sourdough, seaweed

Add extra minerals in your sourdough

I have a top tip for you in this post. I’ve always had a keen interest in sourdough and nutrition – it fascinates me and in the Summer of 2014 my ears pricked up when I posted some sourdough starter to a lady called Fiona author of The Foragers Kitchen in the Outer Hebrides. She explained to me that adding seaweed to her sourdough was a great way to boost minerals in your daily bread. She was writing a book called Seaweed in the Kitchen. In return for the starter she kindly sent me back some fresh seaweed, which arrived in an envelope some days later. It was beautiful stuff. The most delicate green colour and it smelled like the beach on a spring morning. Fresh and briny.

Sea weed is mineral rich and seaweed has full access minerals at levels that many commercially produced vegetables that are grown in nutrient-poor soil do not have. Seaweed is also a fantastic source of calcium, folate, iodine, and magnesium as well as being rich in B vitamins. For me baking sourdough isn’t just about eating good bread. It’s about optimising the nutitional value of the food we eat, so adding seaweed is a wonderfully sustainable way to do this.

Later on that summer I met Tim, one of the founders, of Cornish seaweed company through Captain Arjen Van der Veen of the tres Hombres in Falmouth. Since then I have always recommended using their seaweed, not just because of the fact it such a great product, but that they are great people too, with principles. The kind of people I really like. So here is the video that tells you a bit more about them.

So how do you add seaweed to sourdough?
It’s really simple to add seaweed to sourdough. The sea weed arrives dried. It is easy to rehydrate and then I keep the seaweed fresh in the fridge in some slightly salted water, which I also used in the loaf and simply chopped the seaweed up and added it after the initial mix of flour and water. (I only used a small amount of seaweed, but for anyone wanting to reduce the amount of salt in their loaf adding a good couple of tablespoons of seaweed instead would would be a fabulous salt substitute.)

The result? Well I was expecting some objections from the family, but surprisingly the result was a mild flavour, that complimented both cheese we enjoyed with it and the carrot soup the following day wonderfully.

You can buy fresh seaweed from www.cornishseaweed.co.uk

All reasonable care is taken when writing about health aspects of bread, but the information it contains is not intended to take the place of treatment by a qualified medical practitioner. You must seek professional advice if you are in any doubt about any medical condition. Any application of the ideas and information contained on this website is at the reader's sole discretion and risk.

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About Dr Vanessa Kimbell

Dr Vanessa Kimbell is acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost authorities on bread and human health — the first person to hold a doctorate in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine and Preventative Healthcare, and the pioneer who, long before gut health became a mainstream concern, first identified the crucial role bread plays in the gut microbiome and mental wellbeing. A fourth-generation baker of Italian descent, she has been baking sourdough since the age of 11, served her traditional apprenticeship in the Dordogne, and is a time-served, French-trained qualified baker who has worked alongside some of the world’s greatest bakers including Richard Hart and Gabriele Bonci. She has spent four decades asking the questions the food industry preferred no one asked: why was industrial mono bread slowly harming us, and what would it take to make bread that genuinely nourishes?

The answer became her life’s work. As founder and Course Director of The Sourdough School in Northamptonshire — a world-renowned centre of research and education — she has taught bakers from over 84 countries, integrated the BALM (Baking as Lifestyle Medicine) Protocol into NHS clinical practice at Bethlem Royal Hospital, and developed Proven Bread: the first bread built on clinical evidence, personalised to the individual through nutrigenetics and gut microbiome assessment. She delivered the Royal College of General Practitioners‘ approved course in the Nutrition of Bread, has been a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme for many years, and collaborates with leading scientists and clinicians including Professor Tim Spector — who credits her with teaching people to make the healthiest bread in the world — and Professor David Veale. Named the Sourdough Queen by The Telegraph in 2013, her influence reaches far beyond the classroom — from artisan bakers and healthcare professionals to the world’s leading food scientists and multinational food corporations.

A bestselling international author of five books, her sixth — Proven — publishes in November 2026.

More information about Vanessa can be found at
The Sourdough School,
The Sourdough Club,
on Instagram at @SourdoughClub,
@SourdoughSchool and
@vanessakimbell,
on Facebook and
LinkedIn.