Shipworms, or Teredinids, can burrow into waste wooden and convert it to protein. This has historically precipitated them to be seen as a pest.
Nevertheless, they’re in reality 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 precipitated them to be rechristened ‘bare clams’, to make them sound extra palatable. Nevertheless, this isn’t simply PR: bare clams have quite a lot of potential.
Whereas they’ve already proved to be extremely nutritious for consumption, the current research wished to see if this facet may very well 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 may very well 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 totally enclosed nature of the system implies that considerations over water security had been much less outstanding than in any other case.
They then in contrast the faeces of bare clams after giving them a weight loss plan of simply wooden and after giving them a weight loss plan 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 ate up wooden alone. These clams fed with microencapsulated feed additionally had a 75.8% higher polyunsaturated fatty acid content material, which, in keeping with 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 supposing bare clams are already extremely nutritious, their ranges of diet might be improved much more by using microencapsulated feed.
Sustainability clams
Bare clams provide rather a lot when it comes to vitamins, however can they be farmed large-scale in a sustainable method?
Sure, it seems, largely due to the sustainable nature of the chief ingredient of their weight loss plan: wooden. “They are often grown totally on wooden as a meals, and wooden is a renewable and environmentally pleasant useful resource,” J. Reuben Shipway, one of many researchers, informed FoodNavigator.
“We’ve additionally developed a modular aquaculture system that permits them to be grown within the aquarium. This enclosed manufacturing programs permits us to optimise development, high quality, dietary profile and palatability in addition to get rid of water high quality and meals security considerations from wild-farming.”
Shipway sees the sustainability of the clams, alongside their immense dietary worth, as a powerful industrial alternative. “There’s a large industrial upside to this aquaculture. When you have a look at how a lot environmental degradation there’s throughout the planet, and then you definately see the rise in charges of well being problems in relation to poor weight loss plan, then we clearly want new options to those issues. And Bare Clams are a possible resolution.”
In accordance with 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’
Printed on: 20 November 2023
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44264-023-00004-y
Authors: D. F. Willer, D. C. Aldridge, P. Mhrshahi, Ok. P. Papadopoulos, L. Archer, A. G. Smith, M. Lancaster, A. Strachan & J. R. Shipway
