Forget kale.

Yes, gourmands, it's time to embrace a new trend-sea vegetables. Specifically kelp. And who better to give you kelp-help than a man who has had a genus of kelp named after him?

Marine botanist Louis Druehl, who lives south of Long Beach at Bamfield, has revised and expanded his guide, Pacific Seaweeds (Harbour $28.95), co-written with Bridgette E. Clarkston, as the authoritative guide to over 100 common species of seaweeds in the Pacific Northwest. So we asked Louis for his Top Ten Things You Don't Know About Kelp. This way, when you chow down on sea vegetables at a high-end restaurant, you can be more knowledgeable than the waiter.

Louis Druehl and his wife rae operate
Canadian Kelp Resources Ltd., a company that produces a line of sea vegetables (Barkley Sound Kelp). A kelp genus called Druehlii was named after him, but when an older name resurfaced, the accreditation had to be dropped. Subsequently a kelp species restricted to Haida Gwaii was named Saccharina druehlii. The Japanese have long eaten kelp.
Restaurants in B.C. that serve "sea vegetables"; include Tojo's Japanese Restaurant, Wickinninish Inn and The Wolf in the Fog featuring Bamfield Seaweed Salad. The Tofino Brewey makes Kelp Stout.
Pacific Seaweeds: 978-1550172409
Cedar, Salmon: 978-1-926991-61-0

Top Ten Things You Don't Know About Kelp

1. The female kelp produces a perfume that attracts the sperm. This substance smells like gin.
2. Kelp is the source of umami, a flavour enhancer. The new scientific discipline of gastrophysics was partly started to understand "savory taste,"; one of the five basic tastes (including sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness).
3. The brown pigment of kelp, fucoxanthin, is a strong antioxidant.
4. The slime of kelp, fucoidan, is thought to hold off the diseases associated with aging (hypertension, diabetes, stroke, etc.).
5. Iodine, as an element, was first discovered in kelp. The concentration of iodine in kelp is up to 20,000 greater than in seawater.
6. The San Francisco Philharmonic featured kelp horns on one occasion.
7. In case of nuclear war or meltdown of a nuclear plant, eat some kelp and load up your thyroid gland with the good cold stuff and not the radioactive iodine that can be lethal.
8. Kelp are not plants or animals but plantamials. They are sessile and photosynthetic but when it comes to microscopic structure, egg and sperm sex and not pollen and stigma sex, they are animals.
9. Kelp is considered an excellent source of biofuel. It can be easily grown, does not compete with corn and the like for valuable agricultural land. I call the potential alcohol derived from kelp, kelpanol.
10. Kelp brownies are substituted for dope confections by matured hippies.