Chlorella and other algae

[twentysix]

Anyone use these, and what for?

For Chlorella: Usually I'm taking Yaeyama strain from Source Naturals, and if I buy a package containing 60 grams in tabs... I have a hard time not chewing them all up in one day. I've tried a few other brands but that's my favorite... but today I tried a brand I'd yet tried... Chlorenergy, which is very tasty, and has a good nutritional profile, including about 90 percent d.v. for B-12, which is the highest I've seen for chlorella.

I take it for detoxification, elimination (its great for that)... taste... as a food (though expensive)... and hopefully for everything else good I've read about it. I do notice feeling better after having it after not having it.

I also take spirulina. I take it primarily for allergies, which I find its great for... better than any OTC remedy or big pharm in general remedies I've tried, over all.

I've yet to try any other, like red algae... yada.

 

[Dave]

I take it daily as part of a Vega smoothie, and occasionally supplement with pills of it as well. I find that it helped my overall energy and sense of vitality when I took exttra, but that could well have been placebo. Too expensive to take daily though.

Just for fun, I've been looking into cultivating it. the tricky thing is that fresh water algae are a lot tougher to grow as the salt water environment tends to be a lot more stable due to a mild buffering effect. I figure that by the time I'm able to source viable, living chlorella, I should be ready.

 

[Mehm]

Dave, cultivated spirulina should be grown in a ph 10 environment. There are lots of good online and published materials on the subject. The University of Texas at El Paso (I'm pretty sure....) sells living spirulina and chlorella strains to the public. I think a viable culture could be cultivated from raw powder however.

I personally think algaes are both amazing and a primordial building block of the biosphere. I try to take them every day.

 

[Dave]

If the powder is processed correctly, it shouldn't be viable. Chlorella in particular has very robust cell walls, meaning that it needs to be broken down pretty hard to get anything digestible out of it. The brand that I used I think used ball mills to break them down.

I'll look into the U of Texas though! I'd rather source them in Canadia, since I don't know the legality of importation, but I was able to get a kombucha mother from the 'states so it shouldn't be that tough.

 

[delta_9]

Anyone use these, and what for?

For Chlorella: Usually I'm taking Yaeyama strain from Source Naturals, and if I buy a package containing 60 grams in tabs... I have a hard time not chewing them all up in one day. I've tried a few other brands but that's my favorite... but today I tried a brand I'd yet tried... Chlorenergy, which is very tasty, and has a good nutritional profile, including about 90 percent d.v. for B-12, which is the highest I've seen for chlorella.

I take it for detoxification, elimination (its great for that)... taste... as a food (though expensive)... and hopefully for everything else good I've read about it. I do notice feeling better after having it after not having it.

I also take spirulina. I take it primarily for allergies, which I find its great for... better than any OTC remedy or big pharm in general remedies I've tried, over all.

I've yet to try any other, like red algae... yada.

10g of chlorella can have as much as 50% or more of the daily value for iron. You may want to be careful.
Spirulina has even more.

 

[twentysix]

yeah, i know. that's the main issue i'm having with chlorella.
but i've also read that the actual toxic amounts of iron are way over the daily recommended, but i imagine it could build up. .. especially in males... in which case, i should probably take a break. i'm saturated.

 

[Dave]

Too much iron is just as bad as not enough. Balance is key. You may not need to take a break, but go back to a maintenance dose; start with the bottle's suggested dose. If you're ever getting flushed after taking it, you're probably taking too much.

 

[moonyham]

Umm, as a side note to the excessive iron intake, you may also want to be careful due to the fact that heightened levels(as little as 2x RDI) of certain vitamins(E, D for example) increases your risk of cancer GREATLY.