Text and photos by Henrylito D. Tacio
The Philippines, with a total coastline of 36,289 kilometers, has marine resources that provide food to millions of Filipinos and livelihood to a great number of rural families.  One of these is seaweeds, those marine plants that grow abundantly in shallow reef flats and in lagoons with a water depth of less than two meters at high tide.
“Over the years, the economic contribution of seaweed resources to the country’s economy has been recognized and interest in their development has been growing particularly with the increasing demand in the foreign trade for these resources as raw materials for many industries,” said the primer on the status of seaweed industry in the Philippines.
So far, over 9,000 species of seaweed have been identified around the world. These are divided into three major types: green, brown and red. Red is the most species-rich group (6,000) followed by brown (2,000) and finally green (1,200).
The Philippines is home to various kinds of seaweeds of which 390 species have been identified as having economic value as food, animal feeds, fertilizers, diet supplement, medicines, and raw materials for industrial products.
Among the 60 varieties found in the Philippines which are reportedly edible are gulamang dagat, gamet, pocpoclo, culot, lato, guso, barls-barls, bulaklak bato, and balbalolang.  Some of these varieties can be processed into jams, jellies, candies, pickles, baby’s food, and gulaman bars.
In Tiwi, Albay, some residents have discovered a pansit (noodles) made from seaweed, which has health benefits. The seaweed noodle is rich in calcium and magnesium and can be cooked into pansit canton, pansit luglug, spaghetti and carbonara.
As food, seaweed contains several vitamins. Red and brown algae are rich in carotenes and are used, in fact, as a source of natural mixed carotenes for dietary supplements. The content ranges from 20-170 parts per million. The vitamin C in red and brown algae is also notable, with contents ranging from 500-3000 parts per million. Other vitamins are also present, including B12, which is not found in most land plants.
Dr. Subhuti Dharmananda, director of the Institute for Traditional Medicine at Portland, Oregon, claims seaweed has very little fat, ranging from 1-5% of dry matter, “although seaweed lipids have a higher proportion of essential fatty acids than land plants.” Green algae, whose fatty acid make-up is the closest to higher plants, have a much higher oleic and alpha-linoleic acid content.
Seaweed has high fiber content, making up 32% to 50% of dry matter. The soluble fiber fraction accounts for 51-56% of total fibers in green and red algae and for 67-87% in brown algae. Soluble fibers are generally associated with having cholesterol-lowering and hypoglycemic effects.
Commercially, seaweeds are valued for their colloids or gluey substance, particularly agar, carrageenan, and alginate. Both agar and carrageenan are extracted from red seaweeds, while alginate is extracted from brown seaweeds.
Agar is used in making jellied desserts, as stabilizer in pie fillings, piping gels, icings, cookies, cream shells, and as thickening and gelling agent in poultry, fish and meat canning. In the medical and pharmaceutical industries, agar serves as a laxative, suspending agent for barium sulfate in radiology, ingredient for slow-release capsules and in suppositories and surgical lubricants, and as a disintegrating agent in tablets. It is also used as impression materials to make accurate casts in prosthetic dentistry, criminology and tool manufacturing.
Carrageenan, on the other hand, is used in making ointments, as emulsifying agent in water-insoluble drugs and herbicides, and as texturing agent in toothpaste and powder. It is also used in salad dressings and sauces, dietetic foods, and as a preservative in meat and fish products, dairy items and baked goods.
Alginates enjoy many of the same uses as carrageenan, but are also used in production of industrial products such as paper coatings, adhesives, dyes, gels, explosives and in processes such as paper sizing, textile printing, hydro-mulching and drilling. In the biomedicine and pharmaceutical industries, alginates are used in wound dressings, and production of dental moulds and have a host of other applications.
Ordinary seaweed or carrageenan, when subjected to irradiation, has been found to increase rice yield by more than 65%. That’s what scientists from the National Crop Protection Center at the University of the Philippines Los Baños have found out.
Some studies showed that when the indigestible carbohydrate (polysaccharide) is degraded or reduced to tiny sizes, it can be an effective growth promoter and makes rice resistant to major pests.
As a growth enhances, carrageenan offers an array of benefits that result in improved productivity. Used properly as prescribed, it makes the rice stem stronger thus improving rice resistance to lodging. It also promotes resistance to rice ‘tungro’ virus and bacterial leaf blight therefore giving farmers increased harvest.
What is good in this seaweed additive is that it is compatible with the traditional practice on fertilizer application, thereby allowing easy acceptance and less resistance from farmers. It also promotes sustainable agriculture since it is environment-friendly and enhances the presence of natural enemies that fight major pests in rice fields. Lastly, it promotes more efficient absorption of plant nutrients that enables improved growth.
In a field trial conducted in Bulacan by the team led by Dr. Gil L. Magsino of the UPLB National Crop Protection Center (UPLB-NCPC), the application of 200 ppm (or 20 milliliter per liter) carrageenan in combination with 3-6 bags per hectare (ha) of fertilizer significantly increased the grain weight by 63.6 to 65.4%, the productive tillers by 83-102%, and panicle length by 3.5-12.5% over that of the farmers’ practice, which uses 9 bags/ha of fertilizer.
Productive tillers are the rice stems that bear the panicles (rice inflorescence) with fertilized grains, while longer rice panicle is associated with producing more rice grains. █
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