While real sea-grown algae might be light what will happen is the same as with modern animal and plant farming: animals are fed corn which makes their meat sub-par nutrientwise and most of the soil for plants is depleted.
So if we now grow algae in "reactors" their nutrient profile will be artificial and out of line of their natural counterparts, thus making them no better than any other modern highly processed food, so we might as well stick to rice and potatoes in that case...
What do you mean sub-par nutrientwise? In terms of average health outcomes, does grassfed beef show a significant benefit compared to feedlot finished beef?
I've seen no direct studies. But there seems plenty of evidence that the fatty acid profiles between the two are very different. And the profile in grassfed is closer to in line with what is currently recommended.
Arguing about whether hydrogen bombs or fission bombs look prettier while radioactive fallout rains down. The conclusions the same: cancer and death, but with sides of obesity, antibiotic resistance, pandemics, and climate change.
For these reasons, eating meat is both irrational and immoral because it's suicidal and omnicidal.
It is sort of possible that if we optimize for yeild, the nutrient value of the algae might decrease. I remember a veritasium video where they showed how increase in CO2 caused plants to grow faster but have less nutrient density
> So if we now grow algae in "reactors" their nutrient profile will be artificial and out of line of their natural counterparts
This is wild speculation. Plenty of scientific research shows that farming plants, algae, and producing fermented food in a controlled environment can be even healthier than "natural" food.
We already eat various forms of algae. Some are quite nutritious, some give us tummy troubles, some at excellent sinks for CO2.
I'm very curious if we could mass manufacture something like algae and then pyrolize it to get fuel and solid carbon to sequester.
If we find some good ideas for kelp, there's whole coastlines whose kelp forests have been decimated. We could start propagating and sustainably harvesting it and provide an incredibly rich coastal habitat.
Yeah! I was thinking "ah the room isn't sealed, nor is the house for that matter" but I can probably get interesting measurements with a simple CO2 meter.
If you try to measure CO2 usage, be aware of the fineprint in your sensor, depending on the sensor it may just take the lowest reading over some period and self calibrate (incorrectly) as normal air CO2 concentration (~400ppm)
Automatic CO2 Baseline Calibration (ABC)The ABC algorithm continually tracks the sensor’s lowest reading over a fixed time interval and slowly corrects for any long-term drift (as compared to the expected fresh air value of 400ppm). The ABC period is 15 days, during which the ABC function default is always on.
I looked into this for a few minutes when a huge algae CO2 scrubber in am airport was discussed a few weeks back. The short is that it does close to nothing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33173230
It's too bad because one of my weird dreams would be to have a vat of genetically modified algae in my house that removes CO2 and turns into some kind of Soylent.
Why not both? A few years ago I saw a promising project focused around floating containers with algae and oysters that also provided valuable habitat for fish
> I'm very curious if we could mass manufacture something like algae and then pyrolize it to get fuel and solid carbon to sequester.
For a while I was interested in algae biofuels. IIRC, the problem is other life tends to get in and eat the algae you want while blocking the pumps and filters you need to maximise growth.
(But I've been out of that loop for a while now, so for all I know some random YouTuber has found a solution).
you know, some people were really squeamish about eating aquatic roaches, and they were reserved for penal colonies...but over time the public at large started to love them, they also gave them better names, like "crabs" and "lobsters".
The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.
"We have discovered happiness"—say the last men, and blink thereby.
They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one's neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.
Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.
One still worketh, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.
One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome.
No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse.
"Formerly all the world was insane,"—say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby.
[...]"
(Not sure that blowing up the biosphere, literally so when considering geological timescales, is a better alternative...)
We had explained yet here why this point of view is incomplete and wrong.
If you provide antibiotics to a cow they probably will fart less, but also will grow poorly and will not produce good milk. Cows need their gut bacteria to liberate the nutrients in their food and remain healthy.
Many macroalgae have antibiotics as chemical defenses so feeding cows with it is the same as feeding cows antibiotics. Its ability to eat cellulose will be destroyed.
Even worse, this algae they evolved to use chemical defenses, so they grow slowly and only in a narrow ring around the continents. If some thing grows slowly, to harvest it at large amounts will destroy the resource in no time. Is a totally non-scalable plan.
Feeding cows with Chondrus is a false solution. If we try this path I predict that we will soon hit a dead end.
Feeding cows with Spirulina would fall into a different situation and maybe could work (but Spirulina is contaminated and spoiled easily).
I also have beef and also vegetables and fruit. Plenty of space on my table for all of them.
About algae, there are a lot of different vegetables of all shapes, consistency and colors. The only difference is that in nature algae grow under water instead of under the rain. Considering how many of our vegetables are farmed without even seeing the rain once in their life, that's a non problem.
I've wondered if the move to get rid of livestock to reduce wasteful resource consumption can just be focused on getting rid of beef. Poultry cultivation is far less water intensive than raising cattle. If everyone just ate chicken and pork that would be a significant improvement.
I cannot understand how it is possible that the phrases like "food security" instead of "hunger" became used widespread organically seemingly out of nowhere. Genuine question, can someone explain that to me without resorting to some sort of conspiracy theories?
Perhaps -- my guess -- its the recognition that they are fundamentally two different problems.
Hunger of the previous generations was mostly due to countries not having enough agriculture or imports to feed their population.
Today with modern farming and agriculture methods, hunger is mostly a distribution issue, rather than a we don't have enough food issue, so now food security is used as a more general term. My hunch is driven by -- may be getting the exact specifics wrong - that countries like America throw away enough food daily to satisfy much of the remaining world hunger.
Nation states don't get hungry. Similarly to 'target neutralization' being called inhuman description of murder, both terms are about exactly what they say they are.
People being hungry near you is an 'individual problem', but with police intact you're roughly fine (under assumptions). If your country is facing food security crisis, it will likely spread to other domains and you are not fine.
So, to clarify, I am not arguing that food insecurity and hunger are two separate things (even though to me it still sounds like some sort of newspeak). My question was more about the speed with which that term became deployed everywhere.
I think it’s more likely that you just didn’t notice it.
My lay observation is that “food security” has been the standard term in non-profit/NGO contexts for at least 15 years, while “hunger” is still colloquial. My guess for why is precision.
Maybe it's the same Euphemism Treadmill that George Carlin performed[1] about, how "Shell Shock" evolved into the softer, jargony "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"
I think "shell shock" vs. "PTSD" is a poor example of euphemistic language. The name "shell shock" is just inaccurate and misleading. It's a product of the poor understanding we had at the time. It would be confusing to explain how someone got shell shock from sexual assault, for example.
The intermediate names Carlin mentions, however, are absolute euphemistic bullshit. "Battle fatigue" and "operational exhaustion" were strictly rebrands with the intent of minimizing the problem.
Hunger, in the strictest sense, is about a lack of calories.
This made sense as a metric to track, when the issue was almost entirely people who starved to death. Now however, first in the developed world and also in many developing countries the issue is also calorie quality, usually a lack of access to non-junk foods. You can now be both malnourished and obese.
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out a common statistical manipulation - extending an axis far longer than is at all relevant to the data, creating a misleading interpretation of a slope.
Note how both are ~equivalent for a majority of the time, barring 1943 - 1951 (slight edge for food security) and 1960-1970 (larger lead for 'world hunger'). At 1970, food insecurity takes and maintains control.
This is likely because it - as discussed in the rest of the thread - encompasses more, and is a more useful term for scholarly discussion.
Right around the time when the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome and other elitist think tanks / NGOs were founded to push globalization, development and such ideas.
I first heard about it in an economics podcast about food deserts so I figure it came from that realm.
The entire planet is 3 missed meals away from total anarchy. The reason it is prominent (IMO) is that any politician who fails to deliver on food may as well dumpster the rest of their platform. Ensuring the acquisition and availability of food is every country's #1 priority, and "food security" covers all of the political and logistical and agricultural activities that need to happen for that priority to be delivered.
Maybe the distrinction comes from the West where food charities help out with food for hunger, but they aren't in danger of starving to death like many 3rd world countries.
My guess is that recently lots of people have come to associate hunger with their own failed attempts at losing weight rather than with poverty and desperation. Saying that you want to "end hunger" is not a message that will resonate with them.
I could ask why use the term "Hunger" rather than "Starvation" or "malnutrition" etc.
Food security I think of as a measure of the risk associated of available nutrient supplies not being adequate to meet the need (not the market demand, as that may differ) of people in a particular locality.
Hunger is an end state feeling in a human-being when they feel the need to eat.
You can have terrible food security and no hunger if there is tremendous risk of mass starvation due to small unforseen disruptions in supply, but there is existing supply and forecasted supply to meet demand if all goes well.
For motte-and-bailey reasons. Food insecurity in my country means not being able to access food in "socially acceptable ways". It has nothing to do with hunger, it means collecting money from the govt or food stamps etc. But when invoked, it's meant to convey that a large fraction of people are going hungry, incidentally often calling for an expansion of spending which would also not reduce food insecurity because by definition it's not "socially acceptable". Better wages and employment addresses it.
Same reason cops say shit like "this particular individual" instead of "this person". People think being wordy makes them sound sophisticated.
To those saying that "hunger" refers specifically to a physical state, we used to have the term "world hunger", and we obviously weren't talking about the planet itself being hungry.
I've considered eating algae as an alternative source of DHA with less risk of microplastic contamination, but I've had a hard time finding definitive evidence of what types of algae contain significant levels of DHA.
I won't eat bugs, lab grown meat, algae, or any other experimental food until the rich do it first, and do it consistently, not just once as a demonstration.
My logic is simple. If the rich don't embrace an innovation, it tells me that the innovation is either not what it's cracked up to be, that it gives a poorer quality product than the traditional option, or that the rich think the innovation is for suckers or the poor. If that's the case, I'll stick with the traditional option.
I'm probably rich at least on a global scale, and I have always eaten algae because it's part of several regions' cuisine, including my home place in Europe.
So go ahead, you can eat algae too, it's not a new experimental kind of food.
"Seaweed" is a rather ill-defined term in English that regroups a lot of different algae. Nori is made from red algae, that are included under the term seaweed.
Should be used for marine weeds [upper plants with flowers], but the term refer to algae that are a different category. Some algae are plants. Other are neither plants, animals or fungi and have their own category.
If plenty of people are already doing it, why is the article titled with the question of whether we should start doing it?
It's because the article is talking about making it more of a primary source of nutrition. It isn't even the primary ingredient in sushi.
So, if the rich (and politicians) start eating it as a primary source of nutrition, then the commenter to whom you were replying might consider it similarly.
Because they are trying to sell the idea to the western countries. But macroalgae culture is a standard business in China and Japan since thousands of years.
I had eaten it, the green are good, salty when fresh and a little bland after cooking it, the red are a little bitter with a medicine aftertaste. You should use it sparsely in kitchen. Is more a spice than a main dish.
The main problems are that climate change removed 90% of the Laminaria forests here in the last 20 years and that the red algae are harvested and sold for pharma and industry, so aren't really available to harvest to the common people. You need a permit for this. The culture is also complicated here.
Additionally lobster were at one point in history seen as vermin, to the point where there were laws about how often they could be fed to prisoners because it was seen as inhumane to feed them such low quality food. But now lobster is seen as high cuisine.
That's quite dumb. Shrimp actually clean the water by feeding on waste. I'm sure other crustaceans do it as well to some extent. I only have shrimp in my aquariums which I've branded as the cleanup team specifically because they keep my tanks clean.
I love all these whacky avenues people take when eating just plants is a very low foot print option available to almost everyone.
We don’t need to eat crickets, we don’t need to eat algae, we don’t need bioreactors for growing meat.
I think the main reason we don’t hear more about just how goddamn efficient a bowl of lentils and rice is, or oatmeal, is because it’s not sexy. You just can’t make a start up on beans and rice.
Which is a shame, because beans and rice are healthy and tasty. And also are one of the avenues to save the planet.
Beans + rice is easily the most common meal on the planet, as the cheapest complete protein source around. We live in a bubble, never mind saving the planet
A quick Google search reveals that beans are not a complete, since they lack several essential amino acids.
Edit: correction, it appears that soybeans are the exception. But when one thinks of having a serving of "beans and rice", soybeans are unlikely to be the bean served.
That's why it's the beans+rice combination that's complete, because they're complementary in composition.
But the truth is that you don't need to eat them in the same meal, and most people don't have a shortage of grain in their diets if they aren't going out of their way to make it so. Porridge in the morning and lentils at lunch and you've done it.
My mistake, I had blindly dismissed rice since it is commonly known to be a nutrient poor food. But several sources confirm the parent post and your comment are correct*. It's also too often repeated that a vegetable based diets will be lacking essential amino acids which seems like a gross falsehood now if you can get there with two wildly available plants that make up a common low-cost meal. I am baffled by the disconnect.
*I don't cite the source since I am unsure if there are caveats or if the claim is controversial.
I think the disconnect is that for meat you don't have to think about it. When it comes to plants, suddenly you have to know something about what you are eating. There are plenty of plant diets that are viable, you just have to research a little bit.
Everyone always mentions beans and rice, but Potatoes by themselves are a complete protein. Some of the essential amino acids aren't found in high quantities in potatoes, so you have to eat a lot of them if you go that route. They are missing some vitamins and minerals as well, so you have to add sweet potatoes if you don't want scurvy.
Surely you can just eat more beans until you get enough methionine to satisfy your protein synthesis needs. We are not (yet, in the western world) at the point of having to eat a starvation diet (where the amino acid profile is actually important, since you are trying to eat as little as possible).
On the “complete protein” concept, by a famous popularizer of plant-based protein-combining[0]
——
There is no need to combine foods at individual meals.
“In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get enough protein ... was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable care was needed in choosing foods. Actually, it is much easier than I thought.
With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food diet.”
Why did you quit there, leaving the 3 exceptions as a cliffhanger!?
> The exceptions are diets very heavily dependent on [1] fruit or on [2] some tubers, such as sweet potatoes or cassava, or on [3] junk food (refined flours, sugars, and fat).
Animal protein still seems to be of higher quality. Even among rich vegans in first would countries, the children comparatively less developed compared to their peers.
Also, can you imagine the positive impact on health and well-being?
Also, my impression is that at least in the U.S. there isn't a shortage of farmable land. It's just that most of it is used to grow corn and soybeans, and most of the corn is being used to feed cattle and make ethanol.
I think a lot more work needs to be done to show how tasty plant-based foods can be. Anecdote: growing up, I hated brussel sprouts b/c we ate them boiled; now I love them oven-roasted. Salads can be amazing if a bit of effort is put into them (more than just iceberg lettuce and dressing).
In addition to changing to roasting, and depending on how old you are, brussels sprouts may have literally been different when you were a kid [0]. Dutch biologists worked to alter the sprouts we eat and have changed the bitterness. That's why they've had such a renaissance. I never had them as a kid, but I distinctly remember my brother making them at Thanksgiving around 2010 and we were shocked at how much we enjoyed them and couldn't figure out why they had such a bad reputation in pop culture.
Huge swathes of the human population doesn't eat that much meat, India being my go to example of delicious vegetarian food spanning a very very long time.
Only relatively low footprint. You're underestimating the fossil fuel consumption needed in the form of ammonia (for fertilizer), farming equipment (smelting for steel, also requires coke from coal), transport, manufacturing, plastics (greenhouses, packaging), etc. This is all essential to feed the world, and there's nothing low footprint about it. Btw, compare the consumption needed for a tomato/100g vs chicken, and you'll be surprised.
All of this is a moot point if demand were to stop growing, and that will only happen when population does. Another accelerant is that as more of the world is lifted out of poverty, demand increases. All of the increases in efficiency and swaps for green energy are outpaced by demand, and will continue to be.
Btw, immigrants are not moving to the 1st world so they could consume less. They're going to eat meat, buy gadgets and single family homes. In fact govt policy is counting on it (that's what a GDP increase means, more consumption). Reduction in overall meat consumption helps, but you shouldn't bet on it to end, nor is it the most exacerbating source of emissions (plus, I hope, seaweed infused feed could trivialize methane emissions as it rolls out).
The alternative to lower demand is a staggering transition away from fossil fuels (only like 15% of fossil fuel consumption is for electricity), but that will probably take awhile. Lowering immigration rates would marginally help (probably not as much as people think) but that would be unpopular anyway. It's simultaneously "just" to pad the numbers of those consuming like Westerners (literally what "a better life" describes), and a moral imperative for the same concerned class to pressure Westerners to avoid consuming arbitrary things, or in general. Regardless, increase in consumption will arrive in the rest of the world.
I think expanding access to contraceptives worldwide is probably the greenest possible thing that can be done right now. That's not coming from a perspective of anti-natalism either. EDIT: use your words if you disagree, like adults. If you can't even elucidate how, you should question your premise.
It's like the phenomenon of businessmen and politicians preferring to dazzle the public with implausible gadgetbahn concepts, instead of opting for presently-existing trains, of the various types that actually exist.
The concrete existence of train technology causes the ball to get pushed further than the the 3D render stage to the far less exciting endeavors of drafting up projects, gathering political support, securing funding, doing environmental impact studies, battling NIMBYs in court, and may end up undercutting the bottom line of auto manufacturers that could make campaign contributions, and won't line up the pockets of visionary consultants writing reports on how other solutions to car traffic and long commutes could be dreamed up.
It's not hard to understand. Meat tastes good and is satisfying to eat, and is the preferred centerpiece of many cultures' meals. So there is a market to find substitutes that will have the same appeal. Not that I think crickets or algae fill the niche, but at least people are trying something. Vegetarians saying "why doesn't everyone eat just plants, I do it" are ignoring culture and projecting their narrow view onto others
> I think the main reason we don’t hear more about just how goddamn efficient a bowl of lentils and rice is, or oatmeal, is because it’s not sexy.
No, we don't hear about it more because it's not healthful. If it were, the human digestive system would be like that of cattle, but it's not. You can feed everyone carby, fibrous meals, but that's not optimal and not even necessarily better for the environment.
The reason algae is proposed as a way to feed people is that it's not dumping a bunch of carbs, fiber, and incomplete protein down everyone's gullets. Humans don't need to be consuming these things, and there's drawbacks to diets that aren't based on what our species developed to primarily consume over the last 4 or so million years. There's aspects of algae that are preventing it from being a serious food source across the world, but if those roadblocks can be overcome then it can be a game changer because of where it can be grown and what kinds of nutrients it's capable of producing.
In the present, there's no good reason to believe that "everyone" needs to eat more plants and less meat. Meat is a part of the atmospheric carbon cycle, just as are crops. On the contrary to what you're suggesting, and putting aside the fact that fossil fuels are being used throughout livestock and agriculture, individuals can eat whatever they see fit for themselves.
Lentils and rice are a complete protein. While they don't provide 100% of the nutrients you need, if you throw in a few green vegetables you'll be absolutely fine.
Crops use something like 1% of the resources to grow that meat does. It's not just about where carbon is stored, but land and water usage and where carbon is produced (cows fart. a lot.). Overall plant-based diets are far superior for the planet than meat-based diets, and contrary to popular opinion they don't have to suck.
There is token research that creatine supplements are especially beneficial for vegans, and creatine isn't the only thing mostly found in animal-based foods. Given nutritional sciences has a history of being a rollercoaster ride, maybe it isn't the best idea to make wild claims which don't mirror how the world behaves at large.
Water and land usage is also A: grossly overstated (you can't grow anything except grass on most land) and B: cited as something against all meat when chickens, goats, ducks, geese and pigs use far less of both. At that point, substantiate or correct your statement to 'beef'.
>A: grossly overstated (you can't grow anything except grass on most land)
The overwhelming majority of soy grown globally is fed to livestock. That's definitely does not fall under your category of "can't grow anything except grass on most land".
"More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products"
The proportion is lower for corn, but only because a huge chunk is being used for fuel. If we exclude that, it would still be the overwhelming majority.
Well, it's roughly 80% of the soy that we grow and it's what animal feed is made from.
You could feed it to cows, in which case it gets turned into cow and fertiliser, or you can let it pile up and rot, emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane.
> Lentils and rice are a complete protein. While they don't provide 100% of the nutrients you need, if you throw in a few green vegetables you'll be absolutely fine.
Sounds like the South Indian Sambar with rice meets this criteria.
Sorry, but lentils are pretty much the closest thing to a single food that meets all of a human's nutritional needs in existence. If you pair lentils with a small amount of spinach and eggs that gets you there.
Your comments about what "people" were designed to eat also sounds pretty ignorant, since we're not genetically homogenous for starters. Most humans of European descent have evolved for seasonal carbohydrate consumption, which is why they make you fat in excess (good luck surviving a hard winter lean). The only people who really shouldn't be eating carbs are indigenous people from very cold areas with a primarily marine diet. There are pockets of indigenous Americans from desert regions who don't do fantastically with carbs either, but those people mostly have issues with a caloric surplus in general.
Seaweed is a better food (and habitat) for fish than humans. We should create artificial reefs and forests to feed fish, then sustainably harvest fish from those manmade "farms".
>Your comments about what "people" were designed to eat also sounds pretty ignorant, since we're not genetically homogenous for starters. ...
Source for this? I don't doubt that there are groups with genetic adaptations to food (eg. genes for lactase persistence), but I'm not aware of anything for carbs.
It's not about a specific gene that says "you can/can't digest carbs" rather it's many variants of metabolic genes that dictate what hormones get triggered and what pathways get upregulated in such a way that eating carbohydrates causes fat gain/causes thermogenesis.
Being from the land of great red and green chile (spelled correctly), I love legumes/pulses! I’d mix them with rice more but potatoes and wheat (tortillas) go with my metabolism much better.
I also love falafel though and find the texture close enough to a burger for my uses.
Edit-nonetheless the mock up stuff is fun and fills needs. Love me some “benevolent bacon”.
I feel the opposite, as soon as I start supplementing with whey protein or adding meat I put on muscle and weight, but with mostly beans/rice/lentil diet I have consistent energy and stay light.
I think the "protein" obsession we have currently (even my milk carton brags about protein content) might be dialed back in the near future. It came from the weight lifting community, and lifting weights is one of the least healthy and functional ways to stay in shape. Hopefully we view hiking and doing physical activities as being "in shape" soon versus going to a gym to do a bunch of isolated movements with weight.
In my 20-30s, I was a long distance cyclist which required a high carb diet and I had persistent belly fat. Now I primarily lift weights and eat a high protein diet and I have lost all the belly fat and as an added bonus, my posture is no longer perma-hunched.
Which version of you would have done better at something like... running around with your kids at the park? Or running a mile to catch a train?
My main point is that defined abs and a giant chest and arms have little to do with health and performance, but the body-building culture has convinced us all that they do. It got ridiculous in the 90s when Arnold and Stallone were portrayed as heroes good at everything due to their big muscles, when the reality was that Arnold needed help wiping his own ass when he was at his biggest.
But if your goal is attracting a mate or intimidating other males bench press and bicep curls are your path.
I am also coming from a place as someone who hit 315 on bench in my mid 20s but felt like an old man.
Technically, I would have been far more injury prone running during my cycling days because of the terrible imbalances due to "mono sporting" as a cyclist. And I am not a musclebound gym rat now either. I spend more of my exercise time walking than anything else these days.
Not trying to sidestep your point here though and I understand and agree with what you are getting at re: over focus on lifting.
Eating too much protein is quite difficult if it's not processed. The same goes for fat. It's why people can lose a lot of weight quickly on the keto diet. You put on weight or feel hungry when eating carbs because they can't satiate your hunger.
I don't kid myself. I know the feeling of being hungry when I'm supposedly full. I know the feeling of being sleepy after a big lunch. If you stop eating carbs you get neither of those things.
The obsession with protein is rooted in the fact that your body hungers for protein, and eating whey protein is definitely not the healthiest way to consume it.
The processing in tofu is merely blending of soy beans, filtering and curdling, unless cheese is in the same category for you, I'd say that particular millenia-old foodstuff is not in the same category as Beyond Burgers or hot pockets.
Actually, the problem with tofu is that it has a very high fat to protein ratio. If I were to get my protein from tofu, I'd take in way too many calories from fat.
There is you just don't care to learn and are stuck in your own ways. That's fine, but don't act like it's not possible because it is and it's not hard.
Being vegetarian is extremely unhealthy, drives the obesity epidemic, and is far more likely to cause individuals to become depressed. Good luck getting heme iron, carnitine, carnosine, taurine, creatine, B12, Vit D, and DHA in a meat free diet.
you eat so many bugs all the time, ground up in food. this dismissive old crank attitude is ignoring simple truth. also a lot of the world happily eats bugs as a delicacy. they’re not whacky, you’re being quick to frame something you don’t know much about as dismissible.
(micro)-algae can be a really good source of long-chain omega-3's (EPA/DHA), which are otherwise difficult to get in a plant-based diet.
While beans and rice are pretty damn good (or what I tend to do, beans and potatoes) it definitely isn't complete nutritionally and there is pretty important stuff that's missing or there isn't enough of (EPA/DHA, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, etc).
Variety is also good just because of allergies and oversensitivites to certain foods and even just taste preference. Just about anything is better for the planet than meat!
I would totally imagine a beans and rice drive-through focused on getting healthy family dinner for lowest possible price. Call it “Bowls” and allow upsells on toppings.
That's great if you live in a part of the world where you can grow lentils and rice.
Even down south here at 57°N it's still more ecologically sound to eat meat and potatoes, because potatoes grow pretty well and tough heathery grasses and sedges grow pretty well, and we can't eat those but sheep can.
Algae has what I sometimes call the "hempseed problem": it tastes awful. Hempseeds are highly productive, nutritious, and smash almost every other whole plant food on the crucial protein:fiber ratio, coming in at 12:1. The only problem is, you have to eat them.
Japan pretty much identified every kind of seaweed that you can eat without puking a thousand years ago and the list is not long. A tablespoon of spirulina is a great way to ruin a smoothie, never mind that it mostly comes from the disappearing Lake Chad.
So it's heavily processed, and it could certainly get into food products that way, but nobody will notice — or care — that they're eating algae-derived food products. If you doubt that, just look up where xanthan gum comes from, or consider that Aspergillus niger is the primary source of citric acid.
I eat shelled hemp seeds pretty much every day at this point, but even when first trying them I thought they tasted pretty innocuous, and very easily overpowered by the rest of the dish. I put it in quinoa salads and butternut squash stews all the time (at the point of consumption, I never cook them into the stew). Have never had anyone tell me there was a rank flavor in the mix either.
Maybe my mistake was trying to cook them into the stew. But you have to eat quite a bit to get a significant amount of protein — about six tablespoons for 20 grams. So if you just put a spoonful into a salad I'm sure it's fine, but it's not functioning as a source of macronutrients. For comparison, poppyseeds are, in principle, a great source of calcium, but you can't use them that way.
I see now, I wouldn’t want the majority of a dish to be hemp seeds.
I’m eating them for a topup of omegas in a nice balance. And not too much, just enough to cover the surface of the bowl, which is still a few tbsps. A salad for me is mostly quinoa and chickpeas so I’d rather get my protein from them. Somewhat similarly, lentils and other beans in a stew.
I've eaten 4.6g of spirulina in the last 24 hours in the form of the Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness smoothie. No taste issues to speak of. I for one welcome our new algae overlords.
In Chile is common to eat Cochayuyo, a type of kelp without air bladders [0]. Some people are dismissive about its taste, but personally I love it on my Charquicán [1].
It is very cheap and readily available at most fish markets through all the country.
I've had the pleasure of having freshly harvested spirulina. It was buttery and wonderful and rich, eating a few grams felt like a big slice of chocolate cake.
Eating algae is not a compromise or a burden, it's a fabulous luxury we should all experience.
I was also surprised the first time! I've got nothing to sell here, that's just my experience.
I've had delicious rich chocolate cake and delicious rich spirulina, on a spirulina farm, that I had harvested earlier in the day. I spent several years studying microalgae & running bioreactors, until the pandemic threw a wrench into things.
Feel free to interpret chocolate cake as a metanym for a rich, filling food, I didn't mean to say they were similar in any regard other than that. If cake is an unhelpful comparison for you for whatever reason, disregard it, it's not important.
Nah it’s like when an American goes to Europe and then comes back and won’t shut up about how American bread is so sweet. I just can’t take it seriously. No offense to you personally.
As soon as someone says X tastes like Y I get a little suspicious. Can't we just come up with a new notion of X unto itself so we all don't have to pretend that X tastes like Y?
319 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 278 ms ] threadSo if we now grow algae in "reactors" their nutrient profile will be artificial and out of line of their natural counterparts, thus making them no better than any other modern highly processed food, so we might as well stick to rice and potatoes in that case...
https://doaj.org/article/94b48d8e1f40488992f3534900e8f0f1
* Lower in total fat
* Higher in omega-3 and CLA
* Higher in Vitamin A, E, K
* Higher in polyphenols and beneficial plant compounds
For these reasons, eating meat is both irrational and immoral because it's suicidal and omnicidal.
This is wild speculation. Plenty of scientific research shows that farming plants, algae, and producing fermented food in a controlled environment can be even healthier than "natural" food.
I'm very curious if we could mass manufacture something like algae and then pyrolize it to get fuel and solid carbon to sequester.
If we find some good ideas for kelp, there's whole coastlines whose kelp forests have been decimated. We could start propagating and sustainably harvesting it and provide an incredibly rich coastal habitat.
https://youtu.be/SXhXK2CcCic
The folks on youtube all seem to just harvest it wild.
Edit: currently I am in a landlocked region.
<https://www.extech.com/products/CO240>
Automatic CO2 Baseline Calibration (ABC) The ABC algorithm continually tracks the sensor’s lowest reading over a fixed time interval and slowly corrects for any long-term drift (as compared to the expected fresh air value of 400ppm). The ABC period is 15 days, during which the ABC function default is always on.
It's too bad because one of my weird dreams would be to have a vat of genetically modified algae in my house that removes CO2 and turns into some kind of Soylent.
You forgot some are potent neurotoxins
For a while I was interested in algae biofuels. IIRC, the problem is other life tends to get in and eat the algae you want while blocking the pumps and filters you need to maximise growth.
(But I've been out of that loop for a while now, so for all I know some random YouTuber has found a solution).
some people do want to eat crab and lobsters, some don't.
it's not a naming issue or a perception issue, it's a choice issue.
The title is called "Is it time to start eating algae?" even...
The answer to the title is no, unless you want to, which you can already.
If it was about another option it would be a recipe article, not a climate change article.
The earth hath then become small, and on it there hoppeth the last man who maketh everything small. His species is ineradicable like that of the ground-flea; the last man liveth longest.
"We have discovered happiness"—say the last men, and blink thereby.
They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loveth one's neighbour and rubbeth against him; for one needeth warmth.
Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbleth over stones or men!
A little poison now and then: that maketh pleasant dreams. And much poison at last for a pleasant death.
One still worketh, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.
One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome.
No shepherd, and one herd! Every one wanteth the same; every one is equal: he who hath other sentiments goeth voluntarily into the madhouse.
"Formerly all the world was insane,"—say the subtlest of them, and blink thereby.
[...]"
(Not sure that blowing up the biosphere, literally so when considering geological timescales, is a better alternative...)
Feeding Cattle Seaweed Reduces Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions 82 Percent
https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces...
If you provide antibiotics to a cow they probably will fart less, but also will grow poorly and will not produce good milk. Cows need their gut bacteria to liberate the nutrients in their food and remain healthy.
Many macroalgae have antibiotics as chemical defenses so feeding cows with it is the same as feeding cows antibiotics. Its ability to eat cellulose will be destroyed.
Even worse, this algae they evolved to use chemical defenses, so they grow slowly and only in a narrow ring around the continents. If some thing grows slowly, to harvest it at large amounts will destroy the resource in no time. Is a totally non-scalable plan.
Feeding cows with Chondrus is a false solution. If we try this path I predict that we will soon hit a dead end.
Feeding cows with Spirulina would fall into a different situation and maybe could work (but Spirulina is contaminated and spoiled easily).
Aaron Franklin has gone on about why and it’s because of the long cook times. BBQ is smoked and seasoned so I’m not sure the bland opinion matters.
Uh-huh. So bland, greasy meat slathered in cheap hot sauce?
Speaking as someone who has actually raised grass-fed beef.
Hereford are good but they're a proper "good old-fashioned roast beef Sunday dinner" breed.
We mostly had Charolais crosses, and Luing cattle which you don't really see outside Scotland. They're smallish but the meat is amazing.
About algae, there are a lot of different vegetables of all shapes, consistency and colors. The only difference is that in nature algae grow under water instead of under the rain. Considering how many of our vegetables are farmed without even seeing the rain once in their life, that's a non problem.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-...
Cattle farming is absolutely not causing water shortages for most of the world.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5803929/amazon-rainforest-cattle-...
You don’t really need a conspiracy to prefer more precise terms.
Hunger of the previous generations was mostly due to countries not having enough agriculture or imports to feed their population.
Today with modern farming and agriculture methods, hunger is mostly a distribution issue, rather than a we don't have enough food issue, so now food security is used as a more general term. My hunch is driven by -- may be getting the exact specifics wrong - that countries like America throw away enough food daily to satisfy much of the remaining world hunger.
People being hungry near you is an 'individual problem', but with police intact you're roughly fine (under assumptions). If your country is facing food security crisis, it will likely spread to other domains and you are not fine.
My lay observation is that “food security” has been the standard term in non-profit/NGO contexts for at least 15 years, while “hunger” is still colloquial. My guess for why is precision.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
The intermediate names Carlin mentions, however, are absolute euphemistic bullshit. "Battle fatigue" and "operational exhaustion" were strictly rebrands with the intent of minimizing the problem.
Hunger, in the strictest sense, is about a lack of calories.
This made sense as a metric to track, when the issue was almost entirely people who starved to death. Now however, first in the developed world and also in many developing countries the issue is also calorie quality, usually a lack of access to non-junk foods. You can now be both malnourished and obese.
Except, it didn't?
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...
Just because you are just now noticing something common doesn't mean it recently became common.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=world+hunger%2... is a much more readable and accurate graph.
Note how both are ~equivalent for a majority of the time, barring 1943 - 1951 (slight edge for food security) and 1960-1970 (larger lead for 'world hunger'). At 1970, food insecurity takes and maintains control.
This is likely because it - as discussed in the rest of the thread - encompasses more, and is a more useful term for scholarly discussion.
Sounds like this term became popular in the 1970s. That was a while ago :)
The entire planet is 3 missed meals away from total anarchy. The reason it is prominent (IMO) is that any politician who fails to deliver on food may as well dumpster the rest of their platform. Ensuring the acquisition and availability of food is every country's #1 priority, and "food security" covers all of the political and logistical and agricultural activities that need to happen for that priority to be delivered.
https://foodforward.org/food-security/what-is-food-insecurit...
No need for silly conspiracy theories.
I could ask why use the term "Hunger" rather than "Starvation" or "malnutrition" etc.
Food security I think of as a measure of the risk associated of available nutrient supplies not being adequate to meet the need (not the market demand, as that may differ) of people in a particular locality.
Hunger is an end state feeling in a human-being when they feel the need to eat.
You can have terrible food security and no hunger if there is tremendous risk of mass starvation due to small unforseen disruptions in supply, but there is existing supply and forecasted supply to meet demand if all goes well.
To those saying that "hunger" refers specifically to a physical state, we used to have the term "world hunger", and we obviously weren't talking about the planet itself being hungry.
And from what I understand it's mostly micro-algae with EPA/DHA.
I won't eat bugs, lab grown meat, algae, or any other experimental food until the rich do it first, and do it consistently, not just once as a demonstration.
My logic is simple. If the rich don't embrace an innovation, it tells me that the innovation is either not what it's cracked up to be, that it gives a poorer quality product than the traditional option, or that the rich think the innovation is for suckers or the poor. If that's the case, I'll stick with the traditional option.
So go ahead, you can eat algae too, it's not a new experimental kind of food.
Should be used for marine weeds [upper plants with flowers], but the term refer to algae that are a different category. Some algae are plants. Other are neither plants, animals or fungi and have their own category.
It's because the article is talking about making it more of a primary source of nutrition. It isn't even the primary ingredient in sushi.
So, if the rich (and politicians) start eating it as a primary source of nutrition, then the commenter to whom you were replying might consider it similarly.
I had eaten it, the green are good, salty when fresh and a little bland after cooking it, the red are a little bitter with a medicine aftertaste. You should use it sparsely in kitchen. Is more a spice than a main dish.
The main problems are that climate change removed 90% of the Laminaria forests here in the last 20 years and that the red algae are harvested and sold for pharma and industry, so aren't really available to harvest to the common people. You need a permit for this. The culture is also complicated here.
We don’t need to eat crickets, we don’t need to eat algae, we don’t need bioreactors for growing meat.
I think the main reason we don’t hear more about just how goddamn efficient a bowl of lentils and rice is, or oatmeal, is because it’s not sexy. You just can’t make a start up on beans and rice.
Which is a shame, because beans and rice are healthy and tasty. And also are one of the avenues to save the planet.
Edit: correction, it appears that soybeans are the exception. But when one thinks of having a serving of "beans and rice", soybeans are unlikely to be the bean served.
But the truth is that you don't need to eat them in the same meal, and most people don't have a shortage of grain in their diets if they aren't going out of their way to make it so. Porridge in the morning and lentils at lunch and you've done it.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33564109
*I don't cite the source since I am unsure if there are caveats or if the claim is controversial.
Everyone always mentions beans and rice, but Potatoes by themselves are a complete protein. Some of the essential amino acids aren't found in high quantities in potatoes, so you have to eat a lot of them if you go that route. They are missing some vitamins and minerals as well, so you have to add sweet potatoes if you don't want scurvy.
On the “complete protein” concept, by a famous popularizer of plant-based protein-combining[0]
——
There is no need to combine foods at individual meals.
“In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get enough protein ... was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable care was needed in choosing foods. Actually, it is much easier than I thought. With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food diet.”
—-
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_for_a_Small_Planet
Edit: adjust description of what Lappé was popularizer of
> The exceptions are diets very heavily dependent on [1] fruit or on [2] some tubers, such as sweet potatoes or cassava, or on [3] junk food (refined flours, sugars, and fat).
This part could be important for some folks. :)
Thx for the amendment.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1...
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/113/6/1565/6178918?log...
Also, my impression is that at least in the U.S. there isn't a shortage of farmable land. It's just that most of it is used to grow corn and soybeans, and most of the corn is being used to feed cattle and make ethanol.
I think a lot more work needs to be done to show how tasty plant-based foods can be. Anecdote: growing up, I hated brussel sprouts b/c we ate them boiled; now I love them oven-roasted. Salads can be amazing if a bit of effort is put into them (more than just iceberg lettuce and dressing).
Who ever popularized boiling them is a damn fool. Pan friend then oven roasted, just amazing. Best thing in the world.
Also you’re right on all points, but god, love me some sprouts.
0: https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/do-brussels-sprouts-taste-...
Indian/Pakistani food may be vegetarian but it tastes good because of animal products like eggs, butter, cream, milk, and cheese.
It's vegetarian but not vegan.
Source: I grew up eating this type of food daily
While this is true, algae has been a common, almost staple food for thousands of years in Asia.
TFA, "start eating algae" only betrays its narrow perspective.
All of this is a moot point if demand were to stop growing, and that will only happen when population does. Another accelerant is that as more of the world is lifted out of poverty, demand increases. All of the increases in efficiency and swaps for green energy are outpaced by demand, and will continue to be.
Btw, immigrants are not moving to the 1st world so they could consume less. They're going to eat meat, buy gadgets and single family homes. In fact govt policy is counting on it (that's what a GDP increase means, more consumption). Reduction in overall meat consumption helps, but you shouldn't bet on it to end, nor is it the most exacerbating source of emissions (plus, I hope, seaweed infused feed could trivialize methane emissions as it rolls out).
The alternative to lower demand is a staggering transition away from fossil fuels (only like 15% of fossil fuel consumption is for electricity), but that will probably take awhile. Lowering immigration rates would marginally help (probably not as much as people think) but that would be unpopular anyway. It's simultaneously "just" to pad the numbers of those consuming like Westerners (literally what "a better life" describes), and a moral imperative for the same concerned class to pressure Westerners to avoid consuming arbitrary things, or in general. Regardless, increase in consumption will arrive in the rest of the world.
I think expanding access to contraceptives worldwide is probably the greenest possible thing that can be done right now. That's not coming from a perspective of anti-natalism either. EDIT: use your words if you disagree, like adults. If you can't even elucidate how, you should question your premise.
The concrete existence of train technology causes the ball to get pushed further than the the 3D render stage to the far less exciting endeavors of drafting up projects, gathering political support, securing funding, doing environmental impact studies, battling NIMBYs in court, and may end up undercutting the bottom line of auto manufacturers that could make campaign contributions, and won't line up the pockets of visionary consultants writing reports on how other solutions to car traffic and long commutes could be dreamed up.
https://www.cat-bus.com/2017/12/gadgetbahn/
No, we don't hear about it more because it's not healthful. If it were, the human digestive system would be like that of cattle, but it's not. You can feed everyone carby, fibrous meals, but that's not optimal and not even necessarily better for the environment.
The reason algae is proposed as a way to feed people is that it's not dumping a bunch of carbs, fiber, and incomplete protein down everyone's gullets. Humans don't need to be consuming these things, and there's drawbacks to diets that aren't based on what our species developed to primarily consume over the last 4 or so million years. There's aspects of algae that are preventing it from being a serious food source across the world, but if those roadblocks can be overcome then it can be a game changer because of where it can be grown and what kinds of nutrients it's capable of producing.
In the present, there's no good reason to believe that "everyone" needs to eat more plants and less meat. Meat is a part of the atmospheric carbon cycle, just as are crops. On the contrary to what you're suggesting, and putting aside the fact that fossil fuels are being used throughout livestock and agriculture, individuals can eat whatever they see fit for themselves.
Crops use something like 1% of the resources to grow that meat does. It's not just about where carbon is stored, but land and water usage and where carbon is produced (cows fart. a lot.). Overall plant-based diets are far superior for the planet than meat-based diets, and contrary to popular opinion they don't have to suck.
Water and land usage is also A: grossly overstated (you can't grow anything except grass on most land) and B: cited as something against all meat when chickens, goats, ducks, geese and pigs use far less of both. At that point, substantiate or correct your statement to 'beef'.
The overwhelming majority of soy grown globally is fed to livestock. That's definitely does not fall under your category of "can't grow anything except grass on most land".
"More than three-quarters (77%) of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Just 7% of soy is used directly for human food products"
The proportion is lower for corn, but only because a huge chunk is being used for fuel. If we exclude that, it would still be the overwhelming majority.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/104842/corn_dom_use....
How do you plan on solving the problem of eating the bits of soy plants that humans can't eat?
Is this really a problem? No one is suggesting we stop eating fruit just because we cant eat the leaves, branches, and roots.
You could feed it to cows, in which case it gets turned into cow and fertiliser, or you can let it pile up and rot, emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane.
Sounds like the South Indian Sambar with rice meets this criteria.
Or rice-dal-subji combo in North Indian cuisine.
Your comments about what "people" were designed to eat also sounds pretty ignorant, since we're not genetically homogenous for starters. Most humans of European descent have evolved for seasonal carbohydrate consumption, which is why they make you fat in excess (good luck surviving a hard winter lean). The only people who really shouldn't be eating carbs are indigenous people from very cold areas with a primarily marine diet. There are pockets of indigenous Americans from desert regions who don't do fantastically with carbs either, but those people mostly have issues with a caloric surplus in general.
Seaweed is a better food (and habitat) for fish than humans. We should create artificial reefs and forests to feed fish, then sustainably harvest fish from those manmade "farms".
Source for this? I don't doubt that there are groups with genetic adaptations to food (eg. genes for lactase persistence), but I'm not aware of anything for carbs.
I also love falafel though and find the texture close enough to a burger for my uses.
Edit-nonetheless the mock up stuff is fun and fills needs. Love me some “benevolent bacon”.
Taste is subjective.
I disagree. A high carb diet make me fat. A high protein diets does not.
There is no vegan way for me to eat my daily protein target without eating far too many carbs along with it.
(edit: I should have stated that there is no way beyond eating highly processed foods)
I think the "protein" obsession we have currently (even my milk carton brags about protein content) might be dialed back in the near future. It came from the weight lifting community, and lifting weights is one of the least healthy and functional ways to stay in shape. Hopefully we view hiking and doing physical activities as being "in shape" soon versus going to a gym to do a bunch of isolated movements with weight.
My main point is that defined abs and a giant chest and arms have little to do with health and performance, but the body-building culture has convinced us all that they do. It got ridiculous in the 90s when Arnold and Stallone were portrayed as heroes good at everything due to their big muscles, when the reality was that Arnold needed help wiping his own ass when he was at his biggest.
But if your goal is attracting a mate or intimidating other males bench press and bicep curls are your path.
I am also coming from a place as someone who hit 315 on bench in my mid 20s but felt like an old man.
Not trying to sidestep your point here though and I understand and agree with what you are getting at re: over focus on lifting.
I don't kid myself. I know the feeling of being hungry when I'm supposedly full. I know the feeling of being sleepy after a big lunch. If you stop eating carbs you get neither of those things.
The obsession with protein is rooted in the fact that your body hungers for protein, and eating whey protein is definitely not the healthiest way to consume it.
- everyone is different
- there are plenty of low-carb, high-protein vegetarian sources (see: tofu)
I consider food that can be mass-produced in those 71% of the world's surface that cannot grow lentils or rice quite sexy indeed.
While beans and rice are pretty damn good (or what I tend to do, beans and potatoes) it definitely isn't complete nutritionally and there is pretty important stuff that's missing or there isn't enough of (EPA/DHA, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, etc).
Variety is also good just because of allergies and oversensitivites to certain foods and even just taste preference. Just about anything is better for the planet than meat!
Even down south here at 57°N it's still more ecologically sound to eat meat and potatoes, because potatoes grow pretty well and tough heathery grasses and sedges grow pretty well, and we can't eat those but sheep can.
Japan pretty much identified every kind of seaweed that you can eat without puking a thousand years ago and the list is not long. A tablespoon of spirulina is a great way to ruin a smoothie, never mind that it mostly comes from the disappearing Lake Chad.
So it's heavily processed, and it could certainly get into food products that way, but nobody will notice — or care — that they're eating algae-derived food products. If you doubt that, just look up where xanthan gum comes from, or consider that Aspergillus niger is the primary source of citric acid.
I’m eating them for a topup of omegas in a nice balance. And not too much, just enough to cover the surface of the bowl, which is still a few tbsps. A salad for me is mostly quinoa and chickpeas so I’d rather get my protein from them. Somewhat similarly, lentils and other beans in a stew.
I avoid it, possible ALS risk.[1][2][3]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplemen...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanotoxin
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295368/
[3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/1748296090327848...
Lake Mascoma isn't too far from us, and we do see cyanobacteria blooms around here.
It is very cheap and readily available at most fish markets through all the country.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durvillaea_antarctica#Chilean_...
[1]: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charquic%C3%A1n
Eating algae is not a compromise or a burden, it's a fabulous luxury we should all experience.
I've had delicious rich chocolate cake and delicious rich spirulina, on a spirulina farm, that I had harvested earlier in the day. I spent several years studying microalgae & running bioreactors, until the pandemic threw a wrench into things.
There's no good way to describe new food, comparisons are useful though they can be used to mislead your expectations.