Chlorella Facts

What is Chlorella? Chlorella is the most familiar of the single-celled varieties of edible green algae. Although it is commonly considered a dietary supplement, you could just as well call it the world's most nutritious whole food — because that's what chlorella really is.

Chlorella has the highest concentration of chlorophyll in the plant world, ranging from 3 to 5 percent chlorophyll content. Leafy green vegetables typically contain less than half of one percent chlorophyll. Commercial liquid chlorophyll supplements contain only about one percent chlorophyll.

Chlorella Facts: Green algae have been around for literally billions of years. Algaes are some of the earliest and simplest life forms on the planet. These single-cell organisms range in size from 2 to 8 microns, about the same size as a human blood cell.

• Chlorella contains 58% highly digestible complete vegetarian protein. This protein is more dense and more digestible than any animal-derived protein.

• High in essential fatty acids, including omega-3 fatty acids and gamma linolenic acid (GLA), an omega-6 fatty acid. GLA is known for regulating blood sugar and providing important nutrients to the brain; it also exhibits immune-boosting properties.

• zero refined carbohydrates

• rich in antioxidants

• naturally alkaline balanced

• vitamins A, C, E, and K, and D.

• the complete vitamin B-complex, with more B-12 than liver by weight. (Vitamin B-12 is almost never found in plant foods).

• one ounce of chlorella contains far more calcium than one ounce of milk

• magnesium, zinc, potassium and many more minerals

• an abundance of phytonutrients, many of them not yet identified

• nucleic acids (RNA & DNA) for cellular growth and repair

• beta carotene (more than even carrots) and lutein

• Chlorella Growth Factor (CGF), which offers many of the antiaging benefits found in human growth hormone

Recommendations for Using Chlorella

I'd recommend getting chlorella in a bulk powder form; it's easier, and much less expensive, than swallowing a lot of small pills. Tablets or capsules are convenient to take with you, though, and you can swallow them quickly if you don't like the bitter taste.

Think of chlorella as a nutrient-dense green food, rather than a nutritional supplement. The more of it you can fit into your diet, the better. Start out with about a half-teaspoon a day. You can work your way up to a tablespoon or more — you can't eat too much — some people won't be able to tolerate larger amounts at first. I have heard that adding a digestive enzyme with cellulase in it will help digest the chlorella if you're having problems.

Chlorella Facts: Just one teaspoon of chlorella powder has the nutritional value of several servings of dark green leafy vegetables! I personally use chlorella (and spirulina) daily, simply for this reason. If you don't eat dark green leafy vegetables every day, chlorella can make up for it — and then some. Chlorella has all the nutritional value of these and also contains concentrated, easy-assimilated nutrients not found in any other food.

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

My favorite method to get more chlorella is to blend it into a smoothie every morning. This way, it's easy to mask the algae taste with other ingredients.

My favorite basic recipe uses sweetened coconut milk, a banana, two raw organic eggs or protein powder, and a spoonful of chlorella and/or spirulina combined in a blender. Bananas blend well with chlorella, and mask the bitterness very well — just make sure you use very ripe ones. You can add more ingredients to flavor your smoothie to your liking.

I've devoted an entire section to smoothies elsewhere on this website. If you skip over to my page on how to make a healthy smoothie, you'll find some great tips for getting started.

My Recommendation for Buying Chlorella

Chlorella Facts: It's important to get a chlorella product that features a “broken (or cracked) cell wall.” This means that they’ve taken the tough, indigestible portion of the cell wall and broken it apart so that your body can get to the many nutrients that are found in chlorella. Most chlorella products you see use the term “broken cell wall” to describe this characteristic.

Yaeyama chlorella is the highest quality in the world. Yaeyama chlorella is grown in the environmentally pristine coral reef region of Japan's Ishigaki Island, using mountain spring water and intense tropical sunshine. In case you're wondering, this is at least 1,500 miles away from the Fukishima nuclear disaster. It's actually closer to Taiwan than mainland Japan.

Jarrow Yaeyama is the chlorella powder that I use and recommend. If you're looking for the best bargain in green superfood powders — this is it! A one-kilogram tub of Jarrow Yaeyama Chlorella yields about 250 generous teaspoon-size servings for less than 20 cents each. Click on the graphic to the right to check it out now.

Chlorella is my personal favorite among all the green superfood powders because of its ability to draw out toxins from your system and eliminate them. Most of the green superfood powder blends include chlorella in their recipes because its nutritional value is second to none.

What's the best place
to buy chlorella and other
natural health products?

iHerb.com offers the best price on Yaeyama chlorella as well as 30 other chlorella products. And when you buy from iHerb, you'll also get all these other benefits: