Sargassum Sea Algae? In My Salad?

Alright, so if you read the headline — don’t panic, this is actually really cool. Let us explain.

What Is Sargassum?

A “golden floating rainforest” — that’s what former Chief Scientist of NOAA Sylvia Earle has called sargassum.

Originating in the Sargasso Sea, it’s a genus of large brown seaweed — which is a type of algae — that floats in island-like clumps that can stretch for miles across the ocean.

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It serves as a vital habitat to many forms of marine life — including endangered species and economically important fish — by providing food and refuge.

Sargassum is incredibly valuable as it drifts across the Atlantic Ocean. But when it washes ashore along the coastlines of the Florida Gulf and West Africa, it becomes quite the nuisance.

It starts to do the opposite: disrupting ecosystems, covering beaches and producing a smell of rotten eggs as it decays. 

How Is It Ending Up In My Salad?

Researchers at Florida State University wanted to know: Is it possible to transform this environmental challenge into a sustainable opportunity?

“Right now, most washed ashore sargassum is treated as waste,” Qinchun Rao, corresponding author of the study and professor in FSU’s Department of Health, Nutrition, and Food Sciences, said. “We wanted to explore whether this abundant biomass could be responsibly transformed into something useful.” 

Luckily, their study found that through a process of extraction and purification, this waste can potentially be converted into a high-quality, functional food ingredient.

“That suggests this biomass may have value beyond cleanup and disposal,” Aravind Kumar Bingi, first author of the study and a doctoral candidate in Rao’s lab, said.

You can’t eat sargassum directly; it can sometimes have an accumulation of heavy metals.

But the researcher’s process yields sodium alginate. This naturally occurring compound is used in foods for thickening and stabilizing. It can be found in things like salad dressings, desserts and plant-based alternatives. 

Turning Trash Into Treasure

And the timing is particularly poignant. Due to the climate change effects of warming ocean temperatures and strong trade winds, sargassum is forming early, and the quantity will “reach unprecedented levels.”

This year’s bloom is on track to be the largest ever recorded, according to marine scientists. And it’s an expensive problem. Miami-Dade County estimates it costs $35 million each year to collect, transport and landfill the decaying waste.

Now, there’s still time before this could be launched on a larger scale. 

The research team says more work is needed, like performance testing in real food systems and monitoring of batch-to-batch safety.

(MORE: Toxic Bloom Killing Thousands Of Sea Life Along CA Coast)

“Our long-term goal is to help turn an environmental burden into a safe, sustainable and value-added resource,” Rao said. “If pelagic sargassum can be responsibly processed into functional ingredients, it could create new opportunities for food innovation while also supporting more sustainable approaches to managing coastal biomass.”

weather.com content writer Ada Wood enjoys exploring the stories that science and climate teach us about our natural world and how it influences the way we live in it.