Chlorella and Spirulina with Catharine Arnston

Logan (00:00:03):
Welcome Catherine to the health sovereign podcast. Really excited for our conversation here today.

Catharine (00:00:08):
Me too. And it's always my pleasure to share my knowledge of algae. It's not many people doing it, so here we go.

Logan (00:00:17):
Yeah. And we want to get there, but I do want to dig a bit into your backstory because I think it's important. And also this topic, I like how people come to, I guess, a bit of a different health paradigm is a interesting topic I've been exploring. So your sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. You want to share the story at any point you want to pick up on that?

Catharine (00:00:42):
Yeah, so I you know, I have an MBA and I was doing I'm Canadian, but I've, I've lived in Boston, Massachusetts for 33 years. But everything kind of ground to a halt about 12 years ago when my younger sister in Canada was diagnosed with breast cancer, she's fine now, by the way, just want to assure people that and her oncologist advised her to change her diet to alkaline diet, because it would help with their healing. Now they didn't tell her what an alkaline diet was or why it would be good for her, but, you know, she's quite beautiful. Unlike myself, following instructions from her medical professional. And so she called me because I'm a really good researcher and obviously I love my sister. So I said, I have no idea what an alkaline that was. You know, I had, I had a career in interior design before that.

Catharine (00:01:34):
So not exactly nutrition, but I'm very, very deep in research. So I said, I'll find out and we'll get this, we'll do this together. So I did find out for her what an alkaline diet wasn't. It was basically a plant based diet because of the phytonutrients and the chlorophyll that have been documented for decades to build your immune system. So she did go through chemo. She completely changed her diet. 10 years later, she's still cancer-free. But in the process of helping her, I started reading all these books about plant based nutrition. Now this was 12 years ago and a plant based nutrition was not mainstream like it is now. So I saw the science, I saw how powerful it was. I thought, gosh, somebody needs to share this information with the rest of the world. Oh, heck I don't have no idea how to do it, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Catharine (00:02:22):
So I gave up my 25 year corporate career and I thought, well, I need some sort of education. So I got a one year certificate from the Institute for integrative nutrition in New York city. Which basically taught me how to be a health coach. It gave me some science, but not a ton. I've pretty much self taught ever since then, but it gave me enough. And then I put together a curriculum teaching plant based nutrition for free at corporations and hospitals, basically anybody who would let me in. And that's really when I had my epiphany about algae, you know, I got introduced to it through my sister, but my epiphany came when I was teaching people about the importance of plant based nutrition, eating more vegetables anymore greens. And the Tiffany was this. Everybody knows they should eat more vegetables. Everybody knows they should eat more salads.

Catharine (00:03:13):
But the reality was that most people either were too far away from a grocery store or they didn't have time to log home, heavy vegetables, clean them, cook them, eat them. Maybe they didn't like the flavor of vegetables. Maybe their kids wouldn't need them. The husband. So the bottom line was there were all these barriers between people getting the nutrients that they know they needed. Cause we know our food chain is damaged because the soils have no nutrients in them. But so I thought, well, how can I help people be healthier if I can't get them to eat green? So that's when I thought, okay, I've got to go back and research further. The things I had found for my sister and maybe I'll find something that was easy, fast green that would work for people so that it would take away all the burden and the cleaning and the eating and the key, whatever.

Catharine (00:04:05):
So, so I tried a bunch of things, nothing was working. And then I found, I got to algae, which I'd found for my sister. And that's when I was like Alice in Wonderland, falling into the rabbit hole because it turned out that Al algae was the most alkaline food in the world, which was what got me started on this journey is also the most nutrient dense food in the world. That's not my opinion. That's a quote we have from NASA that says one gram of algae has the nutrients of a thousand grams of fruits and vegetables. And that's why they've been feeding it to the astronauts for 50 years and they want to grow it in space. Algae is the most studied food in the world. It has over a hundred thousand studies. There's about 60,000 on spirulina. That's one of the allergies we're going to talk about in the other boat, 40,000 and chlorella.

Catharine (00:04:48):
So it's on solid scientific foundation. The trouble is that scientists like to talk to other scientists. And so nobody has really shared the science with you, consumers, which is one of the things I've been doing. So anyways, solid scientific foundation used for hundreds of years around the world. Most notably for the last year, 50 years in Asia, where it's a multibillion dollar agricultural crop. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, LG is a food crop. It is not supplement. It has grown in fresh water. We're going to talk about that. Cause we grow ours in triple filtered, spring mountain water. Then it's just air dried and present to the little tablets or some people sell it as powder, but it is not a supplement. And the reason why that's important is supplements are made in factories with high heat, with extracts that your body can't recognize so that you have to have such high numbers on those vitamins and you don't absorb most of them anyways.

Catharine (00:05:41):
So with algae you get 90 it's 99% bioavailable. So it checked all my boxes off. You know, it was alkaline, nutrient dance, scientifically proven use for 50 years. And easy to take because all you need to do is toss a couple of these tablets in your mouth. You can swallow them or to them, and you're done each one of these tablets. And we're going to talk about those that we sell are the size of a baby aspirin. Each one of those has the nutrition equal to a heaping plate of vegetables that you didn't have to buy from the grocery store, carry from the grocery store, cook, clean or eat. So it's what I call efficient nutrition. So they only, there were really only two things wrong with algae that I could see one in America. Nobody really knew about it and that if it was avail and it's been sold here for 50 years, but it's usually in weird packaging and it's on the bottom shelf of some health food store gathering dust.

Catharine (00:06:40):
So not no visibility, no education, no taking the mystery away of what LG is and why it's good for you. And number two, the quality that's been available has been very poor. Most of it came from China mostly with an undocumented nutrients. We do third-party lab tests and full of binders and fiber, other stuff, other gunk that doesn't deliver the nutrient density that you deserve. So I decided 10 years ago, I would devote the rest of my life to educating people about algae, what it is, why it's good for you, what the differences are, how to take it, how to judge your different suppliers and to make it take the mystery in a way. So you don't think it's pond scum because it's so far from that, it's a, I call it, everyone knows as a superfood, but I call it a super duper food because it's way more than a super food.

Logan (00:07:40):
So many jumping off points there. So it sounds like with you were kind of new to the whole health journey when your sister had her diagnosis as well.

Catharine (00:07:50):
Absolutely. Absolutely. I was a newbie,

Logan (00:07:54):
A little perplexed by that. The oncologist actually told someone to change their diet. That's pretty amazing. I'll share a little bit about my story. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through standard Western treatment. It went into remission, but then it came back later. And do you remember? I was, I was a bit younger at the time but they're telling you like avoid antioxidants. You can't take it cause it will interfere with the treatment. Right. And she died. I did not have a happy story and to mine and for me that was like, I was starting down this one called alternative health path or like learning about nutrition and whatnot. But for me that was a kind of pivotal thing that spurred me to go deeper. And it's interesting for you, it's the same thing, better outcome. But th that does seem to be a big part of what launches people into

Catharine (00:08:45):
Really, almost everybody I've met in this community had a personal or a family experience similar to yours in mind where they there was a sudden shock to a, in a, in a urgent need to respond with something that was not known. And with my six sisters situation, I'm still stunned. When I think about 12 years ago that her oncologist told her about this. But I, my, I think the reason why it happened was number one, she lives in Canada and in Canada we have national health care. And so there's not the same kind of control of the pharmaceutical industry as there is an America. So it's to the doctors, they're, they're, they're more motivated for a positive outcome because there's less financial reward as there is here. Number one, number two, her oncologist was a woman and women just, I'm sorry. We tend to be more driven to find health solutions because in the family, we're usually the ones that look after people.

Catharine (00:09:53):
So there are exceptions. I'm sure you're one, but the so I I'm just, and she did still have her go through the chemo, but she did at least recommend this to her. And I'm so grateful because her life changed. And so did mine. I never knew anything about nutrition, so that, and probably it's it's has turned out to be a good thing, because as I've mentioned, the science about algae has been available and around for at least 50 years. But as I mentioned, scientists like to talk to other scientists, they know all the jargon and they have PhDs and they kind of, they, they speak an accurate act in star turnover, but because I'm a normal person consumer I had to back into the science and once I learned the science, I had to then reinterpret it into ways.

Catharine (00:10:49):
And I'll give you some analogies that your other mainstream consumers could understand. So there's no jargon if you want the science and I can go toe to toe with PhDs and I do at conferences. And they're always very impressed because I know my science because I need to know if people are counting on me. My integrity is in question. If I have an educated myself and I'm always educating myself, we talked earlier before we started the conference about how we both have like 10 books on, on deck waiting to be read. And it will, it's a journey that I enjoy. And I, and more importantly, I enjoy sharing my knowledge. It's not just for me to it. It's not enough for me to know. I need to help other people benefit from my knowledge.

Logan (00:11:35):
Yeah. I really liked the point you have that. We need something simple. Right? So taking spirulina or chlorella, it's like a whole bunch of vegetables compacted together, essentially in that the nutrients that provides it, doesn't have the soil depletion and whatnot, because behavior is hard. It shouldn't be as difficult as it is. Like it should be taught in schools. Like how do you actually change habits and whatnot? I think that would help people out a whole lot if that was made more accessible and people are starting with where they're at. So if we can give them the essentially kind of a magic bullet, something that's going to jumpstart the system, give them some quick results, then we can move on to the harder stuff a little bit later on. I'm seeing more and more. That's just so important.

Catharine (00:12:21):
Yeah. Baby steps. Life is all about baby steps and it's about a repetitive pattern. So if if something is too ominous to sh like changing your diet, that's why I love algae so much. You don't need to change anything. Just take a couple of these a day, that's it. And you don't have to, you don't have to do anything, just open your mouth. And when I finally, because we, that quote we have from NASA about one gram of Valjean equals a thousand grams of nutrition. So we did, I did the math and I found a bag of our LD tablets that have a thousand tablets in. It has the equivalent nutrition of 551 pounds of fruits and vegetables, which is about 30 grocery carts of food. And I used to, I was telling people that, but that still didn't resonate. It was still too big.

Catharine (00:13:08):
But now that I've gotten, I've realized, cause I did the math again, that one of these tablets is the equivalent of a heaping plate of vegetables. And we've done some photography to help people that that is resonating with people. And usually if this was visual, I would be talking to you and I would pop one of these tablets in my mouth because I chew mine, but you can swallow them. And I go, just had a plate of vegetables. It doesn't get any easier. Especially when you have kids who won't eat vegetables, husbands, who don't eat vegetables, by the way, pets love this stuff. And that's the true Testament. Whether something is good for you, not because your pets are smart, animals are smart. And if we could just pay more attention to them, if they could talk to us other than in Disney, we would have a lot to learn from them. So, so when you can see any, everybody can look at one of these tablets and if they can conceive that it's equal to the nutrition of a heating plate of vegetables, that's all they need to know.

Logan (00:14:06):
Yeah, no, that, that is a great visual. And that's, that's impressive. And yeah, the animals haven't had all their instincts beat out of them. So that's makes sense. I will feed some to my cats. I have not thought of that yet, but I've given some other herbs, but not LG.

Catharine (00:14:21):
Yeah. Yeah. They'll love them. They'll you know, just be aware they want more,

Logan (00:14:27):
I have a question regarding the alkalinity, cause what I've looked at and for me, it's one of the best works on nutrition was Western Maine prices, nutrition and physical degeneration. Have you read that book? Are you familiar?

Catharine (00:14:39):
Not that particular book, but I'm a big fan of of his work.

Logan (00:14:42):
Yeah. When he went around and he was looking at indigenous people's diets all over the world, all kinds of different diets, none were really vegetarian except the Indians. And they had some more problems, but very diverse in it. And he actually looked at the pH and I think this may just be in the appendix of the book and the pH of the diets was all over the place. So I'm trying to come to this conclusion, like it's not the pH so much of a pH is kind of saying like an alkaline diet is a healthier diet, like more fruits and vegetables. You're getting those phytonutrients. Do you believe it's a pH that really matters? Or is it the other stuff in your opinion?

Catharine (00:15:20):
I think it's the nutrients, but let me just talk a little bit about the pH. So everybody knows that your body temperature needs to be 98.6 to be healthy and all of your different organs and cells, your skin, everything has a particular pH that it tries to strive for, for homeostasis, but they're all different. Your blood pH needs to be at 7.34. That's smack dab in the middle between the pH, which is the lower. The pH is acidic. And the high pH is alkaline. Now your body is so intelligent that if you eat too many foods that are acidic or you are emotional, there's a lot of things. Exercise releases, lactic acid, which is acidic. It's it poles. It causes the blood to become more acidic and move away from that 7.34. And so what your body automatically does is that it pulls minerals from your bones, your organs, your skin, to neutralize that acidity to bring you back to the 7.34.

Catharine (00:16:22):
Cause if it didn't do that, you would die. But if that, if that happens over and over and over again, this is what causes your immune system to weekend because it's having it's important minerals because minerals are important for every process in your body. Minerals are important for your bones for flexibility. And also and we're going to talk a little bit about COVID and I'm going to just sort of give you a quick injection because everybody knows covert as a respiratory illness. But what the doctors are starting to realize is also a blood disorder, because what the COVID does is it goes into your blood and your blood has hemoglobin that inside your hemoglobin is a iron cell that carries oxygen. So the, the virus inserts itself and kicks out the iron Adam and insert inserts itself. We'll talk later about the three different things that that does, but the virus is acidic.

Catharine (00:17:18):
Cancer is acidic. All diseases are acidic. Why is that important? Well, mother nature and her intelligence in your hemoglobin, she put a negative charge around your hemoglobin. So if you've ever held up magnets close to one another, you know that they repel one another, whether your hemoglobin is this way, it has this negative charge on it so that they repel one another. Why is that important? When they repel, they can call their nice round shape, which allows them to hold the iron, which allows them to hold the oxygen so that you can get all nutrients. You need easily. It means they can move through your blood vessels. Very simply they're not. And when the negative charge gets stripped off, as what happens with COVID or with too much acidity that causes your blood to clump, which means it can't hold the iron atom. It can't hold oxygen very well.

Catharine (00:18:07):
It can't flow very well. And you get clumped blood vessels, you get blood clots, right? So, so the pH of your blood is very, very important. And I don't know whether that was why the doctor, my sister's oncologist wanted her to have an alkaline diet to maintain that blood pH, which helps with your blood health, which helps with your immunity, because we'll send you some documents to post with the Pope, with the blog, but you can go online. And this isn't any science book, you'll see that the chemical composition of your hemoglobin is identical to the chemical composition of chlorophyll with the exception of one Adam, and there's like 70 or 40 parts to these chemical compositions in your blood. The only difference is that in the middle of the, of your hemoglobin is an iron Adam. That's what carries oxygen. And in your chlorophyll that iron Adam, the middle Adam is magnesium.

Catharine (00:19:04):
Other than that, your blood and chlorophyll are identical. And chlorophyll is very alkalining. Chlorophyll builds your blood in the world war II. They used to give the injured liquid chlorophyll if they ran out of blood for transfusions and they would heal just as fast. Why? Because blood and chlorophyll are almost identical. So, so it's not just the alkaline. It's a very, it's wrapped up. The alkaline part is wrapped up with chlorophyll and the highest concentration of chlorophyll comes from algae. And that is probably why it's. So alkaline is because of all this high chlorophyll. So, so the, so the pH of your blood is critical, but then you have to remember that there is a pH that needs to be maintained in every organ of your body or the acidity of your stomach needs to be, it has to be more acidic than your, than your skin, for example, or your so it's a very complicated matter, but the pH of your blood is one that I think most people can understand because of this clumping situation that occurs in. And by the way, they're doing lots of biopsies now of people who have passed from COVID and they're finding blood clots everywhere. And that's exactly what happens because the virus is acidic causes the clumping. And anyways, that's the situation. So

Logan (00:20:29):
Very fascinating. Yeah. The chlorophyll being so similar to blood with magnesium, which is something people are chronically deficient and 80% of our seed different estimates.

Catharine (00:20:39):
Exactly, exactly. Would it help for me to explain the different allergies and what LG is? Or, or do you have a different I can in any direction you want me to

Logan (00:20:48):
Let's go, go into that. Cause I think that's important for sure.

Catharine (00:20:52):
Yeah. So what I help people understand is that LG is its own food group. Just like mushrooms are their own food group.

Logan (00:21:00):
I think all the lust food groups, right? Like seaweeds, a lot of people aren't needing insects can be one of like all these things that have a lot more nutrients than our standard foods, like get into the last food groups you'll be doing better.

Catharine (00:21:11):
Yeah. Yeah. So fruits are our food group. Vegetables are a food group. LG has neither one of those. So it's its own food category. And within algae, as a category, there are two main sub categories. One is called macro algae and the other one is called micro-algae. Now we're going to be talking about micro algae, but first let me explain what macro LG is. Macro LD is also known as a seaweed, dulse kelp, it's that big stringy stuff that washes up on shore. It's important for its fiber, excuse me, and it's iodine, but it doesn't hold a candle to the nutritional value of micro-algae now micro algae, which is what we're talking about is called, is called micro algae because it's microscopic in size. There's something like a hundred million algae LG that can fit on a head of a pin. That's how tiny this stuff is.

Catharine (00:22:09):
And it's and everything. First of all, Al micro-algae was the first life on earth, almost 4 billion years ago. I was mostly, it was spirulina in fact, and there's fossils to prove it. And it's in the oceans, it's in the lakes is in the rivers is in your soil. It's in your swimming pool. It's even in your aquarium. So there's thousands and thousands of strains of micro-algae. The two main strains are blue, green, and green. And there's thousands of those everywhere else. Now, if you Google blue green algae, and you might find something that says, Oh, toxic blue, green algae. Yes. If it grew in the ocean, just like, you know if you read about swampy water, you wouldn't drink swampy water, you would drink clean water, right? So swampy water doesn't mean that water is bad. It just means that that water's bad. So if you read about toxic blue, green algae, that's just the algae that's in the ocean.

Catharine (00:23:05):
The two that we're talking about are harvested as food crops. They do not grow in the ocean. They are grown in fresh water and we're renowned for having the cleanest purest toxin-free algae because we grow ours in triple filtered, spring mountain water in Taiwan, and we air dry it without heat. And we'll talk about that later on, but the two main algae that are harvested as food crops and have been harvested as food crops for 50 years in Asia are spirulina and chlorella. So let's talk about each one of them. Spirulina is an example of a blue green algae. Why is it called the blue green algae? Because it has two pigments. The green pigment you're quite familiar with is called chlorophyll. And we're going to talk more about that in a few minutes. The other pigment is called FICO Sinan and I'm sure you don't know about it.

Catharine (00:23:57):
It's a beautiful blue, a GM blue color that has a lot of healing properties that cannot be found anywhere else. And just as a side note, science scientists have found that it helps prevent the COVID virus from getting into your cells. But anyway, spirulina blue, green algae, it's technically a bacteria. Yes. Spirulina is a bacteria. Why? Because it has no cellulous wall or nucleus. It's a single cell organism. But the amazing thing about spirulina is that it has the highest concentration of protein in the world. Even the United nations had a global conference on spirulina in 1974, over 40 years ago and identified it as the answer to world hunger, because it has three times the amount of protein as steak, ours is 64% protein. There is nothing in the world that has more concentrated protein than spirulina. And even more importantly, all of that protein is already in amino acid form.

Catharine (00:24:56):
When you eat animal protein, your body needs to break it down into amino acids. So it can be absorbed, but that can take up to three days. And if you don't have all the factors and cofactors, you only end up with about five or 10% of it as amino acids. And it takes three days with spirulina because there's no celery this wall. And because the proteins already in amino acids, it gets absorbed instantly. So it's like 99% bioavailable. And not only does spirulina have this high amount of protein, it's loaded with the B vitamins, B vitamins are what convert aminos into energy. That's why we call ours our main, our first and main spirulina energy bets, because we thought that was easier to say than spirulina. And it gives you energy cause both mental energy and physical energy. Now it's not lightening bolts from the sky because there's no sugar, caffeine or chemicals is not as stimulant.

Catharine (00:25:47):
You just get energy from the protein, the B vitamins and the 40 other vitamins and minerals that work in synergy to help you basically just feel the way we describe it. As you feel fresh, you, you feel like you just had a great night's sleep or walk out in the fresh air. You're ready for anything athlete. We were a sports nutrition company for the first four years because athletes love it so much because it gives them steady energy and doesn't upset their stomach cause it gets so absorbed so quickly. So part of the energy is from the high protein that's in amino acid, the high B vitamins high iron, which as we mentioned earlier, is what carries oxygen. And when you have more oxygen, you have more energy. It's also loaded with essential fatty acids, like a mega three that help with your brain functioning.

Catharine (00:26:38):
And, and most people sadly get their, a mega three from fish oil, which is bad for you for bad for everybody because it overflowed kills so much of the ocean life. And most fish oil goes rancid after about a month, but I remind people where do you think the fish get the Omega three from it? They get it from algae. So you might as well go to the original source and get it for yourself as well. Really? Yeah, yeah. Bypass the middleman. You got it. LGL, ZOS, boron, which is really important for you or my lawn sheets and thought processing. So there's a lots of different reasons why spirulina gives you energy. It's all, science-based, it's all nutrition, but, and it's well-documented and acknowledged by nutritionists, even doctor Gundry who wrote the plant paradox, he even endorses LG, because LG is not technically a plant.

Catharine (00:27:32):
So it doesn't have any of the anti-nutrients that you might find in plants. Like it has no phytates. It has no lectins. It has no oxalates. So, so algae plays with everybody, whether you're vegan, paleo, keto low carb, low fiber. It's great. So spirulina, basically an energizing algae dense nutrition, great for intermittent fasting. Great for a snack. The only downside I will admit about spirulina is it doesn't taste very good. It's very chewy because of the high protein and the essential fatty acids. So most people swallow them, but you know, so in the morning you get up, you have whatever you have to your whatever toss, three or four of these down in like nanoseconds. And that will take the edge off your hunger will give you a little bit of energy to get going one calorie per tablet. So if you're watching your calories, it's, you know, as is very waistline friendly, as I'd say, and then you can have more in the morning, more in the afternoon, take it any time you are tired or hungry.

Catharine (00:28:35):
You can't have too much of it because it's just a plant it's like having too much broccoli or too much salad. Now we found that women weren't attracted to the packaging or branding. And as you know, I started because of my sister. So women's health is really big for important for me. So my girlfriends told me I should just package it in pink and give it a cute name. And because the high protein and the high end, the oxidants build your skin and hair health. I thought, well, what the heck? Okay. So I, we made a second brand of spirulina and color, the beauty bits, it's in a pink package, but it doesn't exactly same thing as energy bits. And someone said, Oh, you have a boy spirulina pretty much that's I guess the truth. So so that's spirulina unbelievable. Good.

Catharine (00:29:23):
For any age babies, newborns, granddads, pets, you name it not as in 50, 60 years of it being used. I don't think I've heard a single negative outcome of from spirulina. Very, very nutrient dense though. So if you have had a bad diet in the past, first of it's easiest thing to do to correct it, but take it slowly and start with maybe just three or four tablets a day. So you don't go, go a little nuts now, a billion years after spirulina, because it releases oxygen. When it's growing, there was enough oxygen for more life forms to occur and chlorella it's brother was next. Now chlorella does belong to the plant kingdom, although it's technically not a plant because it has the hardest cellulous wall in the plant kingdom. Remember I said, spirulina has no cellulous wall. Chlorella has the hardest. Why is that hard cell wall important?

Catharine (00:30:16):
Because it attaches to toxins and pulls them out of key lates, heavy metals lead, mercury radiation. It's it was used at Fukushima Hiroshima Chernobyl when the Fukushima disaster happened about eight years ago, the entire global supply of chlorella was bought up within 24 hours by everybody in Asia, because they know it's the only thing that pulls out radiation. We have some customers who use it, who are getting chemotherapy and they take it to help pull out the excess radiation. So they're not as nauseous. You'll be amused to know that it also identifies alcohol as a toxin. So if you take it after drink wine or beer or spirits of any kind you are sober in an hour and you never have a hangover. And it works every time we have summers have gone too well when they were traveling, they went to Vegas or they had their bachelorette party and they were the only ones taking the chlorella.

Catharine (00:31:13):
We call our chlorella recovery bits because it helps you recover your health or recover from your party or recover from sports. So it really did help. We also work with as I mentioned, athletes, they take the spirulina before a workout and they take the chlorella afterwards because it also identifies lactic acid as a toxin. So we feel NHL teams, the Olympic teams, they, they, again, they use the spirulina, they put like 75 and a smoothie before a hockey game. And then they take the chlorella afterwards to pull out the light to gas. But the lung in particular really love the chlorella because as you know, when teams travel, whether you're high school, well, you're not traveling now, but when you do again you're on a bus together or a plane together and you bunk together. And if one person gets sick, it travels very quickly through the team and chlorella because it has so much chlorophyll.

Catharine (00:32:11):
And we're gonna talk about that next builds your immune system. So it literally prevents you from getting sick of any kind, including quite honestly, viruses. So chlorella very grateful for detox of any kind that hard cell wall. And as I just mentioned, it's also the highest concentration of chlorophyll in the world. Spirulina has the highest concentration of protein in the world. Chlorophyll has the highest concentration of chlorophyll. It has a thousand times more chlorophyll than Chinese greens. Hundred times more than spinach has 25 times more than liquid chlorophyll, which are made from alfalfa sprouts. So if we're all desperately short of chlorophyll, and if you have a sensitivity and frankly, as I, as I do to lectins or oxalates which means that you can't eat oxalates or can eat things with oxide, that means spinach is certainly off the, off the food choice.

Catharine (00:33:03):
So Cale's probably not a good choice either. So, so people are looking for ways to get chlorophyll and there are no oxalates in our algae because it's not technically a plan. It's just, if you have to call it anything as a sea vegetable plants develop these things like oxalates to protect themselves from it, from, you know, bugs. And so unfortunately they also cause problems for some people which irritate their gut, which causes leaky gut. So chlorophyll and chlorella, LG have none of those problems. And yet they have this rich abundance of chlorophyll. Why is chlorophyll so important? Well, here's the deal with chlorophyll. It's a fat based pigment. Why is that important? Because all of your health starts at the cellular level. It's the mitochondria inside your cells and the cell walls. And if you don't get nutrients to the mitochondria, and if you don't get toxins pulled out from the cells that causes an acidic environment, remember we talked about that and that causes the cells to start behaving but poorly, and they don't communicate, they become sick, they become rogue and it's a slippery slope in diseases.

Catharine (00:34:16):
The next thing, so the great thing about Carville and here's one of my little analogies I like to help people understand is, you know, when you have dirty windows, you can't see out and sunlight can't get in. And if you have dirty windows in your car, that's even more damaging and that's an accident waiting to happen. So chlorophyll because it's a fat based pigment is like, I call it window washers for yourselves. It cleans your cell walls so that nutrients can get in and talk. Sins can get out. And that's, what's clay about greens, but you can't get anything more green. You can't get more chlorophyll than you can from chlorella allergy. Obviously spirulina has chlorophyll as well, but it has two pigments. Chlorella is just chlorophyll as the pigment. So it's a very rich source of chlorophyll that cleans your cells. And that's one of the reasons why it builds your immune system.

Catharine (00:35:12):
Now, remember I mentioned about how chlorophyll looks like your blood. So when you have a lot of chlorophyll, you're injecting a lot of oxygen. You're injecting a lot of magnesium. You're cleaning your blood. And if your blood is clean, then it's able to deliver other nutrients and oxygen to your blood, which helps you stay healthy. The other amazing thing about chlorella, we, because of that hard cell wall, it actually has fiber in the cell wall and we we're reading. And we'll continue to read about the importance of your gut biome, your bacteria in your biome need fiber. And the fiber allows them to release. What's called short chain fatty acids that heal your cell wall. A lot of immune auto immune system. A lot of auto-immune rather is a result of leaky gut, different food groups, poor get through your, your gut and your gut wall is PR is protected by a one layer, one cell layer of mucosal surfaces easily broken through.

Catharine (00:36:12):
And so when you get stuff breaking through, it gets into your bloodstream and your immune system starts attacking itself. So, so chlorella helps prevent that because it provides the fiber that the bacteria need. That's why it's been used for decades for IBS Crohn's disease. It heals the gut because it, the chlorophyll, which is cleansing that hard cell wall, which absorbs toxins and the fiber. So it also stimulates periostosis bowel movements are critical for you know, your health to get rid of the Botox ans so that's why we, you know, and there's so many other nutrients in chlorella, like vitamin K, too, that pull out excess calcium from your soft tissue to move it into your bones, which prevents heart disease, Alzheimer's wrinkles. So the thing I need you to understand is that chlorella is a health and wellness, LG. So I'll be call it recovery bits cause you recover your health. Spirulina is an energizing algae. So he takes spirulina in the morning when you need energy,

Catharine (00:37:16):
You're hungry and you're, you know, all that sort of stuff. And then generally we recommend chlorella at night because your body goes through a detox cycle when you sleep. So this will facilitate the detox. And in so many ways, you know, when you're asleep your brain, when you're in deep sleep, your brain shrinks and you have a cleansing system in your brain. And so that's one of the times, if you had something like chlorella, it can pull out the aluminum from your brain. And there's lots of aluminum in our brains because of glyphosate, it's all over the place. So this helps restore health to your brain, healthier, your biome. I think everyone in the world should be taking chlorella. LG every day. I say, it's like giving your body a shower from the inside. We shower every day outside. So chlorella

Catharine (00:38:05):
Shower on the inside. Now the cool thing about chlorella, at least I think is it tastes pretty good. Well, it's not sweet because obviously it's green, but if you eat it, it tastes like a soy nut or a sunflower seed. And I like to eat it with some sea salt. But it also tastes great, really great with macadamia nuts. So, but just like spirulina, if you do not like the taste, just swallow it, you get the same benefits. Now, and again, you can take three or four a day. If you want to just sort of up your wellness. If you're doing a detox though, you will need the full 20 or 30 tablets. So if you have wine and you don't want to have a hangover, you're going to need 20 or 30 or more. If you're, if you want to recover from sports, if you're a big person and all that sort of stuff.

Catharine (00:38:54):
So spirulina energizing ticket in the morning and the afternoon chlorella health and wellness algae taking the evening for sure. But you can take either of them any time a day with each other, by themselves with food put them in a smoothie. They're, they're great for traveling. If you end up at a hotel and you don't know what's in that mini bar, if you have some algae with you, at least, you know, you can take the edge off your hunger, recover from your trip keep your health where it needs to be. It's I just think it's everyone's best friend certainly is mine.

Logan (00:39:32):
Okay. I'd like to ask a little bit more the specifics around the detox. I guess the more I've gotten into health, just we live in a very polluted world, as you were saying, glyphosates on everything and there's so much out there. So just recognizing more and more the importance of detox and how the average person doesn't think of that at all. Yeah. So how much of the research like chlorella has a huge reputation and justifiably? So for helping with detox, I'm curious how much of the science has looked at cause different things may pull different heavy metals or toxins better than others, for instance. So I'm just curious, you mentioned some of the things, the led mercury radiation aluminum there, how much of the science has specifically looked at the benefits with chlorella?

Catharine (00:40:19):
Well the dental community has known about chlorella for a very long time because they pull out, you know, our fillings, what they call they call AMA grams have mercury in them. And so the dentists have been using chlorella for a long time, the biological dentists, because, and they not only do they recommend it to their patients, they take it too because there will be fumes from the, the mercury in the air as they take this, these fillings out from people's mouths. And you don't want to have your, an average or your regular dentists do these sorts of things. Cause you have to really protect yourself because you don't want to swallow any of that. Mercury mercury is very, very poisonous.

Logan (00:41:04):
It can be what are in the process if it's not done right then. Yeah.

Catharine (00:41:09):
So the medic, the PR the dental community has known about chlorellas benefits with mercury for a long time. There are other holistic doctors like dr. Klinghardt who's runs a clinic up in Seattle and has been running it for 20 or 30 years. And he's a big proponent of chlorella. He talks about how it seems to work even better when you marry it with cilantro. No, I actually haven't read any of the science about that, but you know, I personally, I love cilantro, so it wouldn't certainly be a difficulty for me to have it. But in terms of so here's the, I'll tell you an interesting little side story about how algae even got started, particularly chlorella. It was discovered in, by the Dutch back in the late 18 hundreds to have the highest concentration of protein in the world.

Catharine (00:42:01):
And then in the early 19 hundreds, the Germans started doing research on it and Otto Warburg who's well known in the cancer. He was doing research on it and that's who, you know, found out that cancer is, can exist in an alkaline environment anyways, and he won a Nobel prize for it. So, so the bottom line is the, the Germans had done all this research on chlorella because of the chlorophyll. And then there was world war one and Germany was bombed out and there was no food or livestock, and I don't know how things happen, but anyways, the German government knew about the chlorophyll and they discovered about algae having the highest concentration of protein. So somehow they got chlorella algae into the Germans to feed them because of the protein. And and then it kind of just disappeared. Nobody really talked about it anymore.

Catharine (00:42:56):
And then there was world war two and there was Hiroshima. And as part of something called the Marshall plan, the Americans committed to helping the Japanese rebuild and to one of the part of that deal was to feed them. So they somehow research got in touch with the Germans and had learned about the chlorella, feeding their company, their people back in world war one. So with all the food that was sent over to Japan, somehow they included chlorella. I don't know where it came from, but anyways, there you go. Now, what was interesting is not only did the chlorella, because it still has 60% protein feed the Japanese, they found out the people that got healed from the radiation. This is back in 1948. And so when the world war II was over and I have the documents to prove it there were the the Rockefeller Institute spent four years researching chlorella algae and decided it was the answer to everything.

Catharine (00:43:58):
And and they start and they built a a pilot plant ironically here in Boston, which is where I'm based to try to grow from ASCA assumption, but they only gave it a year and after year they shut it down. And, and then the Japanese say, well, if you're not going to pursue this chlorella stuff, we will. And this was, so this was back in 1950. So all the research was sent over to Japan and took them 10 years to figure out how to grow chlorella for mass consumption. And that is why the entire chlorella industry started. That's an, that's what it was because the Japanese had been healed from the radiation from Fukushima, from, with the chlorella. And after chlorella started being grown for mass consumption. And the industries for chlorella is still based in Japan, but it's now grown into Taiwan and India and China.

Catharine (00:44:52):
And also then the spirulina started being grown, but they don't grow spirulina in Japan, interestingly enough. But so that's why the radiation issue is documented. It's on solid footing with the radiation because it's been used ever since the forties for, for that purpose. So there's lots and lots of others. And the United nations, they fed the chlorella to people after the Chernobyl again, for the same reason to pull out the radiation. So now chlorella, what you need to understand is that not only does it pull out the toxins it has itself it's loaded with 40 vitamins and minerals. So it does not pull out other minerals. It only pulls out toxins if you use activated charcoal as it to pull a toxic that pulls out everything that pulls out all minerals and that's can run into some problems. You don't want to do that. So I think chlorella is far safer because it only pulls out toxins. And the reason why it pulls that alcohol is cause when you, when you consume alcohol and I could find the chart, or there are article your body converts the alcohol into different toxins. And it's those toxins, the the the chlorella is detecting. I call chlorella intelligent food because it knows what to do in your body and you have to be intelligent to take it.

Catharine (00:46:23):
And you know, I really hope one day we're a much bigger company and I can do more. I can fund these kinds of studies. Most of these studies are done in Asia. Well, actually that's not true, India. There are done everywhere else. There's some here in America, I have access to about 2000 of them. As I mentioned, there's a hundred thousand, but I have links to NIH, pub med, you know, at least two, maybe 3000 articles. So I don't say anything publicly or on our website anywhere if I don't have the science to back it up. So and just on that note I'm constantly looking for new stuff. And about a couple of weeks ago, there was a great article that came out. The pharmaceutical department at the university of Pittsburgh has developed a nose spray that prevents COVID guess what the active ingredient is in the nose spray. It's algae. Now it's still going through clinical trials and it's not going to be available until the end of the year or early next year. So I I'm telling people why wait for the nose spray when you can take algae. Now

Logan (00:47:33):
You don't need to share.

Catharine (00:47:35):
Yeah, it just comes to our website, energy bits.com and you're locked and loaded, but it's just a confirmation that there's more and more awareness about algae. And in fact, I just got an art, a publication in the mail. It's actually for a beauty, it's a quarterly beauty. And there were four pages about algae being used in creams. You know, there's very expensive creams like Lemaire that have used algae for 20 years. But I tell people why cheat the rest of your body. If you put a cream on your face, only your skin on your face is getting the benefits of the algae. If you, if you ingest it that that's going into your blood, that's circulating everywhere. Not just your face is going everywhere. So people are always stunned when they find a hole. I am cause I'm, I'm a much older than people think. And it's because, Hey, I've been taking LT for the last 10 years.

Logan (00:48:31):
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important. Cause trying to create a model for health it's, you know, the inputs and the output and something like the LG is, has tremendous nutrients coming in, but also helping with the detoxification at the same time. So that's why it's like such a good foundation.

Catharine (00:48:48):
Yeah. And I don't think people understand that, you know, up until about 50 years ago, we didn't have this kind of toxic load in our environment. I think there's something like 200,000 chemicals that have been released into our world since world war two. So that's like since the fifties and when they study a new toxin or chemical or whatever they did in isolation, they don't look at it as the one more on the layering of toxins that are already there. And so it's like right now, we're all like, we're like buckets with holes in them, air a boat with a hole in them and we're trying to stay afloat. But if you don't, but you can't make much headway, if you don't get, cause every day we get more toxins. And yet there's the, the, the load that we've had for, from the years of living are still there.

Catharine (00:49:39):
So you need to get rid of what's there and then you need to plug the hole. So you have, you know, plugging the holes is avoiding certain things, but there's some stuff that you can't avoid. I mean, if you live in LA or, you know, there's air pollution and there's, you know, even if you eat organic food, there's still contamination from glyphosate. And even if you wear only organic cotton clothing, there's still, you know, you can't live in a bubble, you go into buildings. And so it's, it's becoming informed as the credit is the big issue here, not becoming obsessed, just informed and, and finding simple ways like algae that will help fill, plug those holes, whether they're nutritional holes or helping you remove toxins, if it's complicated. And you know, there's a, you know, there's a lot of the biohacking community that we work with and they go to the cryotherapy and not everyone's near a cryotherapy, it's expensive and it's kind of cool, but you know, we're, I'm trying to reach out to the average person and try to help the average person manage their way through this complicated world.

Catharine (00:50:48):
We've created for ourselves with simple solutions. LG is a single cell organism. Okay. It's as simple as it gets. It was also the first life on earth. You cannot get any lower on the food chain, then algae. And it was created by mother nature and she's knows she's a smart cookie. She's the one that made our blood look like chlorophyll. And by the way, speaking of mother nature and mothers in general, I did an analysis. I saw that the nutrient profile of mother's breast milk is almost identical to spirulina the same amino acids in the same proportions. And I decide now think of spirulina as, you know, mother earth, breast milk for us. You can't obviously have breast milk after the age of two or three, but you can have spirulina every day.

Logan (00:51:42):
Well, time has really flown by here. I did. Can we really briefly, because obviously there are other companies, but the, the quality standards, like some have experienced chlorellas or spirulinas that have like a fishy smell or taste compared to yours, like very clean, I enjoyed chewing the tablets myself. And I do say chlorella is better than spirulina for that, but yeah. Could you just speak to that briefly? I guess?

Catharine (00:52:08):
Absolutely. yeah, they're, they're like my children, I hate to say anything bad about spirulina, but you know, swallowing is probably the better choice. So here's the situation. I wasn't planning on building a company. I just wanted to help my sister. And then I learned a little bit more and I thought, well, I can help a few more people. And, and there, I taught nutrition for a year, not even charging. And then I, then I stumbled across algae and I thought, man, this needs to get out to the world. So the reason I tell you that is because every step along the way in building this company that I wasn't planning on building the first place has been done with the decision to help people. So I'm not a big, you know, pharmaceutical supplements company trying to make a fast dollar. I just want to help people.

Catharine (00:52:57):
So I do nothing else and we sell nothing else except allergy. So we're experts on algae. And that being said we all the, you know, the strains of algae we use are higher quality than most people. We grow it in triple filtered, spring mountain water. So because which is important because algae will absorb whatever's in the water. And lots of, you know, if you go to, if you go to target or whole foods, though, I can promise you almost everything came from China. And there's not the same attention to detail or quality because they probably sell 500 or a thousand other supplements. It's impossible for them to spend the same kind of time or detail that we do. So it's the higher strain, high quality, clean water. We don't use high heat to dry it. This is important because heat kills enzymes. So we, aren't interested in getting the market fast, like everybody else.

Catharine (00:53:53):
So our enzymes are intact and also heat destroys some of the nutritional value. This is why I don't recommend supplements because they use high heat. And so that's why the numbers are so high on those supplements because they know you're only going to absorb about 5% of it. Algae is food, so no high heat. So you get all the enzymes and tact. Al spirulina is both of them are still raw food. Spirulina is considered a live food. And then we, when we dry them into these little tablets, we don't use any binders, no fillers, nothing. I've got pictures of other companies, who've got ground up, rocks mixed up with their algae. So that's why, you know, it's cheaper. Cause the high algae's expensive, certainly ours is then we package it in what's called UV protected bags so that the sunlight can't get in, cause that would pull out the chlorophyll, not everybody's is excuse me, as careful as that.

Catharine (00:54:46):
And then we package it here at an FDA approved location and we do third party lab tests. Cause we don't sell through. I chose not to sell through CVS and GNC because I'm not interested in that kind of distribution right now. I want to educate people first. So we only sell through our website energy butts.com. You can also buy them on Amazon, but we sell primarily through doctors, functional medicine, chiropractors, nutritionists, and they recommend and sell. They literally prescribe our algae to their patients. So they needed to see for sure that there were no toxins that the nutrients were exactly what we say they are. So we do all these third party lab tests. We even test for neurotoxins, which of course there are none because it's so carefully grown and packaged. And I don't know anybody else that does that. So so while I, you know, a large bag of our tablets is $120, although we have a 20% discount code for your listeners lost empire that works on everything all the time.

Catharine (00:55:55):
So it brings it down to 96. What I want people to understand is that that's really high value food. Remember there's 551 pounds of vegetables equivalent, you know, in a bag of the algae tablets. And if you were to buy 551 pounds of vegetables, that the average cost of $3 a pound for organic, because ours has grown organically, that's $1,500. So it's like, plus not to mention all the time of shopping, carrying them, home, cooking, cleaning, and your kids probably won't even eat it. So this way it's very efficient nutrition. And so it's, and there's nothing else in it. It's as clean. It's probably the purest, cleanest food you'll ever put in your body. We have people telling us they muscle tested it and we always pass the muscle test and your body knows intuitively what's good for it or not. And if you don't know how to muscle test go online and learn about it. There's different techniques. You can do it yourself. You can get someone to do it for you. Some people need more of the spirulina, some more of the chlorella, some, both. So it's, but I I'm Stan, I'm very proud of the quality cause I don't know how to do it any differently. I, you know, that's kind of just who I am. And I'm also

Logan (00:57:12):
Important when you, when you start with sort of like a, a personal reason or your sister, like you want the best stuff for yourself and for your family, right. It's, it's where people don't start for those reasons. They're looking for a quick buck that yeah. Things start to go downhill.

Catharine (00:57:27):
Well, you know, I tell people I don't even pay myself and I haven't for 10 years, if I have any, any money from the company, I, I just spend it on the company to do something more or we do research or we pay our team more. I'm hoping to be a positive influence in the world and do research and have an educational center teaching people I'd like to start a school, the LG Academy sort of what bum they've they've Asprey did with you know, with his Bulletproof coffee. He has certifications with algae is going to change. The world is already changing it. You just don't know it because you're not in it like I am, but you know Reebok launched a running shoe last year. It was all made of plants. The liner was made of algae.

Catharine (00:58:17):
Why? Because algae kills bacteria Gortex just launched an entire clothing line all based on algae. Why? Because it's the most, ecofriendly sustainable crop in the world. There's like Unilever just invested in a company in the UK. That's making packaging out of algae. Why? Because they w for condiments and, you know, juices water bottles, because you can either, once you finish your water bottle, you can eat the bottle if you want. Or it will self destruct in anywhere in 20, in, within 25 or 30 days. Cause it's so has no negative carbon footprint it's been used in Italy, in pastas. It's been, it's put in foods everywhere in Asia, by the way, in Japan, they have the lowest cancer rates, the best longevity great skin and hair. They even had very, very low COVID rates and, and LG builds your immune system naturally because it has all the immune support nutrients, your body needs. So so I mean it just, you know, the stuff that's happening with algae is exciting to me and I love to share it. And you know, it's just that you know, a lot of people just aren't aware of it. So that's what I try to do is just educate people. I'm not weird and algae's not weird is, and I tell people also, LG, isn't new, it's just new to you. It's well-documented long time used in other countries and we're just trying to help people understand it.

Logan (00:59:49):
Yeah. I think what you said there, that's the oldest living organism in the world and lowest on the food chain that, that if you understand things that says a whole lot right there. So I've known about algae for years been taking it on and off, but this definitely made me quite a bit more excited about it. Thank you very much, Catherine. This was great.

Catharine (01:00:08):
You're very welcome. And, and again if people want to come to our website, the energy bits.com and use the, you'll see a coupon box, lost amp put lost empire in there. And if you're not ready to buy a full bag, remember the spirulina are, there's two brands, energy bits, and beauty bits are exactly same, just one's pink and one's blue. Then we have the chlorella, which is recovery that's. And we also offer a fourth brand called vitality bits, which is a blend of the two algae. And if you aren't ready to jump in and buy a whole bag, and I completely understand that don't worry about that. You can go to Amazon and you can buy little pouches that have 30 tablets, and it's only $4 each. So try it out for $4. If you have prime shipping, you get free shipping and then come back to the website and you can buy your bag with the discount code. There's a lot of science on our website about the COVID. I didn't get a chance to talk about that, but it is pretty powerful in terms of building your immune system and even helping you recover from it. And it's all science-based. So we're just trying to help people a be healthy, be do it in an easy way and three have a clean, safe source. And that would be us.

Logan (01:01:22):
That's great. That sums it up. It really, it is one of those foundational things and we all need more nutrients and we need help with detox. Like everyone needs that. So give these a try. I highly recommend it. And I don't say that a lot of companies out there, but the commitment to quality is very important. Thank you, Catherine.

Catharine (01:01:45):
Thanks Logan.