SEA ASPARAGUS

For some reason, this posting was not published on January 19.  Made an adjustment, so perhaps this will occur today.

Well, that Gaza Strip ceasefire deal began at 8:30AM local time, and three hours later the Hamas delivered the first three hostages.

• They were in captivity for 471 days.
• By now Israel should have released 90 Palestinian prisoners.

TikTok went dark Saturday night.  

• However this afternoon, TikTok announced that it would begin restoring service to U.S. users.  They thanked President-elect Trump for his save.  
• There are three with more than a hundred million followers.
• #1 is Khabane  Lame (right), an influencer from Italy and Senegal.  He has 162.4 million following him.

Khaby Lame is incredibly popular on TikTok because he creates silent, comedic reaction videos that mock overly complicated "life hacks" by showing simple, obvious solutions with exaggerated facial expressions, making his content universally relatable and funny without needing to speak any language; essentially, he pokes fun at people overthinking basic tasks, which resonates with a wide audience across the globe. 

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  #10 is The Rock with 76.2, M #12 actor Smith 74.9 M, #13 is the BTS band with 71.2 M, followed by  Billie Eilish at #14 with 69.6 M, #17 Selena Gomez 58.1 M, #32 ESPN 50 M, #33 Blackpink 49.3 M, #35 Netflix 46.4M, etc.
• About TikTok's future, Trump said he would give ByteDance of China more time to find an approved buyer.  He said, Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, and went further by crediting TikTok for helping him win support from young voters.
• There are 170 million American TikTok users.

Okay, now on to the topic of the day, something new for most of you, SEA ASPARAGUS.

•  Is a popular name for Salicornia, a succulent which is salt tolerant, growing in marshes, beaches and mangroves.
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  Green, but in some locales, turns red in autumn.
• Has many names:  glasswort, pickleweed, picklegrass, sea beans and marsh samphire.
• Can be dehydrated, pulverized and sold as Green Salt, a salt substitute that is salt, but with less sodium.
• ... loaded with minerals, calcium, iron, Vitamin B and C and is exceptionally high in Vitamin A.

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  In South Korea, Phyto Corporation extracts the low-sodium salt from S. europaea to treat high blood pressure and fatty liver disease.  Also sells Salicornia powder containing an antioxidative and antithrombus polyphenyls to reduce obesity and arteriosclerosis.

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  Where to find.
• In the wild, in addition to what is mentioned above, where rivers meet the ocean.
• Gardens and farms.
• Markets.
• Restaurants, in garnishes and salads.
• Plant is used in phytoextraction, as for example, removing selenium from soil.
• The ashes of salicornia (which is mostly sodium carbonate) are used for making glass and soap.
• Plant can be produced for animal feed.
• Plant can be grown in saline soils for biofuel feedstock.
• Cleanses water in shrimp farming.

More than a quarter century ago I assisted a young PhD graduate from the University of Hawaii, Wenhao Sun, who was interested in genetically engineering land plants to grow in the ocean.  My thought was wow, what if this can be accomplished, for expensive farm lands can be replaced with the ocean around us, where the space is largely free, with it's own source of water.  If the process can be patented, we would control the future of agriculture, for there is a lot more available space in certain oceans than anywhere on land where things can be grown.  We would also reduce global warming.  This would be a key application of the Blue Revolution.  The thought still excites me.

So anyway, the University of Hawaii helped him get a patent to grow land plants in seawater, and they each have half a share of this investment.  Sun formed a company to test out his plan and I joined his board. 

His first task was growing akulikuli (photo below) at the Ala Wai Golf Course.  Something interesting happens.  First, most plants send out toxins to kill the competition.  Akulikuli is salt tolerant and gets rid of algae.  You must know how filthy the Ala Wai Canal looks.  The waters around his growth were crystal clear.  Photoremediation was a new concept, but was funding was difficult.

This plant is scientifically called Sesuvium portulacastrum, and also known as portulaca.  No actual gene engineering yet.  Just land plants that are salt-tolerant.  The kiawe tree, incidentally, is also in this class.  Thus, you see it along the coastline.  So anyway, he let his UH patent expire, mostly because he could get no personal advantage out of it.   He recently told me, though that he is attempting to resurrect the patent.

He founded Marine Agrifuture at one of those Kahuku (on Oahu) ponds, and was able to find a land plant, gasswort (Salicornia) or  sea asparagus, as a super food.  Read a 2008 article:

• good for stomach and skin, while detoxifying your liver and improve muscle formation
• loaded with vitamin A, B2, B9, folic acid and trimethylglycine (TMG)
• quinoa and spinach has more TMG than anything else you consume, except that sea asparagus has three or so times more
• TMG improves your mood and lowers blood pressure
• He sent me a particularly interesting article on sea asparaguswhich I urge you to read
• Sea Asparagus Powder seems like an intriguing additive I should try

A 2011 article reports that naturally growing below the floating sea asparagus was ogo (seaweed), which became a second crop.  Further, the water is brackish, so no herbicides are necessary.  These sold under his Olakai Hawaii brand in most supermarkets.  However, in 2016 he ran into a salmonella problem.  They found a solution, but he lost 40% of his expected revenues.  He has since recovered and now is the largest producer of both both ogo and sea aparagus in Hawaii.

So here we were, more than a decade ago, seeking funding to support our marine goals.  I put him in contact with the Seasteading Institute, for both his company and the strategy of the Institute sought immediate profits.  My Blue Revolution is a long-term dream to help save Planet Earth and Humanity.

Turns out that one common link to the people involved has to do with Stanford connections, where I got a degree.  Wenhao's son, Hongzhe, was a world-class swimmer, graduated from Iolani, going on to Stanford.  Amazingly enough, around this same period, three of my staff members I recruited around 1990 to join the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, also had sons at Stanford.  Peter Thiel graduated from Stanford.  We both (Wenhao and I) agree that the key to progress is to find that right billionaire who is seeking a nautical legacy.

Hongzhe entered the financial field in the East Coast, and with a lawyer contact, helped Wenhao get a second patent.  This version features polyculture, and might well be more flexible for business applications.  He tried expanding to China, but he doesn't trust the people and system there, for they stole his ideas.  

In addition to his new patent, he has trademarked his products, just  as Blue Revolution Hawaii did, and we now own the term, Blue Revolution.  He favors Blue-Green Revolution, and will next be into franchising the concept.  The next stage will occur on an atoll in the Marshalls.  Anyone got $5 million to invest in this initiative?

Six years ago we had lunch to discuss all the above.  In the meantime, my Blue Revolution initiative is being passed on to the University of Hawaii for their pursuit, and I almost every two weeks purchase his Olakai sea asparagus and ogo.  

To keep up with the latest on his efforts, Wenhao this weekend hosted a dinner in Waikiki, which included his fundraising contacts.  We went to Duke's because they use his sea asparagus in fish dishes.

Wenhao with wife Jane.

The table.  The three males are super successful in their businesses, and one is truly rich. Interesting that three of these families below had children going to Stanford.

My meal started with a salad.

I then had their seafood specialty, and note the sea asparagus.

Also.

I won't say who, but one of them owns a Bordeaux (France) mansion with more than a thousand acres in grapes, and invited us to his home, plus, his family is building a museum of their industries just outside of Tokyo, Japan.  I should finally add that if you want to converse with your dinner mates, DON'T go to Duke's.  The noise level is so high that I couldn't hear myself.

Finally, SEA ASPARAGUS is an ideal ingredient for the Hawaii poké.  It is crunchy and salty. 15 Craigside had a Hawaiian night, with lau lau, lomi lomi salmon and haupia.  So I just had to make my very special poké.  I went to Tamashiro's to get some ahi (yellow-fin tuna), kukui nuts, lomi kohe, ogo, Olakai sea asparagus and kazunoko.  Added some onions, cucumbers and hot sauce.  There is my optimal combination for poké.  Good grade ahi (yellow-fin tuna) from Tamashiro.  Better than aku or albacore, for the maguro flesh is firmer.

Standard ingredients for poke are limu kohu and kukui inamona.  The latter is the seed of the kukui nut.  The outer shell is polished and made into a lei.

Kukui inamona.

Ahi with kazunoko, which nobody else I know uses.

With cucumber and onions added.

The final Takahashi poké.

We had this poké with lau lau, poi, chicken long rice, lomi lomi salmon, rice and a bottle of Petit Syrah.

I'll close with Donald Trump's rally at the Capital One Arena, which just ended with the Village People and YMCA .  You got to click on that, for I've never seen The Donald so delighted.  Watch him dance.

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