Blue-Green Algae Benefits: The Single Healthiest Food

Shitake mushrooms are very healthy, but not all mushrooms are edible. There are 2 edible species of blue-green algae. One is spirulina (it grows in the shape of spirals, but I hear most people pronouncing it like spearulina). The other species that is edible is aphanizomenon flos-aquae that grows in Klamath Lake in Oregon. Instead of using this name they call it blue-green algae or Klamath Lake blue-green algae or BGA.

Webmd.com has an article about it called: Find a Vitamin or Supplement: Blue-Green Algae. It says:

Blue-green algae are used as a source of dietary protein, B-vitamins, and iron. They are also used for weight loss, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), hayfever, diabetes, stress, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and other women’s health issues.

Some people use blue-green algae for treating precancerous growths inside the mouth, boosting the immune system, improving memory, increasing energy and metabolism, lowering cholesterol, preventing heart disease, healing wounds, and improving digestion and bowel health.

Blue-green algae are being researched for their potential effects on the immune system, swelling (inflammation), and viral infections.

The reason I call it a true superfood is because originally that word was only used for nutrient dense foods like blue-green algae, spirulina, wheat grass, barley grass, chlorella (a green algae) or bee pollen (not a vegan food). Then later they started using it for any food. The above foods, not including bee pollen are very high in chlorophyll that is very detoxifying and is like plant blood. A molecule of chlorophyll is just like human blood, but the the former has a central atom of magnesium and the human blood has a central atom of iron.

They say that spirulina is an appetite suppressant since people eat less. But I would prefer to call it an appetite satisfier. According to Joel Fuhrman M.D. people are driven to eat so much food because they are starving for nutrients. Not just vitamin and minerals but also the thousands of phytochemicals in plant foods like lycopene and resveratrol. Here is an article about Dr. Fuhrman on the Dr. Oz TV Show explaining why medications do not work, with video of him explaining this. Also see the bottom of this article with testimonial of how someone used this to lose 90 pounds.

Blue-green algae (including spirulina) is neither a plant or an animal. It existed before them. All life came from blue-green algae. For billions of years it was the only life on the planet and it put the oxygen in the air. It is technically cyanobacteria. Seeding a planet with blue-green algae is one of the steps of terraforming a planet (making it more like earth). This website says:

Blue-green algae and water evaporation changed the earth's atmosphere into oxygen and nitrogen gas.

Blue-green algae is extremely nutrient dense. It has much more chlorophyll than any land plants. It has more protein than meat, more calcium than milk, has 25 times more beta-carotene than carrots, more vitamin E than wheat germ, more omega-3 than some fish, has 58 times the iron of raw spinach and 28 times that of raw beef liver and 4 to 6 times more vitamin B-12 than liver. You may have heard that not all forms of vitamin B-12 is usable by the body. A study with blue-green algae showed that people who ate it had more vitamin B-12 in their blood.

Note that the study was done with the Lake Klamath algae. Some people say that it is only in animal products and no plant sources have the usable B-12. Well PubMed says that it is false and you can get B-12 from seaweed like green and purple lavers and from chlorella but not spirulina. But this seems odd (many studies are bogus) since chlorella is very similar to spirulina.

Both are single cell organisms that grow by cell division. The difference is that one is a blue-green algae and one is a green algae. Here is the PubMed study: Characterization and bioavailability of vitamin B12-compounds from edible algae.

Actually vitamin B-12 is cheap since you need so little. You only need 1 mg of vitamin B-12 every year. You cannot consume too much and your body can store it for years. They sell it in tablets that you only need to take every several months so you might as well take a supplement of it. For more on this see The Essential Supplements and the Dangerous Ones. It explains that a third of meat-eaters, vegetarians and vegans do not get enough of it and even mentions some who need to get it injected. Vitamin B-12 is a very complex subject.

Today October 4, 2013 I was in Sprouts market and a beautiful young woman asked me about the GTS kombuchu drink that I was buying in the multi-greens flavor. I told her that it has in it spirulina, Lake Klamath BGA and chlorella, in addition to the kombuchu.

Spirulina was studied by NASA and is supposed to be eaten on the International Space Station, scheduled to be complete in 2011. Besides the information in the pictures above, blue-green algae (specifically spirulina) grows in the huge Lake Chad in Africa. There is enough spirulina in the lakes in Africa to feed all the starving people there.

The Aztecs built their capital on an island in Lake Texcoco where spirulina grows. The Aztecs ate spirulina. Wikipedia says; "Lake Texcoco (Spanish: Lago de Texcoco) was a natural lake formation within the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake. The Spaniards built Mexico City over Tenochtitlan."

In the video below it shows spirulina being used in Africa and given to malnourished children. It says that one tablespoon makes a remarkable difference. This website says that Spirulina Reduces the Effects of Radiation. It says:

After Chernobyl disaster, Doctors reported spirulina's health benefits for child victims of Chernobyl radiation. Spirulina reduced urine radioactivity levels by 50% in only 20 days.

A Russian patent was awarded in 1994 for the use of spirulina as a medical food to reduce allergic reactions from radiation sickness. The patent was based on a study of 270 children living in highly radioactive areas.

But this is no surprise at all when you learn how modern man discovered how beneficial spirulina is. In fact over 100,000 people were killed so that you can learn about this! In World War II, the U.S. dropped 2 atom bombs (code name Fat Man and Little Boy) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and August 9th, 1945 respectively in Japan killing over 100,000 people instantly. Japan surrendered 6 days later of last bombing.

At this point thousands were slowly dying of radiation poisoning so they started doing research to find something that would help and found spirulina that is high in sodium alginate that helps with radiation. Of recorded births, Japan has the longest living people but they also consume lots of other healthy foods. See Japanese are Longest Living People to learn more about why this is.

Experts say that it is healthier and more sustainable to eat low on the food chain. Say you wanted to eat highest on the food chain. You then grow grains and vegetables. Then instead of eating them, you feed then to animals like cows, sheep and pigs. Then you feed them to animals like lions and tigers and eat them, so you are eating highest on the food chain. All the pesticides in foods get more concentrated with each step. Also this is not efficient or sustainable. Even many fish are becoming extinct from heavy fishing.

Blue-green algae is lowest on the food chain. As far as it being sustainable it just needs water with minerals, sunshine and it doubles it weight in 3 to 4 days by cell division. It has low molecular weight proteins that pass through the blood-brain barrier, feeding nutrients to the brain (a brain food). It also helps nutrients in the body get to where they need to go. There are lots of testimonials on the internet on how many people and animals that it has helped.

The United Nations Organisation (UNO), in its 1974 World Food Conference, declared spirulina as 'the best food for tomorrow.' World Health Organisation (WHO) has claimed spirulina 'the greatest super food on earth.' These organizations consider spirulina as an important part of their plans to alleviate poverty.

There is raw spirulna that is sold but since some do not like the word "raw" so they call it an ocean chill drying process (see product below) where the temperature is kept below 115 degrees. Chlorella is similar to spirulina but grows even quicker doubling its weight in 2 to 3 days. I heard that it was the number one selling supplement in Japan.

Actually what most people buy to get it, is they buy a greens drink with the real superfoods in them as mentioned above. I came across a testimonial in a magazine. It is by a woman who lost 90 pounds in 90 days. It has before and after pictures and she looked great in the after picture. She said

A lifetime of poor choices left me tipping the scales at 240 pounds. I was sick and bedridden with a variety of symptoms for 2 months. I began drinking 5 to 6 greens drinks a day. [That sounds excessive to me but I guess being 90 pounds overweight is excessive.] The more greens I drank, the stronger I felt and my health challenges, including migraines and vertigo, disappeared. Four years later I've kept all the weight off.

I have an article explaining why Fruits are the Healthiest Foods. It also explains and shows you in videos that people can eat all the fruit that they want and it will not make them overweight. If you want to get overweight, then eat processed foods. Dr Oz describes them as foods with an ingredient list.

To see what a powerful medicine watermelon is for lowering high blood pressure and helping ED (erectile dysfunction) see Health Benefits of Watermelon. Also to see why grapes may be the healthiest common food that people can eat, see Health Benefits of Eating Grapes.