Sea Forest's seaweed to stop cows burping

A Positive Climate

Today’s episode with Sam Elsom from Sea Forest continues our discussion on sustainable protein - can we have our steak and eat it too?

We all know that our obsession with meat is not sustainable. The livestock sector accounts for around 15% of all emissions and in Australia alone we eat 120kg of meat per person per annum (the equivalent of eating Dwayne the Rock Johnson in steaks and sausages)!

So far we’ve discussed plant based meat with Nick Hazell from V2Foods and cultured meat with the co-founders of Vow but what about carbon neutral steaks?

Sam Elsom from Sea Forest grows a unique type of seaweed called asparagopsis. It’s native to Australia and an Australian researcher, Professor Rocky De Nys discovered that when you feed it to ruminants (i.e. cows, sheep and even giraffes!) it eliminates the methane they emit when burping.

In this episode we cover:

• How we discovered that seaweed can actually stop cows burping
• How the seaweed supplement is fed to the cows, do they like it and does it have any impacts on their health?
• How asparagopsis could result in a carbon neutral steak future
• Why Sam went from working in fashion for some leading brands to now running a seaweed business in beautiful Tasmania, Australia

Sam is super passionate about this sector and rightly so - if just 10% of the world’s livestock producers adopted the technology we’ll be talking about today, that would be like taking 100 million cars off the road.

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Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Socials by the legend Rebecca Sather Jenkins

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If you’re interested in the topic

• If you loved this episode check out our previous episodes with plant based meat company V2Foods and cultured meat company Vow

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About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An inspiring look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay.

We cover it all on the show while keeping things optimistic and accessible: electric planes, waste eating maggots, plant-based meats, hydrogen made from beer, the solar revolution, the coolest new sustainable products and much much more.

If you’re passionate about the environment, the latest clean technology or just want to know how to get involved in the movement, this podcast is for you!

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