Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 March 4

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March 4

Duckweed

I am having a hard time finding Duckweed supplements for sale on the internet. I am looking for nutritional supplements of subfamily here 64.170.21.194 (talk) 06:37, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I can find no evidence that it is used as a nutritional supplement. Do you have any ? StuRat (talk) 06:44, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

No i don't ='( I was hoping there was due to the fact that this seems so nutritious after reading the wiki article. 64.170.21.194 (talk) 06:56, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Whaaat? I'm not seeing anything in the article suggesting any sort of nutritional value. The applications section discusses its uses as a water filter and as fuel -- not fuel for your body, but for engines. EDIT: Ok, I do see one line about its protein, where it is referred to as a potential food source. I'm also reminded of how the popularity of quinoa caused the people who had been relying on it for ages to lose access to their staple crop. Ian.thomson (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Citing Lemnoideae#Duckweed_in_various_environments: Duckweed is an important high-protein food source for waterfowl and also is eaten by humans in some parts of Southeast Asia. So it's used as food (not just potential food), if we may believe our own Wikipedia article. That leaves the OP's question still open. Jahoe (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

This article [1] mentions duckweed eaten as a vegetable in Burma, Laos and Thailand. That's still not an answer for the OP (web shops may be not in English and a rarity in those countries). In some places harvesting from your own environment may be a good possibility. Jahoe (talk) 12:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh and here [2] is a nice recipe for duckweed soup. Jahoe (talk) 12:44, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

(EC) While this is interesting, there remains the open question of what the OP means "this seems so nutritious", especially since they are referring to supplements and not food. Is the protein that interests i.e. are we thinking of a vegan body builder sort of target market? If so, I'd note that even with a high protein level, this doesn't mean it's a better source than current sources as it depends on costs and how complete the protein is. I'd note that supplements can tend to have a fair amount of processing. It seems likely it'll be difficult to compete with current sources since even if the protein level is actually very high relatively (which we don't really know), the costs are just not going to add up unless you start a big operation as other sources are already widely produced. E.g. probably most people will recognise nearly every source in this list [3] (admitedly in my case I only recognise Amaranth due to [[Stardew Valley]). Nil Einne (talk) 15:36, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

A floating plant like this does seem like it might fit better in a factory setting, where you can just skim the duckweed off the surface, rather than using expensive equipment like combines to harvest it. Also no plowing needed, and irrigation becomes far simpler. And it looks like it's 100% edible, versus many other plants, like corn, where only a small portion is of the cob is edible, much less the entire plant. So, it may be competitive on price, but nutrition is another question. StuRat (talk) 15:49, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

So you are looking for something like a protein powder made from it ? Why would that be better than protein powder made from anything else ? You can also buy live plants, mostly for aquarium use. StuRat (talk) 15:18, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Duckweed is pretty easy to grow [4]. My family used to grow it to feed our ducks. Just harvest from a local pond, place in 5 gal buckets or other suitable containers and watch it grow. We used duck poop as fertilizer, but any type will do. If you get a few buckets going, you can harvest a handful from one of them every day throughout the season. It grows very fast: for this reason duckweed is also commonly used for introductory ecology lab experiments dealing with population growth, see e.g. here [5]. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:27, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, lets go back to basic on this. The OP is asking for a supplement. Thus, we can guess that the pond is not large enough to supply sufficient duck weed naturally for the number of ducks, so he is asking for where he can get a supplement food sources based on duckweed. First, Ducks don't need duckweed in order to stay healthy and well fed. Grass pellet food will do and is cheaper (please not bread but rice cakes seem OK). If the OP has a large lawn, he can even buy a pelitzer and make his own. Of course fowl need other things to lay eggs. They need calcium (substitute bone meal) and protean (substitute kitchen scraps). Should the OP then find out that he has raised more fat ducks than he knows how to deal with, he can always come back here with his address and I'll pop over and demonstrate several tasty ways to mitigate his problem – I'm licking my lips already... Oh and don't forget . If you keep taking the eggs away, they keep on laying.--Aspro (talk) 22:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Duckweed as a human food supplement: Supplement: Duckweed "People take duckweed for swelling (inflammation) of the upper airways, yellowed skin due to liver problems (jaundice), and arthritis. There isn’t enough information available to know how duckweed might work as a medicine. Perhaps not a terribly reliable source though.

Duckweed as a feed supplement for livestock with links to research articles such as Duckweed - a potential high-protein feed resource for domestic animals and fish - Centre for Duckweed Research & Development, University of New England. Alansplodge (talk) 15:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)