It is one of the ironies of life that vegetables like kale are packed with nutrition but are seriously lacking in the taste department while hamburgers and bacon are the exact opposite — so tasty yet so bad for us.

But all that might change, thanks to a discovery made by researchers from Oregon State University.  The Scientists from OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center have come up with a discovery that some might consider to be right up there in importance with penicillin — a strain of seaweed that has twice the nutritional value of kale but with the taste and consistency of bacon.

The unique discovery, which has since been christened "the unicorn" or "the holy grail of seafood," originally started out on a different path, with researcher, Chris Langdon, and his OSU team working on the seaweed dulse. The seaweed, which grows abundantly in North America, has been a part of northern European diet for centuries. The nutritionally-dense dulse is harvested and sold as a cooking ingredient or dried and turned into a supplement.

The research team was initially working on developing different strains of the seaweed and growing them in vats of seawater to use as food for abalone, a treasured food in Asia. Knowing of its nutritional properties, the team started experimenting with different ways to incorporate the protein packed dulse in dishes and soon made the amazing discovery while working with OSU's Food Innovation Center on a particular strain they developed.  

Langdon admits that there is not a lot of interest in dulse in its seaweed form, but reveals that when he fried the dulse "it tastes like bacon, not seaweed."

The OSU researchers have successfully patented that particular strain of bacon-tasting dulse, which is similar in appearance to red lettuce. Compared to the wild dulse, they grow faster while maintaining its nutritional value. Lab tests have shown that the seaweed is full of antioxidants, minerals and vitamins, and its dry weight contains around 16 percent protein.

Aside from potentially becoming an accepted and healthy alternative to bacon, the OSU discovery can also become a boon to the environment. Seaweed has a unique ability to derive nutrients from the aquatic environment it is in; it is also known to thrive in coastal waters that are full of pollutants that damage the coastline and the marine ecosystem. The dulse can basically extract the nitrogen in in these waters and convert them into living tissue, aka more bacon seaweed.