Transcription of Tollef Olson for the show Treasures from the Sea #161
Dr. Lisa: It’s always a pleasure for me to have the chance to meet people that have created products I enjoyed long before I knew I was going to be on the radio and long before I knew there was ever a chance I would meet them. One such individual is Tollef Olson, who is the founder of Ocean Approved, a Maine-based health company. Ocean Approved is the first company to commercially raise kelp in open water farms in the United States. We’re very fortunate to have you for today. Thanks for coming in.
Tollef: Thank you Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: Tollef, you’re featured in Maine magazine because you do really interesting things. I’m not sure people think about kelp as something that you can eat.
Tollef: Kelp has been eaten worldwide in coastaled communities for millennia. The problem is it’s a marine vegetable. It does not want to be in the atmosphere and so traditionally, it’s been dried which is very healthy presentation and a good way to eat it but it limits the uses of it. Think the difference between a dried pea and a fresh pea for taste, color, texture, ease-of-use.
What we’ve done is found a market form. I’ve made a market form that’s much easier for people to enjoy.
Dr. Lisa: When I first started eating your product, I found it in I think was a freezer, I think it was Browne Trading when I was way back when. Is it still the way that you are producing it?
Tollef: That is. What we do, it has to be stabilized as soon as you bring it out of the ocean, it doesn’t want to be exposed to the atmosphere. We found that by cutting it, blanching it and freezing it immediately, it stabilized it in its best possible state to eat it. Kelp is unique. It’s designed to freeze on the low tides and the winter time. The cell structure doesn’t breakdown when we freeze it. The frozen is indistinguishable from the fresh.
Dr. Lisa: Let’s back up a little bit. Kelp is one of many sea vegetables and if I’m out looking at seaweed. Let’s call them seaweed because that’s what most people think all of as sea vegetables, what does kelp look like when it’s sitting on the shore?
Tollef: We’re focusing on the Brown macro algaes right now which are the kelps. Kelp is actually a generic term that came out of Europe years ago. There’s almost really no such thing as kelp. They even called rock weed kelp sometimes so we’re working with, the brown macroalgae. Kelp seaweeds come in various colors. You’ve got the reds, the browns and the greens. They all look slightly different. We’re working with the broader banded laminarias because they are the best known in the market at this point. It was easier to extrapolate knowledge from Asia to convert it to our systems here. That said, there are many different seaweeds and most of them have great nutritional value.
Dr. Lisa: So kelp would be sort of one of these broad, flat things that you would find as you’re walking along the beach?
Tollef: That’s what most people would think of, yes. The one you see predominantly on the beach is the sugar kelp which are the great big flat blades with the ruffles on the edges. You will see some digitata also especially after storms. That’s a big plant that looks a lot like your hand, that’s the digitata designation and we also have alaria here which is the equivalent of andaria which is the Wakame that most people are familiar with from seaweed salads. You will see that on the beaches after big storms also.
Dr. Lisa: In the article that Susan Connelly wrote about Ocean Approved in Maine Magazine, you mentioned to her that kelp and seaweed are not true root vegetables.
Tollef: That’s correct. They don’t feed from the root system like terrestrial plants do, they actually feed from the blade undulating through the water and it’s the surface area with the water flowing over. That’s how they collect the nutrients. They’re very efficient at removing nitrogens and phosphorus and also taking in carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen.
It’s a wonderful plant in that respect. The ocean is so efficient at mixing all these elements that the kelp can really capitalize on that and we’re growing what is arguably the healthiest vegetable you can eat with no fresh water, no arable tillable land, no fertilizers or insecticides. I can’t say much more than that. It’s a great way to grow a vegetable.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah I’m in the fact that it already just grows on its own and if you can find an uncontaminated water source, then you can be able to harvest it.
Tollef: The beauty of that is Maine does a really good job of monitoring the waters so we know where the clean waters are and of course the majority of water in Maine is absolutely pristine compared to most of the world. We have so much coastline, a relatively small population and not a lot of industry on the waterfront. There were problems back in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s with the factories up the river but a lot of that has been alleviated now so we’re fortunate in the fact that we’ve got a great medium for raising the product. There’s a lot of wild kelp available but by moving in into aquaculture, we are able to control our source to keep pressure off the wild beds and ensure a more uniform product.
Dr. Lisa: Where are you raising your kelp currently?
Tollef: We have three sites, the farm sites here in Casco Bay in the outer calendar Islands. We have a small site up in the Blue Hill Salt Ponds. We’ve been experimenting up and down the coast to find the best areas. We are working with other folks in helping them to learn how to farm it to produce products for us or for themselves literally from the New Hampshire border to the Canadian border.
Dr. Lisa: You talked about kelp being used or all sea vegetables being used for hundreds of years in different cultures. I think what I’m remembering in reading about my own family’s Irish background, there’s a lot of use of specific types of sea vegetables, kind of things they have available in Ireland. Is this true of all of the ocean going countries around the world?
Tollef: It is. There was a dual fold purpose in Ireland. The folks were lucky enough to have rack rights doing the potato plight where the families who stayed in the rack rights meant that you could scavenge the beach basically and you could eat mussels and seaweed. You had food because the problem was lack of food. Hawaiian royalty four, five hundred years ago actually had private seaweed gardens.
Indigenous communities along the Mexican coast use an eelgrass type equivalent to make flour. Every coastal community throughout the world has used to seaweeds as a component of their diet. In Iceland, you actually have hereditary rights to certain seaweed beds as a family unit because of course you don’t have the ideal growing season for vegetables there.
Dr. Aisa: I was talking to Dean Lunt who was the publisher at Islandport Press and he was saying that up where his family is from, French borough, they take and dry sea vegetables on the shore and then they keep that throughout the winter for various uses so it becomes a nutrient that you can use all year round.
Tollef: One of the seaweeds he’s probably working with is one of the red algaes, it’s called dulse and as we go up into the Maritimes and towards Canada and into Canada, it’s a very popular snack item. It’s actually consumed the way a lot of people eat potato chips or peanuts. It’s just a regular snacking item and you’re literally taking a multivitamin with fiber anytime you eat any of these seaweeds.
Dr. Lisa: As part of the work that I’ve done in Chinese medicine and acupuncture, I have encouraged people to eat seaweed and I usually send them towards dulse or I’ll send them towards this very popular now snack called sea snacks, where they have these little sheets of seaweed and people really like that. But yours is a slightly different product and you use it in slightly different ways.
Tollef: Yes what we’ve done is instead of drying it, we actually present it as a whole vegetable product which makes it very easy to use. It’s extremely palatable. It’s mild. It’s green when left in the form that we do. It’s not strong when you dry it, it can concentrate the flavors and become a little bit overpowering for some people. In the snacks, they moderate that by adding other items but in our presentation, you’ve got a mild green vegetable that can be used across the board.
I do everything from a lobster Benedict to a carrot cake and anything you can think of between with the kelps. It makes it a very easy way to take advantage of the nutritional benefits. Kelp is loaded with selenium, silicium, magnesium, 30 or 40 trace elements and minerals that are extremely difficult to get from terrestrial plants because the soil leaches and you try to replace those nutrients but it’s not cost effective and since we quit using Morton’s iodized salt, kelp is the place to get your iodine.
Dr. Lisa: I think I’ve had your Ocean Approved product at maybe Linda Beans in the kelp pea slaw.
Tollef: That’s correct. She does a kelp pea slaw. She also does a wonderful salmon and poppy oat. I actually do a version of it but I call it [alkelpyoat 00:43:38] and it tastes like traditional fish. They used to be done in a parchment paper and a brown paper bag, instead you wrap it with kelp so instead of cutting the paper open and leaving it on the plate, you’re actually consuming the vegetable as you eat the fish and it’s a beautiful presentation.
Dr. Lisa: Some people also use, I know this is not your product but some people use dried seaweed granules and I’ll put them almost like a protein powder into a smoothie.
Tollef: They do. We’ve actually been playing with smoothies a lot. Our kelps go wonderfully into smoothie, they leave a nice … because of the fiber green [inaudible 00:44:10] in your smoothies. Protein is an interesting one. There’s been a lot of studies on that with the kelps and seaweeds and one thing that has been proven the more seaweed you eat, the more protein you derive from it because you actually change the microbial count in your gut and it takes a certain microbe to really get, derive the protein benefits.
Dr. Lisa: I believe that help and other sea vegetables were very helpful after World War II?
Tollef: Especially in Japan with the nuclear disasters over there. Kelp once again is a great source iodine and iodine is extremely important if you’re exposed to radiation. Of course we are all exposed to radiation everyday so kelp is an integral ingredient to help keep you balanced in that respect.
Dr. Lisa: I also think that I remember reading about a recent nuclear reactor accident after may be a tsunami and one of the things that sea vegetables are doing is actually helping clean up the water around that nuclear reactor.
Tollef: That’s correct. It’s something else too that altered the market. Japan, the Fukushima disaster, Japan had had the lead position in the industry the kelp industry as the best number one product worldwide. We’re kind of moving into that niche a little bit. Now people are afraid of the Japanese kelps a little bit now. China is the largest farmer of kelps but there are some questionable waters over there so people are starting to lean towards our American kelps.
Dr. Lisa: But it does say something really good about kelp in general and maybe you don’t want to be eating the kelp that’s from near Fukushima but you certainly eating kelp is going to be helpful for your own body because it can help clean up some of the things that you might normally ingest or be exposed to yourself.
Tollef: Kelp is fantastic for that. The fiber in kelp as a matter fact two different studies, one in Great Britain and one in Japan, preliminary studies have found that marine fiber 75% more efficient at removing bad fats among other things but they do carry out many of that baddies with them while leaving you with a good source literally, a multivitamin with fiber of selenium, silicium, magnesium, the list just goes on and on and on. But as far as we’re cleaning up the water and it’s a neat thing and farming it is we’re taking advantage of excess nutrients, excess nitrogen phosphors that washes down from uphill.
That’s one of the reasons we don’t have to add any fertilizer in the ocean is extremely efficient in mixing all these. Salt water is composed of the same elements in minerals as our blood basically and so kelp is a real easy vegetable for the body to assimilate and take advantage of.
Dr. Lisa: I will often tell my patients who have thyroid issues or have a family history of thyroid issues that they might enjoy some sea vegetables because of the iodine.
Tollef: My generation grew up with Morton’s iodized salt which was done intentionally with the assistance of the government because iodine is really hard to derive from terrestrial plants or meats. You don’t get adequate and there’s no commercially viable way to add iodine to the fertilizers and get enough. Kelp is the source for that and as things have evolved, this is something that should be added to pretty much everybody’s diet.
I think it’s 43% of the people in this country are iodine deficient right now. As you said, applying that to the thyroid, it’s one of the key parts of your body that requires and regulates your iodine.
Dr. Lisa: In micro-biotic circles, there are different types and Chinese medicine, different types of sea vegetables are used for different things. Some of them are more cooling, some of them are more warming. They have different properties but in general these vegetables seem to be very good for hair and skin and nails.
Tollef: Absolutely. I can take that to a direct correlation. I had a horse back in the 1980s that I took over who was in trouble nutritionally. I used source products with kelp in them and one of the problems we had was to get her to grow hoofs and her hoofs grew. It took almost a year but with constant use of the source products with the iodine, I mean in the kelps, we grew beautiful fur and hooves.
We feed our cat kelp and we literally noticed a difference in the fur. We are working out some topical applications too as opposed to the internal and they worked fantastic too. I work outside year round on the water. I pulled in 3000 feet of line yesterday and that’s when I showed up here, you commented, your hands aren’t rough. It’s from handling the kelp.
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Dr. Lisa: Why are you so passionate about kelp? How did you come to be … I mean you’re clearly very enthusiastic about it and I love this. Why is this so important to you?
Tollef: I’ve been intimately involved with the ocean my entire life. I’ve circled the globe, I’ve crossed the Indian Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I’ve worked in the water. I’ve worked with food and the writings on the wall for the future, our current food model does not work. The FAO brand to the United Nations has flat out stated that at the current population ramp up, we cannot feed the earth past about 2035. We need new ways. I’ve actually been fascinated with this since I read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea when I was about 11 or 12 years old and it stuck.
Dr. Lisa: Were you raised on the ocean?
Tollef: Yes. We’ve started in South Portland, we moved to Auburn Maine and from the time we moved to Auburn until I firmly planted my feet on the beach, all I ever wanted to do is get back to the ocean. I surf. I dive. I sail. I motor boat. The ocean is a huge part of my life.
Dr. Lisa: What about your family? How does your family feel about your dedication to the ocean and also Ocean Approved and the kelp farming that you’re doing?
Tollef: I think they like it. I think sometimes maybe they’re even embarrassed. I’ve been a little bit fortunate in the press that I’ve received but it’s a unique approach to some age old problems. It’s taken a combination of modern technology and known practices and I think they do enjoy the fact that there will be a tad of the legacy here. It’s fun to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve actually recently received not only some acclaim from people in the media world but you’ve also recently received $470,000 worth of grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Maine Technology Institute. This a big deal that you’re actually getting money to do the type of work that you’re doing.
Tollef: Well it’s been a fantastic boost for the company for a small close funded company, it’s really hard to get through the R&D stage and those grants allowed us to move through the R&D stage and create a model that we see as a first step towards a new industry here in Maine and the United States.Shep Earhardt from Maine Coast Sea Vegetables has done an absolutely wonderful job with dried sea vegetables in Maine since the 1980s and a couple others also have but the market like most markets is evolving.
This is a chance to evolve the market in a way that we can integrate the entire coastal community. We see this as a model for … There are many boats that sit unemployed in the winter time. Our crop is cyclical to lobsters, one of the largest marine crops in Maine and so we see this as a job creator. Last year or the year before aquaculture in an area of the size of the Portland Jetport generated $110 million. That’s aquaculture not seaweed, but we see this as a growth industry and we see seaweed as a brand-new component of it.
The best year I can find on record, there were 17 million metric tons of kelp farm worldwide. None of it in the US. This would’ve been about 2005 or so. This has a huge potential for the state of Maine and it has ramifications for the rest of the US also because there are seaweeds, different seaweeds available on all the coastlines.
Dr. Lisa: How is what you’re doing with the kelp and the aquaculture, how is this impacting the ecosystem of the coastline?
Tollef: The beauty of it is right now, we have adequate wild stocks and if they’re carefully harvested, we could maintain them but I’m 58 years old and in my lifetime, I’ve seen so many fisheries go boom and bust and have been a part of them.
Right now, we are carefully using the proper husbandry, maintaining wild beds as we move more and more into farming but moving into farming, we are probably the first company that has ever preemptively gone into aquaculture, fishing industry before there was a shortage of the wild product but this will allow us to move gracefully into the farm product before the native beds are damaged but it also allows us from watching what happens in the wild to pick the best spots to learn how to grow it properly where it really wants to be. We get a more uniform source of our product and we got a guaranteed source of the product into the future instead of counting on mother nature to keep up with us and our demands.
Dr. Lisa: Some of your companies, institutional customers include Mercy Hospital, Gould Academy, Portland Public Schools, Bowden College, University Maine, University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth College, that’s a pretty prestigious group of people are following you and believing in what you’re doing. How is this been so possible?
Tollef: It’s been really fascinating because it’s not only the quality of the food and the health benefits that these institutions are enjoying and especially amongst the students. I’ve been real excited to realize just how socio-economically aware they are. Not only are you getting a product that is being grown in a very sustainable fashion that can perpetuate jobs into the future, the combination of this is exciting.
Then when you look at the nutritional value of this product and how little … little as three or 4 ounces of this kelp a week will give you your iodine needs, not to mention all the trace elements and minerals and it’s also a good source of calcium. It’s a good source of fiber. It’s a good source of so many vitamin A. There’s so many different components to this that it’s really not that surprising these institutions are interested.
Dr. Lisa: What do you see in your future? Your company’s been around since 2006 so you’re heading into 10 years doing this. What is it that you’d like to accomplish?
Tollef: We’d like to keep seen the industry involve and see it become a true industry and not just a novelty. When I opened the company by myself in 2006, even people that respected me were laughing. Some of the scientists at the DMR, they’re like Tollef, what are you thinking? Now, these same people are actually going out and eating kelp and taking it home to their families. What I see is an industry that should continue to grow, create jobs in the state and help the earth while feeding people well into the next century.
Dr. Lisa: How do people find out about Ocean Approved or where can people buy your kelp?
Tollef: The easiest way is to go to oceanapproved.com. Just hit the Internet and you can buy it direct from us online. We do have some retail presence. Harbor Fish downtown Portland is a great place if you want to pick some upper Browne trading as you mentioned earlier. We really haven’t been pushing the retail side right now. As a small company, we found it behooves us to chase the institutional side because these then become our educators. I actually go down to Johnson and Wales University every trimester now for three days and teach seaweeds which the first year I went, people kind of raised eyeballs. The second year it was two times and now, I’m a regular. I’m almost an institution down there.
Dr. Lisa: I must admit, I was at Hugo’s last night and a very interesting dish they created with seaweed. It was something I had eaten before actually at the same Earth at Hidden Pond, they also use seaweed so I think that what you’re doing must be sort of be seeping out there. People are definitely paying attention.
Tollef: When I wrote my business plan, the first paragraph was the biggest hurdle in this industry is going to be the education of the consumer because we have a dedicated group that like seaweed but to move from that dedicated group to a larger segment of the population is a difficult move and the way that we’ve made that is by changing our market form by not drying the kelp. We actually put it in a form that’s extremely easy to use. You open the package and you can eat it right out of the package which you can with dried but it’s very versatile and you can use it anyplace you would use a mild green vegetable and some places you wouldn’t think of. I literally use it from lobster Benedict in the morning to carrot cake in the evening.
Dr. Lisa: I encourage people to go online, find Ocean Approved. Try out your product. I have. It’s quite good. Learn more about sea vegetables and the benefit of sea vegetables and what sea vegetables can do for an individual’s health but also not only an individual’s health but also the health of really the state of Maine and the ecologic systems that exist off the coast so I appreciate your coming in today.
Tollef: Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Tollef Olson who is the founder of Ocean Approved, a Maine-based kelp company and you can read more about Tollef in Maine Magazine’s article by Susan Connelly.
You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 161, Treasures from the Sea. Our guests have included Dr. Mike and Wendy Taylor and Tollef Olson. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes.
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