Health Guru Victor Bowman Seeks Wildcrafted Seaweeds at their Source
As we dive deeper into autumn and the colder months ahead, here at Gulf of Maine, Inc., we look back to some of our best summer memories. What a surprise it was when we got a call from Victor Bowman, the son of Honduran herbalist Dr. Sebi, saying he was in Portland, Maine and wanted to drive up to see us!
We love hosting people and sharing all that we have and know in Cobscook Bay, so of course we gladly welcomed Mr. Bowman and his friends. Victor’s father, Alfredo “Dr. Sebi” Bowman, and his promotion and creation of the Alkaline Cell Food diet, has been the reason for many of our Purple Irish Sea Moss (Chondrus crispus) sales these days.
Edible seaweeds have been consumed throughout all of human history, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and are widely known for their high nutrient content and umami taste. Our seaweeds, which are macroalgae, absorb nutrients directly from the clean, cold waters of the Maine coastal shores. This is unlike land plants, which intake nutrients through their roots, filtering and fixing beneficial chemicals from the soils in which they grow.
Plants on land sport their characteristic green color thanks to the chlorophyll in their cells, which absorbs wavelengths of light in the blue and red-orange spectrum, but not the green spectrum. Since green is not absorbed, it is reflected.
Purple Irish Sea Moss, by comparison, is of the phylum Rhodophyta, which means it is a red alga. The coloration of Chondrus crispus therefore results from its ability to absorb green light and reflect other wavelengths, which again distinguishes this macroalga from land plants.
Chondrus crispus, or Purple Irish Sea Moss, a red macroalga.
Diagram of Phycobilisomes taken from AAT Bioquest, aatbio.com
This adaptive advantage is the reason Purple Irish Sea Moss can grow with minimal light, deep into the low and mid tidal ranges, underneath the kelp beds. On a cellular level, the abundance of an accessory organelle called phycobilisomes attach like an antenna to the chlorophyll. The phycobilisomes are what help Chondrus crispus absorb and efficiently transform whatever wavelengths of light are available in the environment into glucose. This light harvesting process, facilitated by phycobilisomes, is called complementary chromatic adaptation.
If you have ever been scuba diving, you may know that as you dive deeper into the sea, certain colors are lost to the light dispersion and absorption of water molecules. Red is the first color to go. Red not being absorbed by Chondrus crispus, means it will be reflected!
Due to tight schedules, Mr. Victor Bowman was not able to hang around for the low tides, which would have allowed us to harvest Purple Irish Sea Moss together. We did manage to examine a Bladder Wrack bed! Mr. Bowman was very pleased to discuss the benefits of Bladder Wrack and see it growing so abundantly on the rocks of our coastal Maine beaches. Bladder Wrack is a brown seaweed found closer to the splash zone, in the upper intertidal.
Seaweed distribution by tidal range graphic taken from GallowayWildFoods.com
We hope Victor Bowman comes back for our big spring tides to harvest Purple Irish Sea Moss when the season starts up again. Until then, Mr. Bowman, we wish you luck with your growing business, Bolingo Balance, and we hope you stay styling in your bright orange hat!
Victor, like his father, is truly ahead of the times. Hunting season just started this past Saturday, so now we’re all wearing bright orange in Downeast Maine :-)
Happy hunting and harvesting!
