New Zealand Seaweed Reading Passage
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New Zealand Seaweed Reading Passage
Paragraph A
A particularly nutrient-dense diet, seaweed concentrates and absorbs small portions of numerous minerals essential to the body's wellness. Aluminium, barium, calcium, chlorine, copper, iodine, and iron are just a few of the many elements that can be found in seaweed. Traces of these elements are typically formed by erosion and transported to the seaweed beds by river and sea currents. Seaweeds are also a good source of vitamins; in fact, Eskimos eat a lot of seaweed to meet their needs for vitamin C.
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Seaweed's nutritional importance has been widely recognised. For illustration, the Japanese and Maori people, who have historically consumed seaweed, have extraordinarily low rates of goitre, which the high iodine concentration of these foods may explain. According to studies into historical Maori eating habits, Seaweeds, fresh fruit, nuts, cape gooseberries, fuchsia and tutu berries, and a variety of other fruits that either naturally flourished here or were cultivated from seeds, were used to make jellies, which were brought by settlers and explorers.
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Over 700 species of seaweed are native to New Zealand, some of which are unrepresented elsewhere. New Zealand also grows a significant portion of numerous species that are cultivated globally. For instance, Gigartina, a close relative of carrageen or Irish moss, is thought to have 30 species in New Zealand. The New Zealand carrageens are the name given to these. This species has a wide range of commercial uses thanks to the gel-forming substance called agar that can be extracted from them, including toothpaste, cough mixture, confectionary, cosmetics, canning, paint, and leather industries, as well as the production of duplicating pads and seameal, from which seameal custard is produced. In actuality, New Zealand Gigartina, during World War II, was sent to Australia to be used in toothpaste.
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Although there are numerous red seaweeds that are commercially successful and may be used to make agar in New Zealand (including Pterocladia, Gelidium, Chondrus, and Gigartina), there wasn't much of a use for them prior to 1940. The Northern Hemisphere Irish moss (Chondrus crispus) from England and ready-made agar from Japan were once imported by New Zealand, respectively. Even though the Gigartina's range is restricted to specific places according to the species, its occurrence is only rare on the east coast of the North Island. And even then, there is still a sizable supply of the two Pterocladia species from which agar can be obtained along the east coast and in the surroundings of Hokiangna. Fortunately, health food stores now manufacture agar in New Zealand.
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Seaweeds are categorised into three classes based on colour: red, brown, and green. Each class has a preferred habitat. However, few are completely one colour, especially when dried, with the exception of the recognisable sea lettuce (Ulva).
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A brown species may turn almost completely black, whereas a red species may seem black, brown, pink, or purple. Nonetheless, because the elements that determine where seaweed will grow are highly accurate and consequently tend to occur in very well-defined zones, identification is still made easier. Notwithstanding a few exceptions, green seaweeds are often found in shallow-water algae, whereas brown seaweeds are found in medium depths and red seaweeds are found in deeper waters. Sea bombs, Venus' necklace, and the majority of the brown seaweeds are most frequently seen on flat rock surfaces close to mid-level tides. The purple laver, commonly described as the Maori karengo, which resembles a reddish-purple lettuce, is also found here. Bull kelp, strap weeds, and other hardy species are typically found on deep-water rocks on open coasts that are only exposed at very low tide. Species that can withstand prolonged exposure to the sun and air are typically found on the upper shore, whereas species that can't withstand it as well are typically located closer to or below the low-water line. Seaweed zones are influenced by the sun's radiation, water temperature, and time spent immersed.
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Seaweeds can spread through spores or through the fertilisation of egg cells. Few have leaves, none have flowers, fruits, or seeds, and none have roots in the normal sense. When a plant is submerged in water, it absorbs nutrients through its fronds; the base, or "holdfast," of seaweed is merely an attaching organ and not an absorbing one.
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Some of the large seaweeds, like bull kelp, contain huge air-filled cells, while others, like air-filled floats, maintain their buoyancy. Certain plants that spend a lot of time in the open air frequently prevent dehydration by having swollen stems that are filled with water, having swollen nodules (like Venus' necklace), or having an unusual shape like a sea bomb. Some, like the sea cactus, have a mucilage-coated surface or are filled with sticky fluid. Its layer has two purposes in some of the larger kelps: it keeps the plant moist, and it shields it from the destructive action of waves.
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