Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood, but “then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden”

Growing up in southern Spain he paid little attention to the seagrass meadows as he swam near his home in the Bay of Cádiz.  Decades later, when becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs, he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina – a clutch of tiny green grains clinging to the base of the eelgrass, and wondered whether this marine grain could be edible.  The chef is now on a mission to recast eelgrass as a potential superfood; gluten-free, high in omega-6 and -9 fatty acids, containing 50% more protein than rice per grain and when eaten with the husk on, similar to brown rice plus a hint of the sea.

Seagrass’s carbon sequestration potential hasn’t escaped notice and seems destined to be a selling point.

León envisions a global reach for the project, paving the way for people to harness the plant’s potential to boost aquatic ecosystems, feed populations and fight the climate crisis.  The push is now on to scale up the project, initially adapting salt marshes into areas for cultivating eelgrass.

“In a world that is three-quarters water, it could fundamentally transform how we see oceans,” says León. “This could be the beginning of a new concept of understanding the sea as a garden … If you respect the areas in the sea where this grain is being grown, it would ensure humans take care of it. It means humans would defend it.”

Whilst León clearly sees his idea as the holy grail of a win-win-win, there are too many past examples of natural resource overexploitation to ignore.  Is his idea of the oceans as a garden welcome or his faith in humanity defending the seas because of the food it provides naïve?  The first casualty already appears to be salt-marsh, despite its immense carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services value.  Click here