Shipworms, or Teredinids, can burrow into waste wooden and convert it to protein. This has historically brought on them to be seen as a pest.
Nevertheless, they’re in truth ample in vitamins. Simply 10g in dry weight per week of the bivalve could be sufficient to fulfil one’s weekly consumption of vitamin B12. This suitability for human consumption has brought on them to be rechristened ‘bare clams’, to make them sound extra palatable. Nevertheless, this isn’t simply PR: bare clams have a whole lot of potential.
Whereas they’ve already proved to be extremely nutritious for consumption, the current research needed to see if this facet could possibly be pushed even additional.
Utilizing an aquaculture system
The purpose of the research was to see whether or not the dietary worth of bare clams could possibly be improved.
To check this, researchers first created a fully-enclosed aquaculture system (a system for breeding, elevating and harvesting seafood, primarily a seafood farm) for bare clams. The absolutely enclosed nature of the system implies that considerations over water security had been much less distinguished than in any other case.
They then in contrast the faeces of bare clams after giving them a eating regimen of simply wooden and after giving them a eating regimen of wooden mixed with an algae-based microencapsulated feed.
Researchers discovered that these bare clams fed with microencapsulated feed had a higher protein content material than these consumed wooden alone. These clams fed with microencapsulated feed additionally had a 75.8% higher polyunsaturated fatty acid content material, which, based on the UK’s Nationwide Well being Service, can decrease the degrees of “unhealthy” ldl cholesterol within the blood. Nevertheless, the microencapsulated feed had no impact on the degrees of B12 discovered within the bare clams.
The research confirmed that, even if bare clams are already extremely nutritious, their ranges of vitamin might be improved much more by the usage of microencapsulated feed.
Sustainability clams
Bare clams supply quite a bit by way of vitamins, however can they be farmed large-scale in a sustainable means?
Sure, it seems, largely due to the sustainable nature of the chief ingredient of their eating regimen: wooden. “They are often grown completely on wooden as a meals, and wooden is a renewable and environmentally pleasant useful resource,” J. Reuben Shipway, one of many researchers, advised FoodNavigator.
“We’ve got additionally developed a modular aquaculture system that enables them to be grown within the aquarium. This enclosed manufacturing methods permits us to optimise development, high quality, dietary profile and palatability in addition to eradicate water high quality and meals security considerations from wild-farming.”
Shipway sees the sustainability of the clams, alongside their immense dietary worth, as a robust industrial alternative. “There’s a huge industrial upside to this aquaculture. When you take a look at how a lot environmental degradation there may be throughout the planet, and then you definitely see the rise in charges of well being issues in relation to poor eating regimen, then we clearly want new options to those issues. And Bare Clams are a possible resolution.”
Based on the paper, a unadorned clam sector has the potential to be price £400m, if it grew to five% of the £8.7bn price of seafood bought within the UK in 2019. The paper factors to proof from the established Southeast Asian market that bare clams have such financial potential.
Sourced From: Sustainable Agriculture
‘Bare Clams to open a brand new sector in sustainable nutritious meals manufacturing’
Revealed on: 20 November 2023
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44264-023-00004-y
Authors: D. F. Willer, D. C. Aldridge, P. Mhrshahi, Okay. P. Papadopoulos, L. Archer, A. G. Smith, M. Lancaster, A. Strachan & J. R. Shipway
