A Seaweed Side-dish?

By the 18th Century, seaweed had been dismissed as a 'famine food' in most of Europe. Current consumption of algae is comparatively rare in this continent. In parts of Wales, however, one seaweed (lavabread) is still sold, being eaten as an upmarket breakfast 'fry-up' addition. Karen Hardy and colleagues (University of Glasgow) examined samples of dental calculus (tartar) from the remains of 74 individuals, exhumed from 28 European Archeological sites. The sites ranged from Southern Spain to Northern Scotland and from 6400 BC to the 12th Century AD. The dental plaque of 33 of these individuals had biomarkers, allowing the team to explore what the subjects had been eating. Twenty-six of the 33, had biomarkers for seaweed or pondweed (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/17/seaweed-was-common-food-in-europe-for-thousands-of-years-researchers-find). These results suggest that, for an extended period, seaweeds were a regular part of diet throughout much of Europe. This is interesting, because with pressures on traditional agriculture, algae are increasingly being touted as 'new' sources of food and energy.