In the classroom this week, we shifted our focus from what humans eat to what livestock eat. Beef and dairy cows are largely raised in a system that produces dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions. We watched a video from Vox about research out of UC Davis that showed how shifting what we feed to cows—in particular, adding red seaweed from the Asparagopsis genus to their diet—can significantly reduce the methane cows produce when they burp.
In the kitchen, we cooked with a red seaweed called dulse (from the genus Palmaria) to see what how we would find the flavor and texture when it’s added to our food! The fourth and fifth grade chefs added three different kinds of seaweed to soba noodles; made a simple Japanese-style dressing of rice wine vinegar, soy, ginger, toasted sesame oil, sugar, and lime juice; and thinly sliced carrots, purple daikon, and green onion. We didn’t measure any post-meal burps, but many of the chefs had seconds and thirds and were generally happy to consume the seaweed, just like the research subjects in the UC Davis study.
