Canal Duckweed Could Be Hailed as a Protein-Packed Superfood
02 Aug 2016 --- Duckweed might look like the green slimy stuff growing on the surface of canal waters, but questions are being raised whether it can be eaten by people as a potentailly huge source of protein.
Duckweeds or lemna are flowering aquatic plants that float on the surface of slow moving fresh waters like that of canals or wetlands. They are the smallest flowering plants on earth.
The plant is capable of multiplying its biomass at incredibly high volumes and under optimal conditions a duckweed farm can produce ten to 30 tons of dried duckweed per hectare per year.
At the moment it is not yet clear if duckweed is safe for human consumption, but a research project led by Netherlands-based Wageningen University and Research Center and funded by UK biomedical research charity, The Wellcome Trust, is investigating.
“Duckweed can increase its biomass by up to 50 percent per day, making it one of the highest biomass producers on the planet,” a Wellcome Trust spokesperson tells FoodIngredientsFirst.
“It has a protein content of up to 43 percent when dried and, under optimal conditions, can yield 10 times more crude protein per hectare compared to soy.”
“It’s essential amino acid composition closely resembles animal protein, and therefore duckweed could be a high quality protein source for human food or domestic animal production, replace soy import, and reduce soy import related carbon dioxide emissions.”
“It is also grown on water so does not require arable land and is very easy to grow and harvest.”
More evidence is needed to know if it’s safe for human consumption and this is one of the key goals of the project; to analyze the safety aspects and determine the nutritional value of duckweed.
“The team propose to stimulate this new crop by combining selection of duckweed accessions in cultivation systems, performing biochemical analysis of its content, studying microbial and allergenicity safety.”
“A small scale human intervention will be performed to show digestibility and bioavailability and they will conduct consumer surveys to see if people are willing to eat products made from duckweed proteins.”
This is one of 15 research projects that Wellcome Trust has supported since 2013 to investigate the connections between environment and health with a particular focus on global food systems and urbanization.
“We’re committed to understanding and tackling the threat to our health posed by a dramatically changing world. We also want to ensure that any solutions protect, nurture and sustain our planet,” adds the spokesperson.
Wageningen says it has all the research capabilities to assess the use of duckweed as a possible new protein crop with the most significant factors being whether duckweed is suitable for animal feed as well as human consumption, to determined the optimal cultivation circumstances and the profiles of the different varieties of proteins as well as the method of processing.
“It offers good chances as a protein crop,” says senior researcher biosciences at Wageningen University and Research Centre Dr Ingrid van der Meer. “It does not make use of farming land and it can grow in a basin on the farm or in a simple greenhouse on diluted manure. It grows very rapidly and contains a lot of protein. One hectare of duckweed produces just as much protein as ten hectares of soya.”
by Gaynor Selby
