her interest in seaweed.
“I’ve been thinking about the safety of Japanese seaweed since the (Fukushima)nuclear disaster (in 2011). Something harvested from our clean oceans would probably be safer,” she said.
Anyone interested in becoming a taste tester can email alecia@deakin.edu.au.
shynes@fairfaxmedia.com.au