The Health Benefits of Spirulina
Make it One of the World's Most
Nutritious Foods

No other food offers anywhere near the health benefits of spirulina (except for its close relative, chlorella). Spirulina is an incredibly dense green superfood, rather than a nutritional supplement.

Spirulina is widely used as an ingredient in most green superfood powders and is beneficial as an aid in weight-loss programs.

Spirulina has been found to have significant positive effects on people suffering from type 2 diabetes. Studies show that spirulina has the ability to reduce fasting blood sugar levels in the body after 6 to 8 weeks of intake.

Spirulina contains the essential fatty acid gamma-linoleic acid, which can help prevent conditions such as heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and even cancer.

Spirulina helps support a healthy pH balance in your body. A diet heavy on acidic foods such as animal proteins and grains can be effectively balanced by the alkaline properties of spirulina.

Among the many other benefits of spirulina are the following:

• inhibits the power of many viruses — including HIV, flu, mumps, measles, and herpes
• helps diminish allergies such as hay fever
• helps protect the liver from toxins
• helps reduce blood pressure and cholesterol
• helps control symptoms of ulcerative colitis
• exerts strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects
• helps boost the immune system

Benefits of Spirulina: Cleansing & Detoxification. When you put your body under extreme stress, such as intense physical training, toxins and free radicals are released from your tissues. The chlorophyll in spirulina helps eliminate these waste products, and cleanses your liver, kidneys and blood. When the liver and kidneys are working more smoothly, everything else in the body works better, too.

This cleansing effect is also important if you're on any sort of low-carb diet (Atkins diet, South Beach diet, etc.). These types of diets can place a heavy burden on the liver and kidneys, due too the increased elimination of excess ketones that occurs.

The benefits of spirulina also include protection against environmental toxins, air and water pollution, and other contaminants that you're being exposed to every day.

What is Spirulina?

Spirulina is one of a family of nutritional algaes, along with chlorella. They are usually found in warm and alkaline waters all over the world, predominantly in South America, Africa, and Mexico. The name "spirulina" is derived from the Latin word for "helix" or "spiral"; reflecting the physical configuration of the organism as it forms swirling, microscopic strands.

Spirulina contains about 70% protein, vitamin E, vitamin C, beta carotene, B vitamins and chlorophyll. It also has abundant essential fatty acids, B vitamins, antioxidants and minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium and zinc.

Benefits of Spirulina: Easily Assimilated Protein. Spirulina is the world’s most digestible natural source of high quality protein. Its predigested protein is absorbed almost immediately, and its simple carbohydrates yield immediate yet sustained energy. Many world-class athletes recognize the incredible benefits of spirulina for performing at their peak physical ability on a daily basis.

The protein found in spirulina is complete, containing all eight essential amino acids, unlike beans and other plant foods that typically lack some of the essential amino acids.

Spirulina is the ideal food source for people looking to get more protein into their diets:

• people on low-carb, high-protein diets like the Atkins Diet or the South Beach Diet.

• people who workout vigorously or engage in strength training.

• people who have trouble gaining weight or are generally malnourished.

Benefits of Spirulina: Important Essential Fatty Acids (EFA). Blue-green algaes — especially spirulina — are some of the best sources of gamma linolenic acid (GLA), which is usually only found in mother's milk. GLA is an omega-6 fatty acid with many healthful properties, and is missing in most people's diet.

GLA is important for growth and development. We know that the consumption of these healthy fats produces astounding health benefits in the human body.

Choosing and Using Spirulina Products

I personally consider spirulina as one of the most important foods in my diet. Since I don't like to eat a lot of dark green leafy vegetables regularly, spirulina makes an admirable substitute. It contains concentrated, easy-assimilated nutritional benefits not found in any other foods, including dark green leafy vegetables.

In addition, the benefits of spirulina include outstanding detoxification properties that are so important these days because of the number of toxins that we're being exposed to from our environment. Spirulina has the unique ability to bind to toxins and eliminate them from your system.

Smoothies are a great way to get your spirulina every day!

My favorite way to get spirulina into my diet is to blend it into a green smoothie. If you haven't discovered smoothies yet, they're easily the best way to get more antioxidants and all their benefits into your diet.

My basic smoothie recipe uses coconut milk, a banana, two raw organic eggs or protein powder, and a spoonful of spirulina and chlorella combined in a blender. Bananas blend well with spirulina, and mask the bitterness very well — just make sure you use very ripe ones.

You can discover how to make a smoothie the healthy way elsewhere on this website.

Nutrex is the brand name of the Cyanotech company, which has been growing spirulina for over 20 years. They spare no expense to produce the most nutritious and freshest spirulina in the world. At its 90-acre facility located on Hawaii's pristine Kona Coast, Cyanotech uses patented and proprietary technology, harvesting and processing techniques to produce the purest, most powerful spirulina in the world.

What's truly unique about Hawaiian spirulina is that it's grown in large aquaculture farms using ultra-pure, mineral-rich ocean water drawn from a 2000-foot depth off the Big Island. That means that the water is completely pristine and unpolluted by modern civilization. This vital resource provides a rich mixture of calcium, magnesium, and trace elements — 92 different minerals in all.

No other spirulina is grown with water that has such a rich source of naturally-occurring nutrients. In fact, every other producer of spirulina uses either river water or irrigation water — another reason why Hawaiian Spirulina is the purest and highest quality in the world.

Cyanotech's Ocean Chill drying process flash-dries the spirulina, preserving the delicate phytochemicals that give spirulina many of its most remarkable health properties. Cyanotech also uses glass packaging with oxygen absorbers and sealing caps to ensure the maximum freshness and potency of the spirulina.

In short, you won't find a higher-quality spirulina product anywhere, at any price! Read some great testimonials about spirulina on the Nutrex-Hawaii website.

Learn more about the health benefits of spirulina and how it's produced in this short video produced by the Cyanotech company:

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Other Green Superfood Options

There are other green food supplements that blend spirulina with other superfoods in order to give you a wider variety of nutrients and improve the taste. You can find more details about them at my page on Green Superfood Powders