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A number of months in the past, I went to Los Angeles for an extended weekend with my pal Becca to go to her family members and soak in some sunshine. We each dwell in Bozeman, Montana and needed to take a fast break in balmy southern California through the lengthy, frigid northern winter.
Los Angeles tends to be on the vanguard of any well being meals fad, and the luxurious grocery retailer chain Erewhon is the epicenter, the birthplace of dozens of doubtful superfoods. In 2022, they began promoting mannequin Hailey Bieber’s sea moss-based Strawberry Glaze Pores and skin smoothie, which rapidly went viral. It will get its trademark pink coloring from a mix of almond milk, coconut cream, strawberries, avocados, dates, maple syrup, vanilla collagen, vanilla stevia, and the then-obscure sea moss.
Since then, sea moss has turn out to be ubiquitous amongst health-and-wellness varieties. These days, health influencers are scooping heaps of sea moss gel, a colorless goo, into smoothies, espresso, and chia puddings—or simply consuming it straight off the spoon. Followers of the gelatinous substance declare that it boosts their immune system and improves intestine and thyroid well being. Some declare it will increase libido. Others insist it’s a superb substitute for face moisturizer and provides luster to their hair and nails.
What Is Sea Moss Gel?
Sea moss refers to a typical sort of pink seaweed, additionally referred to as Irish moss. The most typical is a shallow-water pink algae referred to as Chondrus crispus, which grows wild alongside North Atlantic coasts and is farmed for industrial consumption. To make the gel, producers (and fans who make it from scratch) soak or boil the plant with water till the consistency is easy. You might need had sea moss with out even figuring out it, because it’s typically used as a thickening agent and a vegan alternative for gelatin.
Whereas Becca and I are health-conscious, we don’t often get caught up within the newest superfood pattern. Nonetheless, the rosy drink’s affiliation with Bieber piqued our curiosity as a result of, you realize, celebrities. We ordered one Hailey Bieber smoothie to share.
The coveted pink smoothie. (Picture: Miyo McGinn)
I took a sip. It didn’t style notably good. And never due to the ocean moss—whose style is kind of delicate, kind of like a watered-down model of the salty, briny taste I affiliate with saltwater vegetation. I couldn’t detect even a touch of oceanic taste. As an alternative, it was dominated by the cloyingly sweet-without-sugar style of stevia, vanilla, and dates. Mixed with the creaminess from the avocado and coconut, you simply may have satisfied me that they’d given me lotion from the Hailey Bieber skincare line marketed with the smoothie on the poster subsequent to the money register.
The smoothie additionally value a jaw-dropping $20, which may purchase a few hearty burritos again in Bozeman. The worth tag has as a lot to do with Erewhon’s elite standing because the not-so-modest value of sea moss. A mean serving of sea moss is one to 2 tablespoons of gel, and a 16-ounce jar on Amazon prices $30, which comes out to at least one to 2 {dollars} per serving. (It may also be present in some pure meals shops.)
“Undoubtedly not well worth the $20 bucks,” Becca instructed me after she’d had a style. “Very candy and never very complicated.”
Is Sea Moss Even Good for You?
Seaweeds have been a staple in some cultures’ cuisines for millennia and are identified to be nutrient-dense and engaging. However, as is typically the case with viral well being meals, few research have been carried out on people to assist any of sea moss’s purported advantages. The ocean moss gel you purchase at a well being meals retailer is taken into account a complement by the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA), which implies that the marketed well being results don’t should be backed up by scientific analysis.
Labeling It a Superfood Could Be a Stretch
“Some firms promote sea moss as a superb supply of vitamins that may enhance intestine well being and immunity, resembling fiber, nutritional vitamins A & C, zinc, and selenium,” says registered dietician Alyssa Pacheco. In actuality, a two-tablespoon serving of sea moss equates to lower than two % of your every day beneficial consumption of those vitamins. “You’ll in all probability get an equal or higher dietary enhance from a multivitamin,” she says.
So claims that sea moss is sweet for, say, your immune system are based mostly on its vitamin C and zinc content material, which Pacheco says are identified to assist immune well being. However the quantity of these minerals that you just’ll discover in a few scoops of sea moss gel is negligible. The identical is true for all the opposite supposed advantages of the nutritional vitamins and minerals that may be present in sea moss. “Within the typical beneficial dose, sea moss isn’t an excellent supply of most vitamins,” says Pacheco.
Analysis does recommend that lots of the bioactive compounds (peptides, amino acids, and even longer names that you just would possibly acknowledge from shampoo bottles) present in seaweeds can contribute to pores and skin and hair well being; nonetheless, most research think about merchandise utilized on to the physique moderately than consumed. As for libido, a research of rats did doc elevated libido and fertility, however extra research on people are nonetheless wanted to say for certain.
The Potential Dangers of Consuming Sea Moss Gel
Sea moss incorporates iodine. Whereas the mineral is useful in small quantities, an excessive amount of can result in thyroid issues. Relying on the water high quality the place the ocean moss was obtained, the gel might include heavy metals like arsenic and mercury that it soaked up from its atmosphere. In accordance with Pacheco, there’s not a lot hazard in making an attempt sea moss you probably have your coronary heart set on it. Simply persist with the beneficial serving dimension, and speak to your physician in the event you’re fearful about iodine content material.
Personally, I’ve tried precisely another sea moss smoothie than I must. I’ll persist with nori and kombu (the thick kelp typically in Japanese dishes like miso soup) for my seaweed repair and proceed ingesting smoothies with nut milk and fruit that don’t style too candy. My pores and skin nearly actually received’t be pretty much as good as Hailey Bieber’s, however I believe that doesn’t even have a lot to do with our relative sea moss consumption.
