Description
Seaweed Therapeutics is one of a kind and is a product of many years of exploring seaweeds from an herbalists perspective. It thoroughly covers the various scientific categories of seaweeds and teaches what bioactive compounds have been discovered in seaweeds and their effect on the body.
What is Seaweed Therapeutics about?
This course will not only help you familiarize yourself with seaweeds, you will also learn a solid foundation for the ways in which you can use seaweeds as food and medicine. This course is focused on the edible and medicinal properties of seaweeds, as well as getting to know them out in the field and beginning to grasp an understanding of identifying, harvesting, processing, and preparing them for food and medicinal applications.
The course is written with the intention that you, the student, will have a basic understanding of anatomy and physiology as well as pathologies of the human body.
Why learn about seaweeds?
The health issues that seaweeds address are vast and profound, and even more important in today’s landscape of environmental pollution, phytonutrient gaps in the average diet, and challenged access to secure food and medicine supply chains. Seaweeds help to mitigate these issues, and are an invaluable untapped resource for health.
How does the study of seaweed fit into the realm of plant medicine & herbalism?
Seaweeds are the predecessors of plants, their grandparents so to speak– it is from the ocean that all land-based life birthed. Understanding the direct relationship between all living beings on earth will help the herbalist meet the needs of bringing a healthy balance to the body.
Seaweed helps shift the herbalist’s repertoire of plant-based medicine to earth-based medicine. It applies the wholistic concept of the wheel in which every part of nature has something to offer in terms of bringing balance to the web of life. The bioactives that are studied in seaweeds are a fairly new and exciting area of science that is revealing an abundance of benefits that have significant effects on preventing disease and improving health. As seaweed can be delivered in its whole form as a part of anyone’s regular diet and lifestyle, it can be an easy way to enhance a beneficial lifestyle program with positive therapeutic effects.
Learn more about Angela’s love and knowledge of seaweed with this interview with Yarrow Willard here.
Introduction to Seaweed Therapeutics
Lesson 1: Harvesting & Safety
Anatomy of a seaweed
Sustainable harvesting
Physical safety
Seaweed safety
Location & zones
Environment
Tools
Seaweed seasons
Tides
Harvest regulations
Processing: drying, dehydrating, freezing, and storing your harvest
Toxic species
Toxicity
Lesson 2: Seaweed Therapeutics
Green bioactives
Red bioactives
Brown bioactives
Seaweed Energetics
Cautions & Contraindications
Lesson 3: Food as medicine (Nutrition & Pigments)
Food as medicine
Nutrition: Minerals, trace elements, and vitamins
Pigments: Chlorophyll, carotenoids, fucoxanthin, and more
Lesson 4: Topical Use & Thalassotherapy
Topical benefits: collagen, antioxidants, and more
Seaweed baths, soaks, and waterbirth
Body wraps & masks
Exfoliants, emollients, and lotions
Recipes
Lesson 5: Seaweed Monographs
Sea lettuce
Dulse
Nori
Alaria
Bladderwrack
Bull kelp
Kombu
In a simply laid out and systematic format, you will learn some of the most current and well documented research on the therapeutic aspects of seaweeds, including:
-The 3 main categories of seaweeds: how to identify them and understand the therapeutic properties specific to each category
-The unique therapeutic characteristics of seaweeds that makes them a distinctively important aspect to vital health
-Why seaweeds are an even more important medicine for current times and health challenges, from environmental pollutant protection to diets deficient in specific essential nutrients
-Ways to incorporate seaweeds into everyday cooking, both in common household recipes and unique dishes
-In depth information on 7 culinary and medicinal familiar seaweeds
-Come away with an understanding of the overall herbal actions of seaweed on the body
Upon completion of this course, you will have the confidence and skills on how to:
-Identify and sustainably harvest common edible seaweeds
-Work with seaweeds within your herbal repertoire based on an understanding of the bioactives present in seaweeds and how they affect health in the body
-Add seaweed into almost all of your dishes to enhance flavour, texture, preservation, and most importantly health
-Use seaweed in topical applications to address a variety of both external and internal health concerns
-Apply energetic principles when choosing seaweed in order to bring the body into a state of balance
-Know healthy seaweed dosages, potential contraindications, understand toxicity concerns, and overall safe seaweed consumption practices
