Cladophora/Kaipen?

Anyone have any experience foraging cladophora from the lake or beaches? They harvest it from the Mekong in Laos and Thailand and call it Kaipen. People eat fish from Lake Michigan, so you'd think lower on the food chain would has less bioaccumulation of bad stuff. I have read some about bacteria associated with the rotting masses on the beaches, but I imagine if one gets it before it rots it won't be spoiled. Atleast they harvest it fresh in Asia.

I doubt it but I will let others reply. Here is a you tube video of what it looks like. To get fresh living stuff you would have to dive down to get it and notice that there are tiny lake animals living in it. This stuff lives in large mats in the Great lakes now and its not a good thing. Storm surges and wave action can break it loose and bring it to shore but who knows how long the stuff has been floating around and rotting in the lakes. Its a huge problem. It would be nice if someone could in fact harvest it but I am thinking more for using it as fertilizer or farm feed. It does not look too appetizing to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHH_znRILw0

Interesting idea! I saw that in a cookbook and always wondered. I agree with toria, it may be hard to access the fresh, living Cladophora-- and also note that it will only be as good as the water it was harvested from. I was at the beach north of Port Washington, WI last weekend and you could have harvested thousands of pounds from the shoreline-- unfortunately, only worthy of compost, dead and rotting. Cladophora might be an interesting species for aquaculture.

Cheers, Jen

Nobody really wants it here its an invasive species. But since its here, somebody has to figure out how to control it or get rid of it. I do know if you google it you can take alook at what control and research programs are being carried out.

I am assuming if you fed it to farm animals, it could make them taste fishy. I do not know if that is true though.