Porphyra leucosticta is a nori seaweed frequently used in the preparation of sushi .
It is considered that a traditional Japanese diet may transfer the genes of sushi digestive enzymes into the human stomach.
This is the recent finding of researchers who discovered a substance called marine bacteria which breaks seaweed down into digestible pieces.
By eating sushi which is wrapped in the seaweed, you are most likely ingesting these bacteria as well as the genes coding for that digestive enzyme.
The team was led by Jan-Hendrik Hehemann, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) in Paris.
These seaweed-digesting genes may be beneficial, enabling human hosts to take nutrition from plant material they would otherwise not be able to digest.
The findings show that, the food we prepare and how we prepare it has the ability to effect the microbial environment (or the flora) in our stomachs.
