Algae the most complete food, the first form of life on earth and a source of nutrition and vitality. Susan M. Aubrey, D.C.

What is spirulina?

The name spirulina comes from a Latin word meaning tiny spiral. Spirulina is microscopic, spiral-shaped, vegetable plankton. A plankton is any vegetable or animal microorganism which drifts with the tides and water currents without any means of propulsion. Spirulina is referred to as plankton and an alga interchangeably.

There are over 17,000 different species of algae. The majority of algae are aquatic plants. They range in size from the largest, multicellular oceanic species, some reaching over 300 feet in length, down to microscopic, unicellular forms. Algae have been studied extensively for over sixty years.

There are thirty-five species of algae belonging to the botanical classification spirulina. Some of these are not suitable for use as a food and some have low nutritional content. But others, such as Spirulina platensis and Spirulina maxima, have enormous potential for feeding the world.

Since the various spiral shapes of spirulina seem to form spontaneously depending upon pH and nutrient conditions, it is possible that what are thought to be thirty-five different species are simply variations upon a single species.

We are concerned here only with those species of spirulina which grow in highly alkaline soda lakes, not marine type spirulina. Furthermore, we are concerned with those few species of inland type spirulina which have been found to have the most desirable characteristics.

Algae are differentiated according to predominating colorations and are divided into blue-green, green, red, and brown. Spirulina is one of the blue-green algae due to the presence of both green chlorophyll and blue phycocyanin pigments in its cellular structure.

Blue-green algae developed on the earth at the earliest stage of evolution over three billion years ago. Some taxonomists distinguish blue-green algae from other algae by placing them in a special class called nuclear plants. Nuclear plants are those which are on the borderline between plants and animals.

Some Spirulina is very close in structure to the first living things which appeared on the earth. And, since its primary waste product is oxygen, it along with the other algae, is responsible for the very air we breathe.

The simplicity of spirulina's cellular structure manifests in a lack of any large vacuoles or any well defined chloroplasts, mitochondria or nuclei.

This simplicity avoids extraneous activity and wasted energy, allowing rapid photosynthesis, growth and almost total concentration on nutrient production. In fact, spirulina has a photosynthetic conversion rate of 8 to 10% compared to only 3% in most terrestrial plants such as soybeans.

Large numbers of ribosomes in spirulina enable it to synthesize proteins more rapidly than other plants. Toxicity studies have shown spirulina to be completely non-toxic and safe.

WHAT'S IN IT AND WHAT DOES IT DO?

Besides lots of clean air and water, the human body needs a minimum of seven essential nutritional elements in order to survive. These essential elements fall into seven major categories, all of which are abundantly present in spirulina. These elements include: proteins and amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, pigments, carbohydrates and lipids (fats).

PROTEINS

Next to water, protein is the most abundant compound in your body.
Of the approximately 70 trillion cells which make up your body, one-third are constantly aging, wearing out and being replaced by new cells. Dietary protein is essential for this maintenance process. It is estimated that 2.5 million red blood cells, 20,000 white blood cells and five million platelets are sent into your bloodstream each second.

When protein is used by the body for one of these purposes, it is first digested by being broken into separate elements (called amino acids) and then carried to the liver. From there, the amino acids are sent to tissues where new cells are being manufactured or old ones are being repaired. They are absorbed into cells through the cell membranes and recombined into specially manufactured proteins.

Amino acids are your body's building blocks. Out of the 22 amino acids that you require, only 13 can be manufactured by your body. The remaining 9, the "essential amino acids", must be derived daily from the foods you eat.

They must also be available to the body simultaneously and in the proper ratio or they cannot be fully utilized. These amino acids must be supplied on a regular basis to provide the sustained energy vital for your growth and health. Otherwise, your body will become protein starved.

The process of amino acid synthesis is complex, dependent on the presence of other nutritional elements from the other 6 categories listed above. To the extent there is an imbalance or deficiency, the 18 amino acids provided by spirulina, in near perfect ratios, become essential. This condition is especially true among the malnourished, undernourished and starving creatures who are presently struggling to survive on the planet.

The cell walls of most vegetables are composed of cellulose. Cellulose is not digestible by humans. Spirulina's cell walls are mucopolysaccharides (complex sugars) that are easily digestible, freeing considerable energy as a result. Digestibility tests have shown spirulina to be 83 to 95% digestible.

The usable protein in Spirulina therefore, because of its digestibility and amino acid balance, is around 90%, the highest of any protein other than casein (the standard on which all protein assimilation is scientifically evaluated). For comparison, an 8 ounce steak is about 22% protein only 15% of which is usable by the body.
So that 8 ounce steak gives only about 1.8 ounces of protein, only .27 ounce (7.6 grams) of which is actually usable protein. Spirulina, however being 70% protein and 90% digestible, provides 5 ounces (140 grams) of usable protein in each 8 ounces.

That is 18 times more protein than steak, with little, if any, waste. In addition, most of spirulina's proteins are already in the proper form that the body itself creates in the liver so there is little energy lost in digestion. These building blocks of the body are called biliproteins. Spirulina is the most prolific source of biliproteins presently known.

For vegetarians, soybeans in the form of tofu, soy flour, etc., are often cited as a high protein source. At 37% protein and only 25% digestible (usable), an 8 ounce serving of soybeans gives .74 ounces (21 grams) of usable protein. That is three times better than steak, but only 1/7th as good as spirulina.

Whole wheat flour, the prime staple in most starving people's diets right now, comes in dead last. The highest protein variety of whole wheat flour is only 14% protein, of which only 9% is digestible (usable).

So an 8 ounce serving of whole wheat flour, then, provides only 1/10th of an ounce (2.8 grams) of usable protein. It may fill stomachs, but wheat flour (or any grain) porridge will not fill the protein needs of the starving. The average male needs 43 grams of usable protein per day, the average female 35 grams.

Spirulina gives 50 times more usable protein than whole wheat flour (2.8 x 50 = 140). Or, to say it another way, it takes only 1/6 ounce (4.5 grams) of Spirulina to get the same amount of protein as 8 ounces of whole wheat flour (provided it finds its way into people's stomachs). Hopefully, the relief agencies are adding some vitamins and minerals to the flour, because wheat is notoriously low in these as well.

VITAMINS AND MINERALS

Spirulina gives as much calcium as milk, 15 times more vitamin A than carrots, 3 times the iron of sirloin steak, 2.5 times the vitamin B-12 of calves liver, 3.7 times more potassium than rice. Being high in antioxidants such as Vitamin E, and ferrodoxin, spirulina will store safely for years if kept air and water tight.

Hopefully, the whole wheat porridge is not being heated too high. Cooking destroys many amino acids, vitamins and most enzymes. Spirulina is uncooked, raw food with only the water removed.

ENZYMES

All food is, at least potentially, a poison until converted into simple structures by enzymes. Metabolism is an enzymatic process from beginning to end. Whatever their value, none of the other essential nutrients are usable by your body without enzymes. Spirulina is both high in enzymes and thermophilic.

That is, it can withstand relatively high temperatures without losing its properties. In fact, spirulina is so high in enzyme activity that even after being dried (at 160 degrees F) it will often start growing again if placed in the right medium, temperature and sunlight.

PIGMENTS

Chlorophyll is an essential pigment. Spirulina is about 1% chlorophyll, which is 2 to 3 times more than most land plants. Green chlorophyll, which carries CO2 in plant respiration, has nearly the same molecular structure as red hemin, the pigment forming hemoglobin in red blood cells.

The only difference is that chlorophyll has magnesium at the center and hemin has iron. When you ingest chlorophyll, the magnesium is removed and used elsewhere by your body while being replaced by iron. Therefore, chlorophyll is essential to the production of red blood cells which carry life-giving oxygen to all your body cells. Chlorophyll does other things as well.

esearch indicates that it may slow and strengthen contractions of the heart muscle, help muscles and nerves recover from stress and strain, encourage peristaltic action in the intestines, prevent the growth of harmful bacteria, to name a few.

Bile pigments aid the rapid breakdown and metabolism of starches, proteins, and fats. A bile pigment called phycocyanin makes up 7 to 18% of spirulina's weight. There is no other food, animal or vegetable, which contains even a quarter of the bile pigments found in spirulina.

Doubling every 3 days under the right conditions, spirulina is the fastest growing human food. This "Spirulina Growth Factor" (SGF) is found to enhance enzyme activity and trigger faster cell growth, repair and replication where needed in tissues and organs, thus helping the body to rebuild and rejuvenate itself.

Some of the most exciting and far reaching research now being conducted centers on spirulina's therapeutic effects. Over 10 years of research in Japan using spirulina in nutritional therapy has reportedly brought repeated recoveries in many chronic and debilitating physical conditions. Much of this research is now being replicated in the United States.

CARBOHYDRATES

Spirulina has 16.5% carbohydrates, of which 9% is a rare sugar known as rhamnose. Rhamnose is more biologically active than other sugars because it combines more readily with other nutrients. Unlike sucrose, it does not upset the blood sugar balance or overwork the pancreas.

Like proteins, carbohydrates go through a complex breakdown and recombination process in your body. One of the products of this process is glycogen, a complex sugar that your body stores in the liver until energy is needed.

Spirulina is the only known vegetable that contains glycogen (0.5%). So, like its biliproteins, spirulina's glycogen is ready made for direct assimilation and use. Spirulina also contains important carbohydrates known as glycosides and bioflavonoids which affect many cellular processes too numerous to mention here. Although relatively low in calories (381 calories per 100 grams), spirulina is high in energy from these carbohydrates.

LIPIDS (FATS)

Essential fatty acids (EFA's) are vitamin-like substances that are essential to life. They can not be produced by your body and are therefore "essential" in your diet. EFA's include linoleic, linolenic and arachidonic acids.

EFA's help to reduce total cholesterol and triglyceride levels (associated with arteriosclerosis and heart disease). They also help to protect the body against sodium-induced high blood pressure, normalize biochemical factors associated with diabetes, enhance sexual effectiveness and fertility, prevent dry, scaly skin and fragility of cells.

Cell membranes are largely composed of lipids. When present with Vitamins E and A (which prevent dangerous lipid peroxidation or rancidity) EFA's protect the cell membranes against anti-oxidant and free radical attacks. Such attacks can alter the absorption of nutrients through the cell membranes.

Since membrane damage may alter antigens (substances that induce the formation of germ-killing antibodies) this could cause the immune system to fail. Research with a special fatty acid called gamma linolenic acid (GLA) has reportedly shown it to be effective in strengthening the body's immune system.

Spirulina is relatively high in lipids, containing 7% by volume. Over 2 1/2% of spirulina consists of the EFA's linoleic and linolenic. With 1.2% to 2% GLA, spirulina is also nature's highest available sourde of GLA. Mother's milk is the highest known source of GLA (provided it is in the mother's diet) and is one of nature's ways of protecting babies from disease.

Thus, EFA's are essential in the diets of everyone, and certainly in those recovering from starvation, since EFA's help the body resist the diseases to which the malnourished are exposed in their weakened state.

WHERE IS IT?

Spirulina has been on the planet over 3 billion years. It still grows wild and abundantly around the world in very alkaline, mineral-rich, largely pollution-free, soda lakes.

This water is too salty (up to pH 11) to support fish, to use for growing terrestrial crops or for drinking. But it is perfect for growing spirulina. In fact, the hotter it gets and the more the mineral salts concentrate as water evaporates, the faster and more prolifically spirulina grows! Ironically and significantly, the most fertile valley of soda lakes with heavy spirulina growth today lies in Africa.

In East Africa, the Great Rift Valley begins in Ethiopia and runs vertically through desert wastelands for hundreds of miles linking Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Botswana. This valley floor is lined with several large soda lakes. These lakes are large basins concentrating huge quantities of mineral salts leached from the volcanic soils by rainwater runoff over millenia.

Along with the intense heat and sunlight of the area, these lakes provide the perfect growing conditions for spirulina.

In Ethiopia, three soda lakes, Lake Aranguadi, Lake Chiltu and Lake Shala together cover over 3 square miles. All three are rich with spirulina. But Kenya and Chad are the spirulina "bread baskets". Lake Bogoria (11+ square miles)*, Lake Elementita (7+ square miles), Lake Magadi (29+ square miles), Lake Nakuru (30 square miles), and Lake Rudolf (2,325 square miles), all contain quantities of spirulina.

Huge Lake Chad, which is situated both in Chad and Nigeria, contains spirulina in one section of the lake that comprises approximately one-fourth of its surface area, or 1,600 square miles. (*The U.S. has donated one billion dollars worth of food to feed half the Ethiopian people for one year. For only $30 million (3% of that) we could feed all the estimated 10 million starving be setting up a huge harvesting/drying system on Lake Bogoria alone!).

Based on observed growth rates of 10 grams per square meter per day, Scientists of the Microalgae International Union calculate that Lake Bogoria alone is capable of producing continuously over 290 tons of dry spirulina per day.

On survival rations, 30 grams per person per day, that is enough spirulina to feed over 9 1/2 million people! Surely, enough spirulina can be harvested, dried and transported from politically stable Kenya alone to feed all the starving people of Africa. In fact, no one ever needs to go hungry again, provided there is the cooperation, funding, and technology to end world hunger--enter the "new pioneers".

WHO ARE THE NEW PIONEERS?

The technology already exists, thanks to some "new pioneers'. The world's leading pioneer in the new aquaculture of spirulina research and development for over twenty years has been Dr. Christopher Hills. In 1965, Dr. Hills co-founded with the late DR. Hiroshi Nakamura of Japan, the Microalgae International Union (MIU).

Since 1965, the MIU has brought engineers, microbiologists, and other scientists together to help solve the world food and energy crises with spirulina and other microalgae. Unfortunately, governments and corporations alike have turned a "deaf ear" to pleas by MIU to help fund research--even after a report presented to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in 1980 hailed spirulina as "a solution to the world protein shortage".

Because of and in spite of these rebuffs, Dr. Hills decided to raise the funds himself and staked everything he owned on growing and selling spirulina to a health-conscious nation through a network of independent distributors that became known as the "Light Force Family".

The Light Force Company, under Dr. Hills direction, is the only company that devotes all available profits to the goal of ending world hunger. From its birth in a converted livery stable in 1979, the Light Force Company has grown to over 25,000 distributors in all 50 states and Japan.

In the United States, the Urban Health Clinic has distributed free spirulina to Southeast Asian and American Indian communities, Dennis Weaver's organization LIFE is giving Light Force spirulina to needy families in the Los Angeles area, and the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco helps the poor with free spirulina from Light Force.

Dr. Hills has channeled over five million dollars of Light Force profits to research and develop the most efficient growing, harvesting, and drying solar biotechnology possible.

Most of these research and development funds have gone into a state-of-the-art spirulina farm located in the Southern California desert near Palm Springs. Here spirulina is grown under stringently controlled conditions in specially constructed ponds lined with a special - food grade plastic.

Spirulina is harvested, dried and packed with antiseptically clean stainless steel equipment, like a dairy. This farm is designed as a training center for engineers and microbiologists, as a showcase prototype for others like it to be set up around the world and as a production center to supply American consumers with spirulina.