Just a few months in the past, I went to Los Angeles for an extended weekend with my good friend Becca to go to her family members and soak in some sunshine. We each reside in Bozeman, Montana and needed to take a fast break in balmy southern California throughout the lengthy, frigid northern winter.
Los Angeles tends to be on the vanguard of any well being meals fad, and the posh 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 Skin smoothie, which shortly 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 grow to be ubiquitous amongst health-and-wellness varieties. Recently, 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 wonderful 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 known as Irish moss. The most typical is a shallow-water pink algae known as Chondrus crispus, which grows wild alongside North Atlantic coasts and is farmed for business consumption. To make the gel, producers (and fanatics who make it from scratch) soak or boil the plant with water till the consistency is clean. You might need had sea moss with out even understanding it, because it’s usually used as a thickening agent and a vegan replacement for gelatin.
Whereas Becca and I are health-conscious, we don’t often get caught up within the newest superfood development. Nevertheless, the rosy drink’s affiliation with Bieber piqued our curiosity as a result of, , celebrities. We ordered one Hailey Bieber smoothie to share.
The coveted pink smoothie. (Photograph: Miyo McGinn)
I took a sip. It didn’t style notably good. And never due to the ocean moss—whose style is kind of gentle, type 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 might 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 price a jaw-dropping $20, which might 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 price 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 1 to 2 {dollars} per serving. (It will also be present in some pure meals shops.)
“Positively not definitely worth the $20 bucks,” Becca informed 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 performed on people to help 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 signifies that the marketed well being results don’t should be backed up by scientific analysis.
Labeling It a Superfood Could Be a Stretch
“Some corporations promote sea moss as an excellent supply of vitamins that may enhance intestine well being and immunity, comparable to 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 day by day really useful consumption of those vitamins. “You’d most likely get an equal or higher dietary increase 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 help immune well being. However the quantity of these minerals that you simply’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 really useful dose, sea moss isn’t an excellent supply of most vitamins,” says Pacheco.
Research does counsel that lots of the bioactive compounds (peptides, amino acids, and even longer names that you simply may acknowledge from shampoo bottles) present in seaweeds can contribute to pores and skin and hair well being; nevertheless, most research contemplate merchandise utilized on to the physique reasonably than consumed. As for libido, a study 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 accommodates iodine. Whereas the mineral is useful in small quantities, an excessive amount of can result in thyroid problems. Relying on the water high quality the place the ocean moss was obtained, the gel might comprise heavy metals like arsenic and mercury that it soaked up from its setting. In keeping with Pacheco, there’s not a lot hazard in attempting sea moss if in case you have your coronary heart set on it. Simply keep on with the really useful serving dimension, and discuss to your physician if you happen to’re apprehensive about iodine content material.
Personally, I’ve tried precisely another sea moss smoothie than I must. I’ll keep on with nori and kombu (the thick kelp typically in Japanese dishes like miso soup) for my seaweed repair and proceed consuming smoothies with nut milk and fruit that don’t style too candy. My pores and skin virtually definitely gained’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.
