The most under-exploited crop on our planet are seaplants which are recently receiving more publicity due to their ability to be sustainably cultivated in offshore ocean waters not requiring precious freshwater resources for irrigating dirt-poor soils that have been depleted of nutrients by decades of toxic chemical additives for intensive agriculture.

Seaplants promise to become an important alternative to the global vegetable diet for augmenting the global food supply chain driven by the existential threat of climate change and greater awareness of agriculture's enormous carbon footprint. Moreover, seaplants are marine “ﬁxators” for bio-remediating eutrophic waters.

As seaplants are introduced into western diets, there will be increased interest from the health-food industry about their nutraceutical benefits. Seaplants are loaded with bioactive compounds including polysaccharides, proteins, carotenoids, phenolic compounds, vitamins, essential minerals, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. These compounds mitigate diseases affecting humans, such as hyperglycemia, diabetes, metabolic disorders, cancer, pathogenic diseases, aging, obesity, bone-related diseases, and neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.

This emerging “Seaplant Pharma Industry” will mandate innovative methods to standardize or control the nutritional value because of the widely variable composition attributed to seaplants ability to rapidly adapt to abiotic and biotic factors. The variation of the nutritional values is dependent on the species cultivated, seasons, seawater nutrients, and other environmental stress factors such as temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, UV radiation, light, and damage from herbivory and disease.

Currently, there is also a lack of regulation requiring food or supplement companies to have labels with information about the essential minerals and its potential heavy metal content such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic. There will be a need to control extraction, production, and processing for certifying and standardizing products with these ingredients for classifying them as safe. Nutritional values will be monitored in the future for standardization, quality control, and certification.

Several global certification programs exist for seaplant sustainability, although none have been widely used. The most robust program was created jointly by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council. Key requirements for receiving the ASC-MSC certification include ensuring that wild seaplants stocks are sustainable, environmental impacts including pollution are minimized, worker safety and fair wages are in place, and community relations are positive.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates seaplants that circulate in interstate commerce in its whole form as a food product. However, when used as a food additive, the FDA considers seaplants "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS). A "food additive" legally refers to any substance for which the intended use results in it becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food. Thus, food additives are not subject to FDA's premarket review and approval with a GRAS designation.

The GRAS loophole will drive seaplant products to the global $168 billion Dietary & Supplement Industry. However, this loophole, emerging sustainability certifications, and nutrient variables will require a transparent and resilient supply chain for assuring customers of a secure chain of custody from seed to sale.