A new edition of my 2012 book The Azolla Cooking and Cultivation Project is now available.
This 2025 revision includes updated information on Azolla’s nutritional content and health aspects. New research published in 2024 indicates that Azolla does not contain the neurotoxin BMAA, which has previously been a concern. While there are still many areas of Azolla’s potential as a food and crop left to explore, this development significantly improves its viability as a sustainable food source.
The book can be downloaded for free as a PDF from here or be ordered as a printed book from Publit.
In “The Azolla Cooking and Cultivation Project”, artists, researchers, farmers, gardeners, chefs and scientists experiment with cooking and cultivating the water fern Azolla. Azolla is one of the world’s fastest-growing plants and a rich source of nutrients. Yet it is virtually unexplored as a foodstuff for human consumption. This book summarises work with the project during 2010 and 2011 and has been revised and updated in 2025 with new information regarding Azolla cultivation and the nutritional content and healthiness of Azolla. The book is intended as a base for future research on Azolla food and Azolla cultivation and a general introduction to Azolla’s biology and its many uses.
* Bujak, J. P., et al. 2024. “Azolla as a Safe Food: Suppression of Cyanotoxin-Related Genes and Cyanotoxin Production in Its Symbiont, Nostoc Azollae.