The use of Seaweed to cure a wide variety of cancers is well documented.

Brown seaweed and a variety of kelps are the best, but where does this seaweed come from?

 

 

The best seaweeds come from the Pacific Ocean gathered by communities of poor people living on the coast of Chile.

Paula and I had heard of these communities and took the ‘Living Wild in South America’ expedition off to Chile to find out what was going on.

As we travelled up the Chilean coast we came across families living in makeshift shacks right on the beach-line and their living was made by collecting seaweed.

We chatted to many of the seaweed gatherers and they were generally content with their work. With so few other employment opportunities, seaweed gathering enabled them to live in their communities, close to the beautiful Pacific Ocean, supplementing their income with artisan fishing.

Men and women, mostly middle aged or older, would be out collecting at dawn. Many of them knew that seaweed cures cancer and that was one of their reasons for collecting it.

 

Many went deep into the sea, swimming between rocks and pulling the weed out of crevices,  the surf sometimes crashing over them.

 

Some were diving deeper underwater to obtain different and more valuable types of seaweed.

 

The seaweeds would be left in the sun to dry and then collected up.  It was back-breaking work.

 

Once a week a truck would pull into the village and the seaweed was piled on top.  This oceanic treasure was then driven up the coast to a port for eventual shipping to Japan.