NORTH MIAMI, FLA. (WSVN) - As miles of sargassum washed ashore on South Florida beaches, new findings from researchers at Florida International University show repurposing the brown algae for food might be a new option.
When municipalities remove and dispose of the brown algae, the process becomes costly.
“The problem starts when it’s washed ashore on our beaches, and then it’s a problem, so the city removes it, dumps it, and it costs money as well,” said Dr. Imran Ahmad, a food science and technology research professor ay FIU’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management.
Ahmad hit the beach with a goal of removal as well as repurposing.
“The approach was, can we use it once it’s harvested or died at the shore for any purpose? So it’s a simple screening of what it contains; it’s basically a polysaccharide,” he said.
Scientists say sargassum contains a natural ingredient called alginate. Alginate is used to thicken some of our favorite foods and guilty pleasures like sauces and ice cream.
Once it goes through Ahmad’s complex process, the sargassum will look like a pure white powder.
Sargassum isn’t currently classified as a food source and can carry contaminants.
Therefore, Ahmad got to work, using high-pressure processing that reduces the risk of bacteria while preserving useful compounds.
“We have seen many products on the shelf, like naturally freshly squeezed juices, guacamole; they all use high-pressure processing,” he said.
The high pressure kills bacteria and always maintains the structure to stay intact, turning a problem into a product.
With Miami a destination for fun, Ahmad said, this is another way the Chaplin School at FIU continues to better the hospitality and tourism industry.
“Taking that angle, we have a solution for the world: get rid of it from our beaches. Making use of something that is going to be waste anyway, we can still extract something more important that the food industry actually needs,” he said.
Ahmad said the next step is to see how this alginate interacts with other food ingredients before we can eat it ourselves.
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