Seaweed is riding a wave of media coverage, and seems to be taking the foodie world by storm.

News media are trumpeting the many virtues of sea vegetables, declaring kelp to be "the new kale." The cold-water crop gets high marks for sustainability and nutrition.

Shifting Tides, Growing Trends

Rising ocean temperatures and pollution have hit northeast fisheries hard over the last decade. Since 2004 the Gulf of Maine has been one of the fastest warming area on the planet. In 2012 average water temperatures reached a 150-year high.

Lobsters are creeping north in search of colder water, abandoning the southern edge of traditional grounds like Long Island Sound in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

For the moment that means more lobster catch in Maine, but one of the state's longtime staples, shrimp, are swimming north toward the Arctic. Maine shrimp fisheries have been shut down for the third straight year.

The shift in food sources has sent shockwaves through the whole northeast ecosystem. Puffins are nonplussed.

In search of new industries, state agencies and entrepreneurs on the east coast are turning to shellfish and sea vegetables.

Seaweed aquaculture has been practiced in Asia for centuries, but the domestic market is still in the seeding stage, and despite recent buzz, just how much U.S. demand there will be for kelp and other sea vegetables remains to be seen.

Eat Your Sea Greens

Seaweed has an impressive nutrition portfolio, with high amounts of protein, fiber, Omega-3 fatty acids, iodine, calcium and other micro nutrients.

"Kelp really is a sea vegetable that has high value from a culinary perspective," said Peter Fischer, a co-owner of Maine Sea Farms.

Fischer cultivated shellfish – mussels and oysters – on his current lease, but along with his partners converted grounds along the Damariscotta River for sea vegetable plots over the last couple of years.

The sea greens are seeded along lines strung between moorings a few feet under the water. The season runs from September to May, when the fronds are harvested from boats. It pairs well with the lobster fishing, he says, because those who fish over the winter move offshore and out of the way of the sea green gardens.

He has worked for 40 years in Maine's seafood industry, and has seen the many ups and downs in the state's sea harvests, so he's cautious not to overestimate the market for seaweed products.

"If you want a lasting market, it's not going to come quickly to start with," he said. "We need to outlive this media buzz."

Scrubbing The Sea

Kelp and other seaweed crops offer another crucial benefit – they actually clean the ocean.

Dr. Charles Yarish, seaweed aquaculture pioneer and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut in Stamford, said seaweed absorbs excess nitrogen from the water.

In densely populated areas, agriculture runoff and raw sewage flowing into the sea has inundated the ecosystem with extra nitrogen, which fuels harmful algae blooms.

But Yarish says kelp has adapted to absorb nutrients during the coldest months of the year, before greedy phytoplankton blooms in the early spring and soaks up nutrients, and then use that stored energy for a burst of growth.

This fast growth means kelp absorbs carbon dioxide and provides a buffer against another marine threat – ocean acidification.

"So what we're doing is capitalizing on the kelp life cycle, when they take up their nutrients, and we work around issues of global climatic change, if anything, if we are growing kelp in the coastal waters off the coast of Maine, we may even have a longer growing season."

The state of Connecticut has launched a nitrogen credit program, based on the carbon credit system, that gives incentives to upgrade sewage treatment to reduce the amount of nitrogen released into the ocean. Yarish is working with the state on a deal that would give aquaculture operations -- including shellfish and kelp farms -- credit for extracting nitrogen from the water.

The seaweed guru has made research in his laboratory open source to encourage others to grow the crop. Since he began experimenting a decade ago, seaweed aquaculture based on his work has expanded in Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland and Germany.

But how does it taste? Peter Fischer describes kelp as a mild vegetable that can be added to chowder any seafood dish to give it a briny boost. It also goes well in dried form on eggs, salad or stir fry.

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