Articles

Dermot Twomey, a food technologist for over 40 years. has developed a range of healthy seaweed snacks that are completely organic.

The Corkman, who has worked abroad in countries such as South Africa and Saudi Arabia, has produced a range of salads that optimise a plentiful but underutilised resource.

He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: ‘When I got near to retirement age I decided I’d work for myself. My food technology background and my interest in nutritional eating combined when I came across the kind of seaweed products that they eat in the Far East.

“I remember eating seaweed in stews when I was a child. But Asians would eat it in a much more palatable way than just thrown in with a stew. So I felt this would be an ideal way to combine both worlds.”

Dermot’s company, Healthy You. produces salads with more than 20 vitamins and minerals. Seaweed is also a major source of iodine, essential for maintaining healthy thyroid function. He explained: “There’s about 20 different minerals and traces of elements that are more or less essential co-factors in different biochemical reactions in your body, all associated with digestion and energy transfer. “If you are depleted in them, some of these reactions may not be completed at all.”

Dermot has teamed up with the Food Academy Programme, a joint initiative between SuperValu, BordBia and the Local Enterprise Office Network, to make his Healthy You range available in local supermarkets.

And he believes people are more open to the idea of a seaweed salad. He said “I would say try it, and you will be utterly surprised”