The DOI matches its Crossref record; 163 of the 163 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Developing algae as a sustainable food source
Open accessAbstract
Current agricultural and food production practices are facing extreme stress, posed by climate change and an ever-increasing human population. The pressure to feed nearly 8 billion people while maintaining a minimal impact on the environment has prompted a movement toward new, more sustainable food sources. For thousands of years, both the macro (seaweed and kelp) and micro (unicellular) forms of algae have been cultivated as a food source. Algae have evolved to be highly efficient at resource utilization and have proven to be a viable source of nutritious biomass that could address many of the current food production issues. Particularly for microalgae, studies of their large-scale growth and cultivation come from the biofuel industry; however, this knowledge can be reasonably translated into the production of algae-based food products. The ability of algae to sequester CO 2 lends to its sustainability by helping to reduce the carbon footprint of its production. Additionally, algae can be produced on non-arable land using non-potable water (including brackish or seawater), which allows them to complement rather than compete with traditional agriculture. Algae inherently have the desired qualities of a sustainable food source because they produce highly digestible proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates, and are rich in essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. Although algae have yet to be fully domesticated as food sources, a variety of cultivation and breeding tools exist that can be built upon to allow for the increased productivity and enhanced nutritional and organoleptic qualities that will be required to bring algae to mainstream utilization. Here we will focus on microalgae and cyanobacteria to highlight the current advancements that will expand the variety of algae-based nutritional sources, as well as outline various challenges between current biomass production and large-scale economic algae production for the food market.
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“This metabolic feature allows microalgae to contribute simultaneously to pollutant removal and, in certain contexts, to alleviating the demand for arable land when compared with conventional agriculture, reinforcing their role as an ecologically viable resource (Abdelfattah et al., 2023; Diaz et al., 2023; Chen et al., 2024; Iñiguez-Moreno et al., 2025).”
From Microalgae biotechnology and its role in sustainable and healthy food design (2025) · cites this paper as Diaz et al., 2023
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Cited by
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Metadata
- Authors
- Diaz, C. J., Douglas, K. J., Kang, K., Kolarik, A. L., Malinovski, R., Torres-Tiji, Y., Molino, J. V., Badary, A., & Mayfield, S. P.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Mayfield, Stephen P.
- Venue
- Frontiers in Nutrition
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2023-01-19
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 1029841-1029841
- ISSN
- 2296-861X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9892066
- OpenAlex
- W4317388099
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 162
- Citations by year
- 2026: 43 · 2025: 74 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 12
- FWCI
- 2.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Nutrition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Algal biology and biofuel production
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Aquatic Science › Aquaculture Nutrition and Growth
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Aquatic Science › Seaweed-derived Bioactive Compounds
- Keywords
- algae-based foods, microalgae, cyanobacteria, sustainable food production, seaweed, kelp, CO2 sequestration, algal biomass, essential fatty acids, nutritional value, economic feasibility
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