Morskaia Kapusta

the commercial name of marine brown algae of the genus Laminaria that are used as food. The lamellate’thallus, which is up to 0.5 m wide and 3–5 m long (sometimes up to 20 m), is on a short trunk and has rhizoids or a foot at the base. The algae form thickets in biomasses of 5–10 kg/m² (or more). In dried form it contains 5–20 percent protein, 1–3 percent fat, 6–12 percent alimentary carbohydrates, 0.1–0.6 percent iodine, and trace elements. Laminaria japonica, which grows near the Asian coast of the Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Korean coastline, is particularly valuable. In the USSR it grows in the Sea of Japan, near the southern coasts of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Laminaria saccharina (produced in the form of a powder) is used medicinally, primarily as a mild laxative to treat chronic atonic constipation.