Date:

28-Jun-2023

Input sound file:

Debunking Algae Myths - Catharine Arnston & Ashley James - #357

S1: 00:03

[music] Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is episode 357. I am so excited for today's interview. We have back on the show Catherine Arnston, who's the founder of ENERGYbits. We've had her on the show for three episodes before, so here's your fourth episode with us. Welcome back.

S2: 00:28

I'm back. Frequent flyer with Ashley James.

S1: 00:32

Yes, you are a frequent flyer for sure. Catherine was in episode 234, 265, and 266. I highly recommend going back and listening to those episodes for more-- to dive deeper into this topic, because we talked about how chlorella and spirulina, how these crops are made, the science, the studies behind it, the safety studies behind it as a food source, the nutrient values of it, why they're so beneficial in terms of how they work to detoxify the body and provide really readily available protein. And also, we talked about things like vitamin K2. So we dive into so many topics in those first three interviews. Today, we want to do some major debunking. I am so glad you came back on the show for this specifically. Dr. Andrew Weil, who's quite famous in the holistic health space, and I really value a lot of the things he's brought to the space.

S2: 01:28

Yes. Yes. We have a lot of respect for him.

S1: 01:30

We do. We have a lot of respect for his work, and in no way is this going to be bashing anyone above. If you're a regular listener, you know that I don't do kind of fearmongering and bashing of other people. But we have to understand that when someone writes a very negative article about something, it does cause hysteria. And so after he wrote an article about the dangers of toxic chlorella and toxic algae and, "You don't want to eat it because it's so dangerous, there's so many toxins in it." And he kind of got people in a panic. And since chlorella-- since algae in general, chlorella and spirulina has been seen for many years as a super food, also now people are afraid. And I got a few emails, a few Facebook messages of listeners going, "You've been telling me that chlorella and spirulina are healthy, and now Andrew Weil is saying it's not. Who do I believe? I'm really afraid." And so I reached out to Catherine because, of course, you are a great expert in this field. And Catherine said, "Oh, thank you for reaching out. Here's all the research that proves that his article is flawed." And we were discussing before I hit record is that I personally know a lot of heavy hitters in this holistic health space. People like, for example, Dr. Mercola, these people who write articles all the time. And we think every article comes right from the doctor themselves, but--

S2: 03:01

But.

S1: 03:02

The but. [laughter] The truth is--

S2: 03:04

Not so.

S1: 03:05

--most doctors that have blogs, that write articles, they are actually not the person writing. They have a whole team of people that they hire to be writers to create content so that they can have more clicks and get more-- make more money. And it seems like likely he had his writers do this whole article that's kind of set the holistic health world in a frenzy. And like you said, you saw that recently, Andrew Weil posted another post about the benefits of algae. So he's contradicting himself, which just goes to show he has a team of writers. They're all coming up with their own stuff because they have to create clickbait. So they want to put fear in you by making this like, "Oh, the dangers of algae," and, "Watch out," and, "There's toxins in it." And so then you click on it through his newsletter or through whatever you saw on Facebook, and it gets the clicks. And now he's talking about the benefits of algae, and they totally contradicted the other. So, Catherine, I love that you are grounded in science. You have so many PubMed studies that you're going to give us. All the links to the studies are going to be in the show notes of today's podcast to learnthroughout.com. Everyone is going to be able to go and see the actual research, but you're here to debunk it. So first of all, for those who have never read the article that Dr. Andrew Weil or his staff wrote about toxins in algae, could you please illustrate what that article says, and then what's the actual truth?

S2: 04:33

Yeah. Well, as you said, I also have a lot of respect for Dr. Weil, and he was one of the first out there in the holistic health, natural health. But you have to realize that he runs a business enterprise. And in this article, where he's writing quite inflammatory comments about spirulina and chlorella that are incorrect, he also directs you to purchase his products to get the nutrients that would be found naturally in algae. So you have to realize that everybody's got something to sell you. So you have to read between the lines. Obviously, I'm also selling algae, and I'd like you to buy ours. Nonetheless. So his article was about the fact that there are toxins. And there's two terms that are often used. One is mycotoxins. Well, the neurotoxins and something called BMAA. And they're basically all toxins. So in the article where he said they were toxins and spirulina, he was referring to a study that was done on an island in the Polynesian area. What they had done was they found that the natives on the small island, a lot of them were having-- they were having mental health issues. And it turns out they were eating seeds from a particular plant. And then, they found out that there was spirulina growing in the roots of the soil of these plants.

S2: 05:59

And so what they did was they tested the seeds of the plants. They didn't test spirulina. They didn't test anything to do with spirulina. They tested the seeds in the plants and found that there were neurotoxins in the seeds. And from that, they made this huge leap of assumptions, which is, in the scientific world, you can't connect the dots here. The neurotoxins came from the spirulina. Actually wasn't even spirulina growing in the soil. It was blue-green algae. Now you have to realize algae is a category, a food category. Just like you have fruits, and within fruits, you have bananas and apples, or you have vegetables, and within vegetables, you have kale and broccoli. So algae is a huge category. And within that, you have four subcategories. You have red algae and brown algae, which are basically both seaweeds. And then, you have blue-green algae and green algae. One of the blue-green algae of the probably 25,000 that are out there, one of them is spirulina. And one of the green algaes is chlorella.

S2: 07:12

Now, the reason why we sell spirulina and chlorella and why these are the two that you pretty much will see for sale in health food stores is because they are really the only two safe ones that you can eat without having any toxins of any kind, and that they are harvested. They're grown in freshwater, just like, maybe tomatoes. It's called hydroponic. So there are cultivated crop. And ours, we pride ourselves because we spent years trying to find the safest, purest company that would grow it for us. We grow it in freshwater tanks, triple-filtered, mountain spring water. Water is tested every day, and we don't put any binders when we dry them, and we do third-party lab tests. Anyways, all of which is to say is that-- it's like to claim that there was toxins in any kind of spirulina, which is just one of many blue-green algaes, is the equivalent of saying that you tested some water in a swamp and the water was poisonous. So therefore, don't drink water. That's how ridiculous the huge expanse of connecting the dots is. They were testing a blue-green algae that existed in the soil, in the roots, of these plants, but they didn't test the blue-green algae. And it wasn't spirulina either. It was just a blue-green algae.

S2: 08:42

And what I point out to people is that any algae, whether it's blue-green, green, it doesn't matter what it is. If it's grown in a swamp, if it's grown in the ocean, if it's grown wild in soils, it will be toxic, just like you can't drink water from a swamp, or from your toilet, or from a river, if it's near a polluted area, it's going to be polluted. Algae absorbs whatever is in the water. So if you test something and any tests that you see on any research, if they've tested it, and the algae is grown in any of the above: swamps, ocean, polluted areas, yes, it will have toxins. Just like if you take a glass of water from a swamp, it will be, it will be toxic as well. So two things here, not only did they not use or test, A-- or three things. They didn't test spirulina, which is a specific strain. So that's number one. And here he's making this huge assumption that spirulina is at fault. And it was not. It was some kind of blue-green algae, but not spirulina, not number one. Number two, it wasn't harvested blue-green algae. It was the equivalent of growing in a swamp. And number three, they didn't test the algae. They tested the seeds that were in the plants that the people were eating. [laughter]

S1: 10:08

So this study that they did, was their conclusion that algae or spirulina was dangerous, or was it the conclusion of Andrew Weil's writers?

S2: 10:20

Well, even in the study, they indicated that there's still a lot of uncertainty. But his writers forgot to mention that and just didn't see it. Because in some of these studies, they're quite long and they're very scientific. So it may be buried. So that's the one thing. And then as I mentioned, then he came up with another post that says - I'm reading directly from the post now - he says, note, however, that spirulina, a common variety of blue-green algae, does not produce neurotoxins and was given a favorable safety rating after an extensive review by the United States Pharmacopeia dietary supplements information expert committee in 2010. [laughter]

S1: 11:12

And so that's a different post. That's a different post, separate--

S2: 11:14

Completely different post from the same person. So in one, he's saying that there is, and he was-- the writers used flawed science because they didn't test spirulina. They just tested the seeds that were from a plant that had a blue-green algae growing in toxic soil. So it was the wrong assumption anyways. And then he completely reversed his position in another post. So that's just stuff that he has used. I will provide you and your readers with additional PubMed documents. There's one that says-- this is from a couple of years ago, and they, again, studied to see if there was what's called BMAA, which is a neurotoxin. And this time, I believe they did study spirulina and they concluded that there wasn't any in there. And in fact, I reached out to the company, the lab that did the studies for this PubMed article. And I'm hopefully going to be retaining them to specifically study our spirulina and chlorella - ours specifically, ENERGYbits and RECOVERYbits - to prove that there aren't any in ours. This is a very complicated study and they are the only-- the second lab I have found in the entire world that has the capability of detecting what's called BMAA.

S2: 12:47

And there's another study that I have that I will share with you where-- I think this was a number of years ago they did samples again of blue-green algae, not spirulina and definitely not chlorella, and they pulled them out of the Klamath Lake. And the conclusions were-- and they studied the-- they did lab tests of the water in the lake, and they found that there were neurotoxins in the lake and therefore, any samples that came from the Klamath Lake of the algae also had toxins in it. But any algae that was grown agriculturally under pure growing conditions like ours, did not. Do you start to see a pattern here? Anything that's growing wild, you hear about algae blooms and the toxins. Anything that's-- any algae that's growing in the ocean, in a lake, in a swamp, anywhere other than closely monitored, carefully harvested in freshwater tanks like ours are, in clean water, will have toxins for sure. Just like if you pull a glass of water out of a dirty river or a swamp or near some sort of polluted area, there will be toxins in that too.

S2: 14:10

Compare that to clean reverse osmosis or whatever source of water you have. You can't just throw literally the baby out with the bath water and say, "Oh. We tested this swampy water and found toxins, so you shouldn't drink water." That's effectively what they're saying. I mean, it's almost ridiculous when you think about it. But I don't want to come down too hard on them because I will tell you, there are very few people in the world, and definitely in America, that understand algae and have studied algae as much as I have. And I did that because as your readers or listeners know already if they've heard any of my previous podcast interviews with you or read anything about me, I wasn't planning on building a company. 10 years ago, my younger sister had breast cancer. Her oncologist told her to change her diet to an alkaline diet. I helped her research what foods those were, and it's because of the phytonutrients and the chlorophyll that builds your immune system. She's changed her diet. She went through chemo. She completely healed. I started learning about plant-based nutrition 10 years ago when nobody was talking about it and decided it was very powerful, very compelling research, and that I was going to try to help people eat more plants. And then I found out that people don't want to work that hard to clean all their vegetables.

S2: 15:28

And so then that's when I discovered algae, which is the most alkaline plant in the world and a multi-billion dollar industry in Asia and completely either misunderstood or completely just not known in America. So I decided I would spend the rest of my life helping people understand algae and why it is probably the safest purest food that you can put in your body. So there's very, very confusing-- people are either confused about algae or don't know it and don't know who to trust. And I want to build a big company so that we can have a positive impact in the world and help people all around the world get access to algae because even the United Nations says it's the answer to world hunger, and NASA endorses it. And I don't know if I mentioned earlier, but even in January of this year, the United States government, the White House and the Congress, passed the very first Algae Agricultural Act because even they understood now that algae is the most nutrient dense food in the world. It's the most sustainable crop in the world. And it's all grown in Asia. So now they're trying to encourage farmers here to grow it by providing grants and subsidies because everyone knows we're going to have a problem providing proper food for the world. And we have a problem already in America with our agricultural processes. And basically, there's no minerals left in the soil and using glyphosate is killing the soil and us. So we need better alternatives. And algae is the answer. Algae is truly the answer.

S2: 17:01

So I am determined to help people understand this and who to trust, what to read, how to understand the differences between the two of them. And slowly, more and more people will understand algae, and it won't be so weird, and it won't be so confusing. But you got to start somewhere. But it is upsetting to me because I know so much to have an article like what Dr. Weil published. And I'm sure he didn't even see it. But to have it published with incorrect information and to frighten people unnecessarily. So I'm really happy that we can set the record straight. And I can provide you and your listeners with the actual scientific documents. And they can read them for themselves. And they'll come to the same conclusions that I did that there was huge massive assumption that is basically flawed science. It's very flawed. So it's wrong.

S1: 18:03

I was very fascinated to hear in our first interview when you said that algae is the most studied food on the planet. I believe you said that there were a 100,000 studies combined. 60,000 of them studying spirulina, and about 40,000 studying chlorella, and that it's been proven to be safe over the last 50 years.

S2: 18:31

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah. Well, in fact, if I'm glad you mentioned this, because I was invited two weeks ago to speak at a global algae conference. A summit was held in Fort Lauderdale. The company that put it on has held algae research conferences in Europe for eight years. And this was the first time they did one in America.

S1: 18:55

That's cool.

S2: 18:55

So I was asked to speak on how to educate consumers about algae, which is what it basically what I do all the time. So when I was at the conference, and I gave my talk, before I spoke, I asked everybody in the room to raise their hands if they were either a scientist, an agriculturalist, an engineer, a production person, basically on the science side of algae. 99% of the hands went up, okay? And this is what happens all around the world. All this knowledge about science has stayed within the scientific community for the last 50 years. Scientists like to talk to other scientists. And so there's no shortage of research in data and PubMed and whether it's about athletic benefits or inflammation reduction or helping with brain functioning or reducing anything, whether it's blood pressure or heart disease. The science is all there, but nobody, until me that I'm aware of, has been able to dig into the science - and I've probably read about 2,000 reports at this point - and try to capture the key sort of takeaways and rewrite it so that the average consumer or even practitioners, because we work a lot with chiropractors, doctors, functional medicine, and they have to know a lot of stuff, and so even they don't have the time to really dig through the science.

S2: 20:38

So I'm helping them get sort of overview of why the stuff works, and then if they want to learn more, I can give them the science. So I'm the first person to be able to do that for people. And it's my pride and joy because I love science and I love helping people. And I also do it visually because I design all of our packaging and all of our materials. I want people not to be afraid of algae, to understand that it is a remarkable plant that's a gift from mother nature herself, and the first life on earth for a billion years ago. So I tell people, it's got to be something special about something that's been here for a billion years longer than we have and it's still here. So I feel that that's my path in life is to help people understand algae, why it's good for them, why we need it, and help them to understand how to read between the lines when they see something like Dr. Weil writing about it and casting some confusion in the process.

S1: 21:39

And it also teaches us to not be reactionary when we read one headline or one article, or one article that cites one study. We need to go deeper instead of have that knee-jerk reaction of fear because that's what the writer wanted us to have. They wanted us to-- like you said, that article then sells their supplements. So what they were trying to do is get all the people that buy algae for their supplements, stop them from doing that and buy theirs instead. So it's clickbait. I mean, now looking at what you've said, it's even more clear to me that Dr. Weil did not write that article because when he does do something, it's thorough and it's enlightened. I can definitely see that this is just one of those circumstances where the writer of some big doctor has created further myths in the health world. So thank you for clearing up those myths.

S2: 22:34

Yeah. I wouldn't fault him because he's such a big guy and he's got a magazine. He's got a whole True Food-- I don't know if you know, he is co-owner of the True Food restaurants in the California area. He's a busy guy. And it's no different than getting angry at your local doctor for not being able to do heart surgery. Algae is a specialty, and there are so few people that understand it and can explain it like I can, not to pat myself on the back, but I'm just doing this really as a public service almost. So he doesn't have the time to devote to algae. The ultimate irony would be in the next few years if he starts selling spirulina or chlorella.

S1: 23:18

I bet. Well--

S2: 23:19

That would be like touche, right? Proof that he was wrong.

S1: 23:25

So I got into chlorella when I had Dr. Klinghardt on the show, and we've talked about this in past interviews, so we're not going to get too into it, but for those who haven't listened to your other three interviews with me, when I had Dr. Klinghardt on the show-- he's been a doctor for 40 years and he's helped reverse autism and reverse cancer and autoimmune disease and things that-- people often go to him as the absolute last resort and they are very sick. I've been to his clinic and I've met the people fly in from around the world. His clinic's only 10 or 15 minutes away from where I live. But people fly in around the world. So I've been there a few times, and I've got to meet the people that fly in for all kinds of conditions. And one of the first things he has people do is start eating chlorella immediately. Most of his protocols for most diseases is to eat chlorella 30 to 40 bits at a time. So for those who've never had ENERGYbits, they're like the size of M&M's. They're kind of just-- they're little--

S2: 24:33

Or baby aspirin.

S1: 24:35

Baby aspirin. I think the last time I said they're like these little aspirins, right? But I don't want people to think that they're pills that you swallow. It's more like chewing. So it's like a-- it's like if M&M's were green and healthy for you, right? But I started off by-- because I hadn't discovered you yet, I tried a different brand, one that Dr. Klinghart actually, I think, partially owns. So he was like, "Yeah. This one's the best," right? And I couldn't stand the flavor. It was fishy to me. I really didn't like the flavor, but I wanted the health benefit. So I was doing different things to try to make it taste good. And then you and I met digitally, virtually online, and I tried ENERGYbits. So you have chlorella and you have spirulina. Your ENERGYbits are the spirulina. So ENERGYbits.com is the website, but when someone wants to buy the chlorella, which I'll explain why in a sec-- chlorella is the RECOVERYbit. So when I tried your RECOVERYbits, I was really surprised that they tasted good and that they became almost like-- the first few times I was like, "Oh wow, that was a different flavor." I was expecting not to like it, and then I was like, "Wait, this is good." And then my son, who was toddler at the time - I think he was like two at the time and I was trying to do everything to get veggies into him - loved them. And he still does. And he loves the game of chewing them and then making his tongue turn green, and we stick our tongues out at each other. So the chlorella and your spirulina both taste really good to me.

S1: 26:18

I have friends who make trail mixes out of them, and they love to send me the recipe, so like walnuts and raisins or cran raisins and pistachios or dark chocolate and-- so they send me these different recipes, but they come up with trail mix where they mix the ENERGYbits in. And I have friends who've told me that they can't believe it. They have a handful of your ENERGYbits and not only do they feel full, but they actually do notice more energy. And I noticed it too. But when it's just yourself noticing something you're like, "Maybe it's a fluke." And then you get like five friends to try it and they're all like, "Yes. I really feel it." So the chlorella, you don't have to chew them. You could throw them in your blender with water and make a smoothie out of it. It's not a big deal if you don't want to chew something that's green. But the reason why Dr. Klinghart tells everyone to do chlorella every day is that it chelates. It's a binder, and it binds to the heavy metals like mercury and aluminum. It even binds to toxins and pulls them out of your body. And when you were talking about how algae acts like a sponge, that if you grow algae in swamp water that the algae's going to be toxic because it's actually sucking the toxins out of the swamp water, is that--?

S2: 27:31

Right. [crosstalk]. Yeah.

S1: 27:32

Is that's sort of the same mechanism that when we eat them it just--?

S2: 27:37

No.

S1: 27:38

No?

S2: 27:38

No. I'm glad you mentioned that because, no, algae just absorbs-- it's a plant and so it's absorbing whatever or it's a living organism, whatever is in the medium that it exists in. So the medium is water, so it's just absorbing it. The way that it pulls out toxins is quite different. And just to make a distinction, spirulina-- and we call it ENERGYbits, is because spirulina gives you energy, and it satisfies your hunger and gives you focus. But it has no cellulose wall because technically it's a bacteria, like I mentioned. It gets absorbed really quickly. Chlorella is the only one. Spirulina has a lot of chlorophyll in it, so it's very cleansing, but it is not a detoxer. Chlorella is a detoxing agent. It's a chelator because, unlike spirulina that has no cellulose wall, chlorella has the hardest cellulose wall in the plant kingdom, so hard that it actually has to be cracked at production or you wouldn't absorb the nutrients. It's that hard cellulose wall that attaches to toxins in your body. It doesn't matter whether it's lead, mercury, aluminum, alcohol, lactic acid, radiation. It just knows what is inappropriate in your body and attaches it, and it pulls it out of your body, quite different from when it's just sitting in the water.

S2: 29:04

As a growing organism, it just absorbs whatever is in the water. But the mechanism by which it pulls out toxins is different. It has nothing to do with the absorption. It's the attachment to the toxins. And a really important thing to also note is that not only does chlorella pull out toxins because of this attachment capability of its cellulose wall, it has the highest concentration of chlorophyll in the world. That's why it's called chlorella, because it's got 1,000 times more than greens, 25 times more chlorophyll than even liquid chlorophyll. And the reason why I want to mention this is because only about 10% of chlorophyll gets absorbed in your stomach. The rest of it stays in your entire digestive tract, so it travels through your liver and all the way down through your colon. And everything you're going to be reading, if you're not already reading, is all about how you have to maintain the health of your cells, your cell walls, your mitochondria, and your liver. Your liver is where the action starts. And so chlorophyll cleanses all of those. It cleanses your liver because it's got this capability to absorb carcinogens and because it's a fat-based pigment. So it's very cleansing to the cell walls. And because chlorophyll is a fat-based pigment, it heals the cell walls.

S2: 30:28

I tell people, "If you don't have proper fats in your diet, your cell walls get really brittle and dysfunctional, and so they can't let nutrients in or toxins out." It's like having dirty windows. You can't let sun in, and you can't see out. So chlorophyll is effectively like-- think of them as sort of your window washers. It's cleaning your cell walls so that the nutrients can get in and toxins can get out, which, of course, facilitates a healthy mitochondria. So chlorella has that two punch. It's got that hard cellulose wall that pulls at toxins, and it's got the highest chlorophyll in the world. It also has other wonderful attributes that I hope we can talk about a little bit, like K2, which pulls out calcium from your blood vessels and puts it into your bones. So it prevents heart disease and prevents osteoporosis. It has the highest concentration of RNA and DNA in the world. As you age, your cells get damaged, so this helps your cells to grow back healthier. So it's quite a remarkable plant. It is part of the plant kingdom. But it's great that you mentioned that when you tasted Dr. Klinghardt's and compared it to ours. You would think that something like algae that's grown in water would be the same-- it would be the same wherever you grow it. But it's not. It's like wine.

S2: 31:54

I like Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. I am very fussy about my Sauvignon Blancs, and I have tried them from Sancerre from Italy. I've tried them Sauvignon Blanc from California. Nope. Nothing matches that fabulous fruity flavor from the Marlborough area in New Zealand. And algae is the same way. In Hawaii, it's really mild. India, algae is very pungent, so like horse manure. The stuff from China, who knows what's in there. Don't buy anything from China. That's where all the cheap stuff comes from. Japan doesn't grow spirulina, and we don't know whether there's radiation in the water. So it really depends on what country you get the algae from, and which company is growing it for you and how rigorous their growing mechanisms are, and to ensure that you're getting something that's really pure and fresh and clean and nutrient-dense because there's also different strains of algae, just like there's different types of beef. You can have Kobe beef or you can have-- I don't know whether they call a McDonald's hamburger beef. It's--

S1: 33:03

Soylent Green. [laughter]

S2: 33:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of variety and that's part of what people need to understand is that the source that you use is 99% of everything. So you could try a cheap algae that maybe come in a tablet and you would hate it. Or then you try ours. And I'm so glad that you're chewing yours. In fact, I love them so much. And I started about six months ago eating them with almonds or eating them with macadamias. And then I started even just having them just with sea salt. And if you add sea salt and, or almonds or macadamia, you're in for a treat. We're hoping to do trail mixes next year with all of those. And in fact, we're now working with a spa community and we're putting together an algae sampler package for them to offer to their clients. Just like they have a granola-tasting bar at a lot of these places, we're going to give them an algae-tasting bar so you can get some chlorella and add in some almonds or some shaved coconut chips or banana chips. Man, because now, not only are you getting a snack that's healthy for you, it's truly a healing snack.

S2: 34:15

I mean, this stuff is healing. And we're in such a toxic world that we've got to get something started in our body to start pulling all of those metals out of our brain and our liver and everywhere else. So I'm very, very proud of our chlorella. I love our spirulina too. It's like having children, right? I love you too, yeah. I love you too. But don't worry, mama loves you. I'm sure your listeners have children. So you can't show anybody too much favoritism or someone's going to get a little upset. So spirulina has its place and it doesn't quite have as much-- most people find it a tougher flavor to enjoy. But it is totally chewable. But the chlorella, I tell you, it's a game changer. I don't think I could live without it quite honestly. This is my favorite food in the world.

S1: 35:03

Well, I am a big fan too. And Dr. Klinghardt says to take your chlorella before you get in the sauna or before you do something that aids in detoxification as well because it will further give you the benefits. I love every time-- when I think I already know everything there is to know, you always surprise me and bring in even more information. That was so cool about how I didn't quite know that, that chlorella was fat soluble and so that is aiding in the liver so much more because of that, which is really neat. Scientists are using algae now in oil spills to soak up oil spills, to break apart to sort of digest oil spills, or even finding out ways of digesting plastic. I mean, there's so many applications, but the application that they've been researching for well over 50 years has been how to end world hunger. You've talked about it before that spirulina, why it's been so it's so popular to study it is it's a crop that grows really fast we have to have sunlight and very clean water. Last time I had you on episode 266, you talked about the potential for growing in the United States. And I think that it was sort of in talks in the Senate or in the House or you know somewhere somewhere in D.C. was getting it passed.

S2: 36:35

Yeah. Yeah, it's been passed now. Yep, yep.

S1: 36:40

That's very exciting.

S2: 36:41

Well, and I just want to point out that CBD oil now is everywhere. And it had been under the radar, under current development for probably a decade. But it wasn't until the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized CBD oil that, as a result of that farm Bill, that's when the CBD oil industry just exploded and it's taking off. And someone said to me that they felt that hemp and algae were the answers for everything. And I said, "Well, I think I have to agree with you on that one." So the Farm Bill in 2018 is what spurred the CBD oil growth. And the farm bill this year that included the Algae Agricultural Act is going to is already started spurring interest in algae here in America. It's going to take a little while to kick in. But trust me, algae is probably going to be the most important crop of the 21st century because it has all these nutrients. And I point out that these farmers that grow corn or weed or some of these other crops that are really not that healthy for us and require a lot of water, massive amounts-- Did you know that 80% of the water in our aquifers, fresh water, isn't used by consumers? It's for agricultural purposes.

S1: 38:06

Most of it is for making feed for animals. So why not cut out the middleman and just eat plants?

S2: 38:16

Yeah, exactly. So it's destroying the plants, it's destroying our aquifers. And you get one crop a year. You grow your corn, you get one crop, one crappy crop a year. And with algae, it takes a month to grow and then a couple of weeks to dry. So you can get 10 to 12 crops a year on the same amount of soil and it requires a third of the water. There is no carbon footprint. There's no garbage. There's nothing. And you can reuse the water. It can grow in un-arable land. You can grow these things in deserts, as long as there's just sunlight and a really great clean source of water. So that's why the government sat up and took notice, they know all about the nutrition, they know that it's got all these science about it, they know that it's grown in other countries. And yet they're realizing that they can get some really great agricultural crops from it. And so they're really encouraging farmers to grow. I certainly hope to grow it in America. Good will be 5 or 10 years. But it could be-- When I was talking when I was at that algae conference, they pointed out some of the folks-- There were a few people from Florida and they pointed out that in Florida, the orange groves I guess were hit by some sort of blight of some kind. So there's a lot of land now available to grow crops because they can't grow the oranges any longer. So I'd always assumed we would grow it in Nevada or maybe Southern California, but I'm going to circle back and take a look at Florida. You never know, right?

S1: 39:59

You just want to make sure it's wherever you're growing, it's really far away from where people are doing spraying, spraying of crops and spraying of pesticides. In Texas, there's just so much spraying of mosquitoes and things like that.

S2: 40:14

I know. You have to be really careful. Yeah.

S1: 40:17

I'm so excited about the amount of readily absorbed protein that's in spirulina. It is a food that people can live off of, right? Someone could buy a bunch of packs of your ENERGYbits and use them as emergency storable food.

S2: 40:34

Yeah, well, we have-- I think they call them-- there's this term for the people that think the world is going to end.

S1: 40:40

Preppers.

S2: 40:41

Preppers, yeah. And they do buy a lot of our-- they buy a lot of ours because we do have to put an expiry date on the bag because-- required by FDA. But literally, it never goes bad. You could have this stuff for 20 years. And as long as you keep it in your-- packet doesn't have to be refrigerated, nothing. Just it's there. And a funny side note is that algae also never dies. If the growing conditions deteriorate it just goes into hibernation until the sun comes back or the water conditions come back. And there was an article in the-- I think the National Geographic about some explorers that were in the Arctic Circle. And they took a little chip of a glacier from 3 billion years ago. And apparently, there was a little bit of algae attached to it. So they brought it back and put it in a Petri dish and threw some water on it. And this 3 billion-year-old piece of algae started growing.

S1: 41:34

That's so cool.

S2: 41:35

Seriously. So yeah, you can-- A, it lasts forever. And B, the algae-- the protein in both spirulina or chlorella are already in amino acid form. When you eat animal protein, your body has to break it down to aminos before it can be absorbed. And so it can take up to three days for that process to happen. If you don't have all the factors and cofactors you may end up absorbing only 10%. So let's say you had 50 grams of chicken for dinner. Within a couple of days, you may only have absorbed five grams of it as amino acids. Yet with algae because the-- especially spirulina, because the protein's already in amino acid form so your body can absorb it, it gets 99% absorbed, it's called bioavailable, within minutes. And one serving of our tablets, either spirulina or chlorella, gives you five grams of protein. So five grams of a single serving of our algae tablets is really the equivalent to your body as 50 grams of animal protein because you end up in many cases only with five grams. So, yeah. And obviously, for vegans, it's really important because they're always looking for more high-protein sources.

S2: 42:55

And I also want to point out now that we're talking about spirulina, it has the nutrient profile specifically on the amino acid that's almost identical to mother's breast milk. So it's all of the same 18 amino acids in the same proportions. Excuse me. And it also has something called GLA which is an essential fatty acid that's really important for your brain. And the reason why-- and the only place that has more GLA is mother's breast milk. And the reason why is because for-- babies' brains double and triple in size within the first year or two after birth. But hey, it's very tough to get mother's breast milk after you're [laughter] age two. So if you want the same benefits as mother's breast milk spirulina is your answer. And of course, you get all the other benefits like 40 other vitamins and minerals that you don't find in mother's breast milk, so.

S1: 43:50

That's so cool.

S2: 43:51

It's pretty cool.

S1: 43:52

I love it. Yes. I like that you brought up that chlorella is-- the word chlorella, you have to think of the chlorophyll because I drank liquid chlorophyll before. I usually buy it with-- it has peppermint oil already in it. So it's like, it tastes minty. And I learned this, I don't know, in the '90s that if you drank chlorophyll, that your poop wouldn't smell, that your gas wouldn't smell. So for people who have really bad digestive problems, have bad smelling gas or maybe they're just-- they're going through something, right, and they're trying to dial in their own diet, but they've got stuff going on, that drinking liquid chlorophyll would help neutralize-- it's like a deodorant for your gut because it's neutralizing those toxins. I mean, I remember I think I was a teenager drinking it, going like, "My poop doesn't smell. This thing is--" And it also turns your poop green--

S2: 44:41

Green.

S1: 44:42

--which is great for Saint Patrick's Day like, what's going on down there? But I was just like, "This is the coolest thing in the world. How did I not know about this?" And what you're saying is that when you eat your chlorella, so your RECOVERYbits, you're getting way more chlorella from--

S2: 44:57

Way more.

S1: 44:58

Sorry, way more chlorophyll.

S2: 45:00

Chlorophyll.

S1: 45:01

So it's more cost-effective. Because I think those little-- those bottles of good liquid chlorophyll are-- can be quite expensive. And so you're saying you're getting way more bang for your buck by getting your RECOVERYbits, your chlorella. And then if someone wanted to make it liquid, they could throw it-- like I said, throw it in a blender with some water, make a smoothie or whatever, or chew them up.

S2: 45:25

A lot of people get wheatgrass shots. It has 25 times more than wheatgrass. And liquid chlorophyll is made from alfalfa sprouts. And so it just-- there's just no comparison. I call it efficient nutrition because it has such-- so many things in it at such high concentrated amounts. And I may have mentioned this previously, but I'm going to mention it again because it's-- it has always stunned me. And anybody's welcome to go online and check this out because it's the truth. The chemical composition of your blood, your hemoglobin, is identical to chlorophyll with the exception of one atom in your blood. There's an iron atom in the middle. And chlorophyll has a magnesium atom. Identical. And I tell people, that's got to be a tip-off about how important chlorophyll is to your body. And in World War II, when they ran out of blood for transfusions for the injured, they used to give them liquid chlorophyll because it would help them heal as fast as a blood transfusion. Chlorophyll builds your blood, end of story. It builds everything. And so if you want to get chlorophyll, go ahead and have salads. Because I love salads.

S2: 46:30

But you're not going to get much chlorophyll out of it because our soils are so damaged. And you have to-- we really are eating for entertainment now. And so if you really want nutrition, you've got to go to places like algae. Because there's nowhere else that's going to give you the nutrient value. And chlorella, which we call our RECOVERYbits because it helps you recover your health, is probably the-- it is hands down in-- and it's all scientifically documented, the highest concentration of chlorophyll as well as other things. So it is pretty amazing. So if there's any moms listening and they can't get their kids to eat vegetables, just give them a few tablets a day and their chlorophyll needs will certainly be met, phytonutrient needs will be met, and probably their protein met. So don't worry.

S1: 47:17

Right. And I talk about it before in the-- again, go listen to the previous episodes. I don't want to redo the whole story because for those who have heard it, don't want to hear it again. But my son, the first time I tried to get him to eat-- and then he was about-- like, I said, about two years old. I tried to get him to eat the ENERGYbits. He was giving me a look like-- because he wasn't going to eat anything green. No. He just went through that phase where it's like, "I don't want any vegetables." I'm like, great. He was eating vegetables yesterday, and I was not. And so I played the game where I chewed them and stick my tongue out. And my tongue was green. And he's like, "Oh, that is cool." So you can get kids to like it. And then he calls them green crackers. So he go-- can I have-- or green cookies or green crackers. "Can I have the green crackers?" Because they crunch like crackers. And so he loves them as a snack.

S2: 48:09

Yeah. Pets love them too, by the way.

S1: 48:11

I've got to try that. I'm going to throw-- so what, the chlorella or the spirulina or both?

S2: 48:17

Either one. Sometimes they show preference for one or the other. And, of course, the animals are so smart. They know what's good for them. And a guy who's been a customer for a while, he sent me an email, it was a couple of years ago. He's a hiker. And he went out backpacking and his camp was raided one night by a couple of big black bears. So he took off and when he came back, he said, his baggies full of supplements were all still there, but the bags of ENERGYbits and RECOVERYbits, he says, we're ripped open and licked clean. So even the bears know what's good for them, right?

S1: 48:52

Oh, that is too funny.

S2: 48:53

I laughed so hard when I read that one. Oh, that was pretty funny.

S1: 48:56

That's too, too funny.

S2: 48:58

Expensive treatment for your pets, but hey, we want them to be healthy as well. So it's really good for them. Yeah.

S1: 49:04

Now, last time we spoke, you had a customer write in that-- I mean, it brought tears to my eyes. That she was a mother, a young mother with young kids and going through chemotherapy and very ill. And do you have any updates on her story?

S2: 49:23

I don't. In fact, I was thinking about that the other day I wanted to find out. And for your listeners, this is a woman who had been sick for about eight months. Bedridden and somebody who was a customer of ours sent her a couple of bags, one of ENERGYbits and one recovery. So we subsequently also gifted her some. And within a week she was able to get out of bed and she had tried everything. And her children were so relieved and they would make sure that mommy took her green medicine. So we continued to get people telling us their allergies have gone away. They don't need to take their allergy medication because it helps reduce the-- it's like a natural reduction of the antihistamine. We've had people tell us that they don't need their depression medication any longer. Now, I always urge people to always talk to your doctor about any kind of decrease in any kind of medications that you're having, but perhaps you could start taking some of the algae while you're taking whatever you're doing and see how you're feeling.

S2: 50:29

This one customer went on a trip and she forgot her meds. And so she just doubled up on her spirulina and after her 10-day trip, she came back and she realized she didn't need them anymore. And so she never continued to take them. So another gentleman who's on a restricted income. He's retired. And he emails us all the time because he's, I think, about 70. And all his friends are either heart disease, cancer, they're all sick, and he says, "I don't take anything else, except your algae. And I try to get them to take it because I feel great, and I don't even have the expensive health insurance I used to have." So it just keeps him healthy and he doesn't have to take drugs. He doesn't have to spend a lot of money on other health care issues. So I don't know. It's just I'm just so proud of what algae does for people. It's amazing.

S1: 51:23

Awesome. That's so cool.

S2: 51:25

Yeah. And I know a lot of your listeners are women. And I did want to see if we could talk about the osteoporosis heart disease issue because I don't think we covered that in the other interviews.

S1: 51:38

Let's do it. I mean, we did talk about K2, but let's dive into osteoporosis and heart disease and how we can use algae to support our bodies and not manifesting those diseases.

S2: 51:51

The K2 piece, I'm not sure if many people are aware of what K2 is. It's a vitamin that was recently discovered 25 years ago. And it's related to K1, but it's as different as night and day between K1, K1 is found in foods that are green. So kale, spinach, and what it does is helps your body, your blood rather, coagulate. So it's important. But K2, the only source of K2 is either in grass-fed animal protein or, frankly, algae, especially chlorella algae. You can also get it in a dish called natto, which nobody eats. It's a Japanese dish. Now, so you say to yourself, well, "Why is it in grass-fed animal protein?" Well, here's why. Animals have bacteria in their gut that allows them to convert K1, which is in green things like grass and kale. It allows them to convert K1 into K2. And so as we humans eat grass-fed animal protein, whether it's dairy or beef or whatever, we absorb the K2 because they've had that conversion. The problem is, back in the 60s and 70s, all the cows and chickens and everything were taken off the pastures where they were had previously been chewing happily on green grass. And they were moved into enclosures and fed corn, which has no green in it and it's very acidic, which also causes stomach distresses. That's what you get all the sort of cow issues with the O2.

S2: 53:29

So the supply of K2 from our diet basically disappeared completely. And interestingly, at the same time that that happened, the rise in heart disease has escalated. So an exact mirror of these two incidences. And the doctors, medical physicians, heart disease specialists are now realizing that one of the main causes of heart disease is too much calcium in your blood vessels, which basically causes them to get rigid and calcified. So it's in your blood vessel builds up with all this calcium. It shouldn't be there. And it's immobile. It can cause some fractures and that leads to stroke. So why is the calcium there? Well, how do calcium get in your blood vessels? All of us who certainly clean our houses where you were like, "Who put the shoes there? That's not supposed to be there. There's a place for those." Well, your body needs to be told that calcium is not supposed to be in your blood vessels. It's supposed to be in your bones. But without K2, that's where it goes. In fact, without K2, calcium does not go to your bones. It goes to your, what's called, soft tissue. This is your blood vessels. This is your skin, your organs, your brain. Basically, anywhere but your bones.

S2: 54:51

And there's some what's called a protein matrix in the vitamin K2 that does two things. It moves the calcium out of soft tissue and puts it into your bones. And at the same time, it attracts calcium into your bones and your teeth. So by adding K two to your diet, you're getting multiple benefits. You're helping to prevent heart disease, but you're also preventing problems with your organs, kidney stones or calcification. It's too much calcium that's gathered in your kidneys. And so you get K2, boom, those are gone. They're realizing Alzheimer's is partly, again, result of calcification of the brain. So K2 is very, very important. And yet there's very few foods that you can find it in. So people are taking supplements, but they don't behave the same way, or is as effective as K2 that you find in food. Anytime you get a nutrient in food, it's always better for your body. It will always perform better. And I've also read, so K2 has some complications to it. There's different versions, different flavors, I guess, if you want to call it. And there's the one called M4 which is what you find in algae and which you find in food. Apparently that's the only version of K2 that the brain can absorb, and then your supplements are always something called M7.

S2: 56:17

So I'm not sure if that's going to be helping prevent the Alzheimer's. So the K2 is a very important piece of, one of the many benefits of the algae, particularly the spirulina, or sorry, the chlorella. Chlorella has twice as much K2 as spirulina. And just to show you the sort of comparisons of food that is in-- how much K2 is in different foods groups. So if you had 100 grams of chlorella, you'd have what's called 240 mcgs. That's a measurement. 240 mcgs. in 100 grams of chlorella, 240. Compare that to milk, and it's 1, 1 mcg, or beef, again, 1. Salami, I don't know why it's got 9. Egg yolks have a whopping 15, 15, compared to 240 in chlorella. So there really isn't any comparison. And if you want the efficiencies of K2, and you want it from food, you really need to get it from something like chlorella or-- but if you're a vegan, you don't want to be eating your grass-fed proteins. So I'm very proud of the fact that it's got such high K2 in the chlorella.

S1: 57:40

Oh man, I'm going to get a bag for my mother-in-law.

S2: 57:43

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really amazing. And so the reason I mentioned this is because people don't realize that heart disease is a very big issue for women, and so is osteoporosis. So osteoporosis is, basically what happens is your bones get brittle and porous. And the reason they're becoming brittle and porous is because in your early years, your bones are being built. Your bones store minerals like calcium, but they all store lots of other minerals. But after the age of 40, rather than building up your bones, you're starting to lose bone structure. And it's so important as you age that you maintain your bone structure to prevent this porousness, one of the reasons why bones get porous is because if we have acidic foods in our diet, or we have, actually, even emotions, stress can cause acidity in your blood, or even if you over exercise because you throw off lactic acid and that makes your blood acidic. And your blood needs to maintain a pH level of, I think it's 7.34. And if you eat too much acidic food like dairy, or processed foods, or even meat, or even eggs, your body and your blood knows that it needs to neutralize that immediately or you would die.

S2: 59:11

So what it does is it pulls out the minerals that are stored in your bones to immediately dilute the acidity of your blood to bring it back to that pH of 7.34. So if you do that over and over and over again day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out, you're pulling critical minerals out of your bones, which is what contributes to the porousness and contributes to osteoporosis, and the fragility of your bones. And the two things that are so important for bone health is, weight-bearing exercise to help continue to build your bones, and ensuring that you have proper K2 to make sure that your calcium is being absorbed, and make sure that your diet is healthy so that you're not extracting those minerals. It's like overdrawing of the bank account, right? You don't want to overdraw it too many times, you'll run into some problems. So I'm very happy that the algae has all those minerals: magnesium, potassium, calcium, anything that your bone needs. In addition to that, K2, it's a package deal. It's everything. It's a one-stop shop for-- and it's food. It's not processed, so it's really very helpful, particularly for women. 80% of osteoporosis patients are women. And once you get over the age of 50, it's a real problem. So I just wanted to be sure that-- and women are particularly a target for this because our bones are smaller than men's. And so they're more frail from the beginning. They're thinner. They're just thinner. Because our bone structure is just different. So that's why men don't have as much of a problem, although it still hits men as well. But women are particularly at risk for osteoporosis. Yeah.

S1: 01:01:13

What started for you? What had the lightbulb moment have you want to create ENERGYbits? Was it that your sister was told by her oncologist in Canada that she should go on an alkaline diet because it was better for recovery from cancer and also prevention. It's a healthier diet, in general, for the lifestyle to help the body because in an alkaline state, the body doesn't create disease, and in an acidic state, a disease is rampant for many reasons. So you saw that the algae, chlorella, and spirulina, have an alkalizing effect on the body because they readily absorb nutrients the body uses to bring the body back into balance. And it has low vitamins in the minerals. It also has that chelate effect that takes out the toxins. So it has many-- there's many reasons why chlorella and spirulina help the body come back into balance. I had a guest send me some pH test strips. I'll make sure the link is in the show notes. These test strips are very affordable. They're like 5 bucks or something. They're very cool. And you can use them both for urine and for saliva. And she explained. And this is Kellyann from https://platinumenergysystems.ca. She has a whole ionic foot detox system.

S2: 01:02:45

Oh, we've spoken. I've spoken to her. Yeah. It's terrific. She's in Victoria, I think. Victoria, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

S1: 01:02:50

Exactly. She's just north of me, so. But she talks about how you-- testing your pH is-- test yourself once a week, right? It's kind of the self check-in. And I had a naturopath, one of my mentors, he wrote a book all about teaching people how to do their own physicals. If you do your own sort of physicals throughout the year, it's not like this big surprise when you go once a year to your doctor, and you find out you've been going on the wrong path for a whole year, like, "Oh wow, your blabs are looking really bad. We need to make some changes." Well, if you've been doing your own check-in with yourself, when it's still a whisper, right, check in with yourself go, "Oh, wow, my pH is off lately. What's going on? I need to adjust my diet. I need to increase my greens. I need to get more sleep. Drink more water." We just need to look. And so if we just did something very simple, like test our pH and you can test your saliva very easily. Testing your urine is a little bit different because in the morning you want it to be acidic because the kidneys were concentrating it and pulling all the stuff out. But then you want to see-- if you tested your urine throughout the day, you would see the acidity come down. You don't want it to be more acidic in the afternoon than it was the first thing in the morning. Then that's definitely a sign that there's a problem. But what's easier is just testing your saliva. And if you're in those good ranges, the nice dark green like 7 or 7.5 or 8, and then it's great, then you're like, "Okay, good."

S1: 01:04:15

But I've walked around with these test strips and tested some of my friends and family, and I've been shocked because I'm always alkaline, which I was so like patting myself on the back for. And then my husband came in more alkaline than me, but he eats a pound of blueberries a day. He gets those antioxidants in. And then I go to some friends and family, and it's like they're clearly acidic. And I've actually seen people be able to get their test strips to move into the alkaline state, and it's just a way that we show ourselves that we're moving in the right direction. So if we could take our blood pressure once a week and maybe take our glucometer reading once a week just to check in what's going on? How am I doing? Am I going in the right direction or the wrong direction? Just like people get on a scale or measure themselves or push themselves to the gym to see, am I getting better or worse. So it just gives us a good reading. And I would love to hear from the listeners because I know that I have a ton of listeners that buy the ENERGYbits because I've heard from you guys. I've heard from so many listeners. And it's been fantastic. I know you've heard from so many of my listeners as well. So I'd love to hear if any listeners have played with the test strips, and using chlorella and spirulina, have seen their pH get better. Catherine, have you seen that in your many years working with [inaudible]?

S2: 01:05:49

Yeah. I don't do any of the pH testing myself. However, what I will say is that one of the great things about the pH testing, if you want to do it, is that it brings you back to focus on your own body. I think what's happened in the last 50, maybe even 100 years is that-- certainly, the last 50 is we've handed over responsibility for our health to anybody in a white jacket. And while they do, they don't have the time to understand what's really going on in our body. And they're so focused on drugs to mask whatever condition is causing you some distress. You don't want to mask a condition. You want to correct the condition. So just the fact that you're doing some testing forces you to slowly reorient your focus on yourself. And you can tell. It's just like having a great night's sleep. You know when you feel good, and that's why you know when you take our algae that it's good for you. You just feel better. And the more that you can tune into your own health and whether it's through test strips or anything, I can promise you the more empowered you will become emotionally, spiritually. You will take back the responsibility to treat yourself well because you'll start to treat your body like something that deserves respect as it does.

S2: 01:07:20

It's there to support you, but if you give it foods that are just temporarily exciting like white bread or something or maybe a pastry, sure it's a minute or two of great satisfaction, and then you've got like two days' worth of your body's struggling to try to get rid of the unhealthy components that it's now faced to try to digest and absorb and whatever. So over time, you start realizing, well, I think I'd rather feel better for two days than feeling great for a minute. And you start to evolve into a much more thoughtful, present individual and only seek out foods, people, situations, emotions that make you feel better. It's just the way-- it's a much better way to be. So I like any kind of testing that anyone can do. If nothing else, it changes the focus inward. It makes you look inward and gives you the tools to feel empowered to know that yes, you can make a difference in your health. Yes, you can. Do not just be-- don't accept the standard drugs, surgery options. Those may be necessary. But they could be-- there could be alternatives that are less invasive and more natural. So that would be my sort of final word on that. [laughter]

S1: 01:08:50

Wonderful. And for those listeners who don't know, Katherine gives us a very generous discount. By using coupon code LTH, as in Learn True Health, on her website energybits, we get 20% off. Thank you so much. That actually makes your price then be incredibly competitive with those very cheap quality ones out there, like the ones on Amazon made in China, that kind of thing and then which I would never recommend and then the ones that say they're really healthy or sold by other doctors. And then you give us our discount, and that just, it just goes like, that is-- yours taste better; yours are made with better quality. You have third-party testing. You do triple filter for all your water. There's clearly a quality difference. You're clearly the Ferrari algae. [laughter]

S2: 01:09:49

There you go. I like that, never thought of it that way.

S1: 01:09:52

Then we're getting it for, I don't know, Toyota prices. For the price of a Honda, you could have a Ferrari. And that's awesome. So I'm a big, big, big fan of ENERGYbits. And just to clarify, the chlorella, which gives us the wonderful benefits of detoxification, has the nutrients, has the chlorophyll in it, that's called RECOVERYbits. So when you go to energybits.com, you find the RECOVERYbits, and then you put in the coupon code LTH for 20% off. For those who want the energy from spirulina and the protein and also the other nutrients that we talked about, then they would get the ENERGYbits. You do have a separate bag called BEAUTYbits, and it's the exact same thing. So not to be confused. And I like that your story behind this that you told before, but this story. And I think it's so funny that some women, because they carry it in their purse, or they'll carry it in their gym bag, and they just prefer to have something more feminine. So they wanted a pink bag. So for those who really love pink and would like to look really cute, you can buy BEAUTYbits, but it's the exact same as ENERGYbits. It's just a different package for those who want a different package.

S1: 01:11:07

What I also love about your bags is every bag comes with, a tin and so you fill up the-- so you don't have to carry the whole bag around if you don't want to. You just can fill up your tin with your day's amount of 40 little M&M-sized bits. And then you can carry that in your purse or your car or whatever and it's-- oh, it's a great snack to have in the car for when the kids or the husband or you are hungry in the car and you're like, "Oh, I don't want to-- I don't want to go through a drive-through because I don't need that stuff anymore. And I don't want to feed my kids fast food. Oh, this is so great. This is a bag of chlorella or spirulina," or if you wanted both. If you're like, "I can't decide. I want all the benefits. What do I do?" Catharine made a 50-50 mix of chlorella and spirulina. So each little bit is made of--

S2: 01:11:54

It's blends. Right.

S1: 01:11:55

--both. Yeah, a blend of it. And that's called the VITALITYbits. And each one has a different, a little bit of a different texture, a little bit of a different taste. So I like trying all three. And then the last thing, which we did talk about--

S2: 01:12:08

[crosstalk] a bits buffet.

S1: 01:12:11

Yeah. Right. Right. Just have them all. I like your idea of putting all the other trail mixes around. And so you just take a little bit of that dark chocolate, and you're going to take some cranberries and the coconut flakes and make a little trail mix with the ENERGYbits. I love it. That's so cool.

S2: 01:12:27

Well, stay tuned.

S1: 01:12:29

Yeah. Right. Oh, and I have tried them, by the way, with the macadamia nuts. And it was absolutely delicious. So I do agree with you. The last thing is that if anyone does eat chlorella, they should eat 30 to 40 bits in one sitting because if you eat too few, it creates a detox effect that people will then feel negative because they feel the detox effect if they eat too few. I've had so many people say, "Oh, I feel worse after eating chlorella." I'm like, "How many did you eat?" "Well, I had 5." You have to eat 30 or 40 so that you give your body enough to not only kind of stir up the toxins but to grab onto them and absorb them. And I've seen this several times. So the best thing to do is to make sure that you eat enough of the chlorella. And I've had an experience where I was going through-- not because of chlorella but because of a parasite cleanser I was doing. I felt so sick. I was having one of those flu-like symptoms from, well, detoxing too quickly. And I immediately ran to my RECOVERYbits and just started mouthfuls of them.

S2: 01:13:34

That's too funny. Well, and to assure your listeners, you can't actually have too much. And I don't even want to tell you how much I eat every day. But it's just a very nutrient-dense food. And on the other hand, with the spirulina, in both cases, we recommend 30 as a single serving. But we're finding that people are so nutrient deprived that even if you take 5 tablets of the spirulina, you'll feel the difference. It's not a lightning bolt from the sky because there's no stimulants in either of the algae. But with spirulina, I tell people you just feel fresh. You feel like you just had a great night's sleep and your hunger is gone, your fatigue is gone, and you don't need to-- it's not a drug. So the next day, you don't need to take more to get the same effect. And you can take them when you're on your way to work or have them at 2 o'clock when you're tired. You can also have them before bed because they won't keep you up. It's not that kind of energy. It's just a very-- it just makes you-- it's like giving your car the high test gas. It just purrs with performance. So you want to purr with performance. [laughter]

S1: 01:14:41

Well, and take them at bed. And you told us last time. And I've tried this, and it's right. And I've had listeners tell me that when we take them at night, they're the nutrients our body needs to make melatonin. And people are telling me, "Not only do I have more energy during the day from ENERGYbits, but I am sleeping better." It really does make us sleep better. I always run to the ENERGYbits specifically right before an interview because sometimes I'll do two or three interviews in a row, and I'm exhausted and hungry and don't have time to run into the kitchen. It's so great to have a handful of it. And I really do feel that sense of just being refreshed. And I'm not hungry anymore. And it's not like I'm looking to replace a meal, but I'm just looking for that-- it really is a snack replacement.

S2: 01:15:24

Take the edge off.

S1: 01:15:25

Yeah. It takes the edge off. It's snack replacement. And it's like a supplement and a snack in one. So I'm a big fan.

S2: 01:15:32

I think we should create a new category. Instead of calling it a superfood, I think we should call it a super snack.

S1: 01:15:36

Super snack. There you go. That's right.

S2: 01:15:38

[inaudible] call or I'm going to call it a super duper food. It's more than a superfood. So it's not enough because of my children.

S1: 01:15:48

Yeah. Exactly. It's a super duper food. It's way up there at the top of the food pyramid.

S2: 01:15:51

Super duper food. That's right.

S1: 01:15:52

Yeah. We're going to make our own new food pyramid of superfoods.

S2: 01:15:55

That's right.

S1: 01:15:56

And spirulina and chlorella are going to be at the top. And then the dark chocolate is going to be at the bottom. Very cool.

S2: 01:16:01

Very funny. That's great.

S1: 01:16:03

It's been so great having you back on the show.

S2: 01:16:05

Oh, thank you so much. It's so great to have be here and chat. I know we have-- we could talk longer but I think we'll have to probably-- everybody's probably-- has to go get some bits.

S1: 01:16:17

Right? Yeah. I'm definitely going to--

S2: 01:16:19

Including me.

S1: 01:16:20

Right? I'm going to definitely be having my bits after this conversation. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show again.

S2: 01:16:24

You're very welcome.

S1: 01:16:25

Please come back anytime you have more to share. I'm really excited to follow the progression of farming in the United States for chlorella and spirulina and to see where that goes. I would love to see in 5 to 10 years your company producing-- like farming your own. That would be so amazing. I want to go do a farm tour. I'm just imagining you and I walking down the aisles of the tanks in the Nevada desert or in Florida.

S2: 01:16:54

Yeah. I know. Yeah.

S1: 01:16:56

And I think that would be just wonderful to have that connection where you can see right from the beginning to the end, see every step of the process. And I'm really looking forward to chlorella and spirulina being in every home. Being just something that we all consume on a daily basis because of the benefits both for the environment and for our health. It's been wonderful having you on the show. Please come back with more--

S1: 01:17:25

And I'll get all those articles for you on the talks and stuff so you'll get that posted. And my parting word would be, instead of asking yourself why you should take algae, I would ask, say to yourself, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? [laughter]

S1: 01:17:43

There's no reason not to.

S2: 01:17:45

All right. Thank you so much. Don't forget to use your discount code LTH for your 20% off.

S1: 01:17:54

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