Europeans now rarely eat seaweed, but it was an important part of their diet until the late Middle Ages, archaeologists said Tuesday, calling for the eco-friendly aquatic plant to be put back on the menu.
Europeans now rarely eat seaweed, but it was an important part of their diet until the late Middle Ages, archaeologists said Tuesday, calling for the eco-friendly aquatic plant to be put back on the menu.
Seaweed, a healthy and sustainable source of protein, is a staple food in some Asian countries such as Japan. But it has long been shunned by traditional Western diets—with a few exceptions, such as the Welsh dish laverbread.
It was previously thought that since the rise of farming, Europeans had mostly used seaweed as fuel, fertilizer or to feed livestock. It was only eaten to stave off hunger during famine, so the thinking went.
But a new study published in the journal Nature Communications found that Europeans were gobbling up seaweed millennia after that point, and suggested the continent re-embrace the nutritious food.
