3 ms·

Makes a lot of sense. It's packed with vitamins and minerals, is presumably a decent way to get salt, and is captive/passive/non-attacking prey! For Bay Area p

Makes a lot of sense. It's packed with vitamins and minerals, is presumably a decent way to get salt, and is captive/passive/non-attacking prey! For Bay Area people, there are companies that teach seaweed foraging: what types to look for, where to look, healthy versus "on the toilet all day", etc. Always nice to have another excuse to go to the beach, especially at unusual hours (such as before dawn to catch a low tide).

russh 3y ago
Works as a laxative as well.
francisofascii 3y ago
High in Omega-3.
adrian_b 3y ago
The most important benefit might have been the high content of iodine, which is usually insufficient in terrestrial food. Obviously they did not have iodized salt, like us, to provide the required iodine. They might have noticed that eating a little amount of seaweed will prevent illness. For omega-3 fatty acids, they had much better food sources in bone marrow or in fish (the multicellular algae have very low content of fatty acids; those that are used for omega-3 fatty acid production are unicellular and they are not algae, even if they are named "algae" in advertisements and on labels, because it is believed that something like "straminipiles" would be incomprehensible for laymen; even many scientists misspell "straminipiles" as "stramenopiles", only "Straminipila" is correct Latin). The vitamins were also abundant in their food, only iodine is deficient in all terrestrial food.
- soco 3y ago
  Which makes me think that seaweed was staple food at some time right? We wouldn't have evolved to need more iodine than we can get in our environment otherwise...
  - civilitty 3y ago
    According to WHO estimates [1], a quarter of Africans have goiters so I think it's safe to say that archaic humans suffered from chronic iodine deficiency. Evolution works through reproduction so any condition that doesn't impact survival until sexual maturity is unlikely to face any evolutionary pressure. Since humans are tribal and took care of their offspring in group settings, survivability after procreation also has little effect. [1] https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/43010/9241592001.pdf https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/43010/9241592001...
    - wizofaus 3y ago
      > any condition that doesn't impact survival until sexual maturity Diseases that impact even just appearance can surely make you less attractive as a mate though. And larger goiters can impede breathing or swallowing. So I'd be suspicious of the idea that we've been significantly deficient in iodine for extended periods of our evolutionary history.
      - civilitty 3y ago
        Large goiters are rare and the vast majority are not outwardly visible nor do they impact breathing. I’d be far more suspicious of applying modern standards of beauty to humans that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.
  - bostonpete 3y ago
    That seems like a leap -- there's other foods that can provide sufficient iodine (e.g. fish, eggs, milk)...
  - ssnistfajen 3y ago
    Goiter is usually not immediately lethal so for most of human history, people afflicted with it just kind of lived with it which likely meant there wasn't that much selective pressure against it. Consuming thyroid glands of terrestrial animals (usually ruminants) was an effective treatment of iodine dificiency before the modern nutritional sciences discovered the relationships between goiter and iodine deficiency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goitre#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goitre#History Ruminants are more efficient at absorbing nutrients from plant material due their digestive system, and this is how they get iodine in non-coastal areas. All vertebrates have thyroid glands and there is a very similar organ in marine chordates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endostyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endostyle. So this is an organ that likely emerged when our biological ancestors still lived in a iodine-rich environment.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  > Obviously they did not have iodized salt, like us, to provide the required iodine. Some places still (mostly) don’t. A notable exception (I’m sure there are others but not as well reported) is Israel where iodized salt isn’t a regulatory requirement and not very popular, with (predictable) widespread deficiencies: https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-020-00367-4 https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-020-... https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2017-03-27/ty-article/study-israelis-have-among-worlds-worst-iodine-deficiency/0000017f-e116-d9aa-afff-f95e8c5c0000 https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2017-03-27/ty-art... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170327083438.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170327083438.h...
- gavindean90 3y ago
  I agree with you. I want to mention Sea salt has iodine very often and was a very common source for other kinds of salts besides sodium chloride. We started iodizing salt in response to electrical methods for extracting pure NaCl becoming popular.
kawsper 3y ago
You also get omega-3 and omega-6 from seaweed.

russh 3y ago

Works as a laxative as well.

francisofascii 3y ago

High in Omega-3.

adrian_b 3y ago

The most important benefit might have been the high content of iodine, which is usually insufficient in terrestrial food. Obviously they did not have iodized salt, like us, to provide the required iodine. They might have noticed that eating a little amount of seaweed will prevent illness. For omega-3 fatty acids, they had much better food sources in bone marrow or in fish (the multicellular algae have very low content of fatty acids; those that are used for omega-3 fatty acid production are unicellular and they are not algae, even if they are named "algae" in advertisements and on labels, because it is believed that something like "straminipiles" would be incomprehensible for laymen; even many scientists misspell "straminipiles" as "stramenopiles", only "Straminipila" is correct Latin). The vitamins were also abundant in their food, only iodine is deficient in all terrestrial food.

soco 3y ago
Which makes me think that seaweed was staple food at some time right? We wouldn't have evolved to need more iodine than we can get in our environment otherwise...
- civilitty 3y ago
  According to WHO estimates [1], a quarter of Africans have goiters so I think it's safe to say that archaic humans suffered from chronic iodine deficiency. Evolution works through reproduction so any condition that doesn't impact survival until sexual maturity is unlikely to face any evolutionary pressure. Since humans are tribal and took care of their offspring in group settings, survivability after procreation also has little effect. [1] https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/43010/9241592001.pdf https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/43010/9241592001...
  - wizofaus 3y ago
    > any condition that doesn't impact survival until sexual maturity Diseases that impact even just appearance can surely make you less attractive as a mate though. And larger goiters can impede breathing or swallowing. So I'd be suspicious of the idea that we've been significantly deficient in iodine for extended periods of our evolutionary history.
    - civilitty 3y ago
      Large goiters are rare and the vast majority are not outwardly visible nor do they impact breathing. I’d be far more suspicious of applying modern standards of beauty to humans that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.
- bostonpete 3y ago
  That seems like a leap -- there's other foods that can provide sufficient iodine (e.g. fish, eggs, milk)...
- ssnistfajen 3y ago
  Goiter is usually not immediately lethal so for most of human history, people afflicted with it just kind of lived with it which likely meant there wasn't that much selective pressure against it. Consuming thyroid glands of terrestrial animals (usually ruminants) was an effective treatment of iodine dificiency before the modern nutritional sciences discovered the relationships between goiter and iodine deficiency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goitre#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goitre#History Ruminants are more efficient at absorbing nutrients from plant material due their digestive system, and this is how they get iodine in non-coastal areas. All vertebrates have thyroid glands and there is a very similar organ in marine chordates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endostyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endostyle. So this is an organ that likely emerged when our biological ancestors still lived in a iodine-rich environment.
Scoundreller 3y ago
> Obviously they did not have iodized salt, like us, to provide the required iodine. Some places still (mostly) don’t. A notable exception (I’m sure there are others but not as well reported) is Israel where iodized salt isn’t a regulatory requirement and not very popular, with (predictable) widespread deficiencies: https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-020-00367-4 https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-020-... https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2017-03-27/ty-article/study-israelis-have-among-worlds-worst-iodine-deficiency/0000017f-e116-d9aa-afff-f95e8c5c0000 https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/2017-03-27/ty-art... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170327083438.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170327083438.h...
gavindean90 3y ago
I agree with you. I want to mention Sea salt has iodine very often and was a very common source for other kinds of salts besides sodium chloride. We started iodizing salt in response to electrical methods for extracting pure NaCl becoming popular.

kawsper 3y ago

You also get omega-3 and omega-6 from seaweed.