Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-01-22
Bottom Of Ocean Offers
New Food PotentiuIities
Tiny Organisms Some Day
Moy Be Served on TobIe
By Thomos r. Henry

Inc seas false bottoms" may con-
stitute an enormous human food source.
This is the conclusion Of DR.. Francis
j. Weiss, food and nutrition consultant.
in report just published in the Ameri-
can Chemical Society's Journal Of 4gri.
cultural and Food Chemistry.
THESE "false bottoms" were discov-
cred by the Navy during the war; Sound
echoes indicated sea bottoms where
it was known that none existed. These
rose at dusk and sank at dawn. It
now is generally accepted that they
are due to enormous concentrations
, Of some sort of marine life at cepths
of between 900 and 2,700 feet.
One widely accepted theory, DR..
Weiss says. is that these organisms are
euphauSiacea. small crustacea closely
related to shrimps. Surface species are
an important food source for whales.
Square miles Of the Antarctic are red
with one variety.
Food Source Seen.
They would constitute q food Of high
nutritiye value, DR.. Weiss says.
'The day may come" he predicts.
when large hoses will be put down
AAOA1 oAAAPo W pump WdUCI COIlLdlLllLlB
these organisms to the surface where
the organic matter can be strained out.
Such collection of small marine ami
mails from the depths of the ocean may
be greatly facilitated by another very
recent discovery. That is that ami
mails, when exposed to an electric field,
swim to the anode and are paralyzed
by sufficiently strong currents"
Sponges also, he believes, promise to
be an important food source of the fu-
ture. A sponge is essentially q great
colony Of sedentary one-celled animals
like protocol. 1t is considered, how
ever. as q single animal.
"Of the known 5000 species of this
animal" DR.. Weiss says, "only Is are
commercially used in the form of their
fibrouS skeletons which serve, due to
their water-holding capacity. for bath
ing and hopping purposes. In order to
obtain the natural bath sponge the liv-
ing sponge, which resembles Shiny
beef liver, must be killed and its prop
toplasms allowed to decay. This So
called curry" weighs about three times
as much as the skeleton and is rich in
proteins, vitamins and minerals.
considering an annual sponge pro-
duction of 2 million pounds. we can
well imagine how much valuable Or
ganic matter is needlessly wasted"
Some Near Surface.
The sea offers many other unex-
plotted food sources, some quite near
the surface. Says DR.. Weiss: The dis
covery of lobster grounds and red crab
deposits extending over hundreds of
square miles offshore from Cape Cod
and the rapid development of a large
crab industry along the Atlantic Coast
are just two instances of potentialities.
The large clam, or ocean quahog,
resembles the ordinary hard clam ex-
cept that the former is about the size
Of a large hand. Buried in the muddy
bottom of the sea about 100 feet deep
it came into prominence only after the
Second World War and is now scraped
off the ocean floor in large quantities.
1t is converted. throughsh highly mechan-
lied processes, into nutritious foods
and nothing remains unutilized. What
does not go into cans for human food
is used as valuable feedStuff supple
ment for farm animals.
Another valuable sea food that is
very little known in this country, but
which offers enormous potentialitieS
Tor the future, is the sea mussel which
forms large beds along the North At
lantic Coast. 1t can easily be harvested
with present equipment and forms an
excellent article of diet when steamed.
fried or chowdered."