Bl2—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 10,1981
Other countries farm seaweed
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Not all
seaweed is the slimy, smelly green
stuff that gets tangled in toes and
kicked aside at the beach. Far
from being a nuisance, most
seaweed is sought after by the
tons.
Around the world, people pay
millions for it. In Japan and China,
they eat it. In the Philippines, they
grow it on sea farms. And most
Americans can’t live without it.
It’s what makes ice cream stay
creamy, chocolate milk stay
chocolately, toothpaste squeeze
out smoothly, and suntan lotion go
on easily. It’s m puddings and pie
fillings, pet foods and air
fresheners, cosmetics, shaving
creams, pill coatings, and house
paints.
On the New England coast, Paul
Vantangoh has been raking in
seaweed from the rocky bottom
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every summer for 45 years,
“When 1 first started back in the
•30s, I pulled in a few pounds arid
sold it to pharmaceutical com
panies and to breweries. It put that
foamy head on beer, the kind that
sticks to the glass,” he recalled.
“Now they’ve come up with a
thousand uses. Not a day goes by
that we don’t come in contact with
it."
This season Vantangoti expects
to haul in a million pounds of soggy
wet seaweed, the dark red variety
as Irish moss. On a good day he
sends out 50 to 60 small flat-bottom
boats, each manned by a high
school or college student or college
student with a long-handled rake.
It’s a steady, but small business
compared with the automated
harvesting off the California coast.
There, large barges with reapers
like old-fashioned wheat har-
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vesters move across the Pacific
cutting the tops oft .giant brown
kelp.
One of the fastest growmg plants
on earth, kelp is among the largest
seaweeds, reaching lengths of 200
feet. The annual harvest is often
plentiful enough to supply the
world’s largest producer-A San
Diego company-with a kelp
substance that has at least 500
uses.
Although seaweed has been
harvested in some parts of the
world for at least 5,000 years as
a food and medicine its
widespread popularity in the last
four decades is attributed to the
discovery of its versatility.
Powdery, sugarlike substances
derived from some seaweeds
combine easily and well with other
chemicals to act as gelling agents,
to
"It started with chocolate milk,”
James Moss, a seaweed industry
consultant, recalled. "The
chocolate would always settle to
the bottom. Then it was found that
two seaweed substances could
keep the chocolate suspended.
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stabilizers, and
thickeners.
emulsifiers.
From there it was ice cream,
toothpaste - and explosive
growth,”
Despite the demand for imports,
there are no plans to farm seaweed
here. Rather, the focus is on
preserving what’s there naturally
(Turn to Page B 14)