New wave healing: Seaweed seen as huge benefit

Hillary Krapf, Holistic Healer from Portland, with poster of Maine seaweed. (Courtesy photo/SMGC)

SPRINGVALE - Southern Maine Garden Club met on Oct. 15 at the Springvale Library for an informative lecture on the healing properties and other benefits of Maine seaweed and kelp by Hillary Krapf, a holistic healer from Portland.

Krapf became interested in seaweed after an illness brought many challenges, and being a healer, she turned to nontraditional methods of healing. She both ingested and used seaweed externally. Consequently, she became an enthusiastic advocate for the healing properties of seaweed and she feels it can have a positive impact on local food culture and marine industry with seaweed cultivation and harvesting. Harvesting seaweed is scheduled between April and June and it is legal to take up to 50 pounds a day.

Hillary feels that seaweed is Maine's superfood in addition to being a wonderful additive to our garden soil. She described the first annual Seaweed Festival she had organized this past August 30 at Southern Maine Community College. The festival concentrated on seaweed education and community outreach. There were many food vendors in attendance with concentration of all foods made with seaweed. FMI on the Seaweed Festival go to www.seaweedfest.com. Krapf had samples for meeting attendees of popcorn dusted with seaweed and it was quite tasty. She told us that she likes Rockweed the best, but Maine has about 10 different species. The 2015 Seaweed Festival will be on August 29.

SMGC meets throughout the year at the Springvale Library on the third Wednesday of every month beginning at 6:30 PM (unless otherwise noted). The public is invited to attend to sample our meetings to see if you would like to join us. The next meeting will be on Wednesday, November 19^th at the Library and the presenter will be Linda Aaskov and her talk is entitled: "Shake Shake Shake" - it is an illustrated trip through the Shaker Village Museum. FMI please contact in ME - Mary Stewart-Dore at 207-490-1833 or in NH - Donna Claveau at 603-332-4860.