We are all
used to eating food from plants that grow in the earth - carrots,
corn, raspberries... But how about food from plants that grown
in the sea?
You might
think of seaweed as the slimy green stuff you find on the beach.
But it is more than that; in Japan and China people have been
eating "sea vegetables" for hundreds of years.
Even if we
are not used to collecting and eating whole seaweed, it is there
hiding in many things that we eat and use every day - like toothpaste!
With this Gummies Kit you get a chance to see seaweed work its
invisible magic, yourself.
Divina's family has a seaweed farm in
the Philippines. They live near the shore of an island and her
father, like most of the people in the area, used to make a living
by fishing. But nowadays, there are so many people fishing, it's
getting harder and harder to be a fisherman. Some kinds of fish
have even disappeared as a result of all the fishing. Luckily,
a few years ago, her family started a seaweed farm.
It's pretty simple, actually- first, they take
some sticks and poke them into the sand on the bottom of the sea,
tying nylon fishing lines to each one. Then, they wade out into
the water, pluck some sprigs of a special seaweed plant called
Eucheuma cottonii, and tie them to the nylon lines. It looks like
an underwater garden, really.
It grows really quickly, and when the plants
are big enough to harvest, Divina cuts the seaweed back so that
it can grow again.
Why grow seaweed, you might be wondering? What
can her family do with it?
Well, you probably use seaweed every day without
even knowing it. Some people eat it, in salads, or in sushi. But
seaweed is also really important because it naturally contains
a substance which makes liquids like water and milk get thicker
or even become solid. We use two of these seaweed gels- carrageenan
and agar- in our Gummy Kit. Just check the ingredient list on
your toothpaste, cottage cheese, deodorant, dog food, pudding,
even salad dressing or sandwich meat, and see if they have seaweed
in them!
So, with lots of products needing gels, Divina's
family and thousands of other families like hers can make money
selling carrageenan. They boil the seaweed until it's like a goo,
and then filter, dry it and grind it up into a powder, sort of
like the process you're using in the Gummy Kit.
Now, let us tell you something you may not have
known. Most gummy candies are made from gelatin, and lots of other
foods have gelatin in them, too. Like marshmallows. Gelatin is
a substance that is made by boiling animals' bones! You guessed
it - we're using seaweed gels because seaweed is so cool- it just
keeps on growing and growing, people like Divina can continue
to make money, without wiping out the fish population, and it's
a great alternative to gelatin!
Want to learn more?
