What's going on ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto,
savage.com. And today I have special guest
Catherine Arnston on the line. She is the founder, CEO,
scientific research specialist and pretty much everything with
regard to energy bits. So she's going to dive in deep
with regard to spirulina, chlorella, algae in general.
How are you, Catherine? Awesome.
I'm loaded with algae so how else could I be Now this is good
I've I'm excited to dive into this because this is an area
that I have very little experience and expertise so
basically none. So to treat me as such and and
just totally enlighten me and the listeners and and give us
kind of a good overview of what algae is, how it can be used and
its benefits in the keto space and beyond.
OK, well that's I could talk for days on that but I won't but
thank you for giving me this opportunity and and there is no
shame about not knowing about algae because.
You are with the majority of the world outside of Asia and that's
why I exist. And I'll just give you a quick
backdrop. I didn't plan to be an algae
expert, trust me. I was following a traditional
corporate career. I had an MB, A doing
international business, blah blah blah.
And then my younger sister up in Canada developed breast cancer
and her oncologist who the cancer doctor, told her she
needed to change her diet to an alkaline diet because it would
help her heal. They didn't tell her what it
was. Or why it would work.
And she's my baby sister. So I said I have no idea what it
is either, but we'll figure this out together.
And I did research for her and found that it's basically a
plant based diet because of the phytonutrients and the
chlorophyll that builds your immune system.
So she did go through her her chemo, she did change her diet.
She completely healed. 10 years later, she's still cancer free.
Meanwhile, I started reading more about plant based
nutrition, found out how powerful it was and well
documented and thought that this knowledge needed to get out to
America. So I thought, heck, I guess I'll
I'll do what I can and gave up my career corporate career.
Went back to school, study nutrition and try to get people
to eat more greens, but found out they're either on a keto
diet so they didn't want to eat greens or they don't like the
flavor or it's too much work. So I thought, well, gosh, if I
can't get people to be healthier with greens.
I got to find something that will give them all the greens
that they need without the work. That's keto.
And that led me down a rabbit hole.
And I thought where I found algae and when I discovered
algae and that scientific profile and that it was
ketogenic and paleo and vegan and the most nutrient dense food
in the world and the highest concentration of protein in the
world. And endorsed by the United
Nations, NASA, and just about everybody else.
But unknown outside of Asia, I decided that was nine years ago.
I would devote the rest of my life to helping people
understand the power of this wonderful nutrient, this food.
It's a gorgeous crop and because it can, it will change lives and
it will change our our world because it's the most eco
friendly, sustainable crop in the world as well.
So with that being the backdrop, and I've now spent nine years
researching algae, I will apologize.
Upfront to you and your listeners for being
extraordinarily passionate about algae, because when you know as
much about something that's so good as I do, you are eager to
share it. It's like I've got this this.
I feel like the genie with the the, you know, the little gizmo
that you can rub and all your wishes will come true.
And inside it is algae, and I want everybody's wishes to come
true. If I could just get them to take
the algae, it would probably happen.
No. I love it and love it a.
Little history about algae, and this is also what makes me so
determined to get the knowledge of this little plant out to the
world, is that most people probably do not realize that
algae was the first life on earth.
Not just the first plant, the first life on Earth 4 billion
years ago, before algae, Earth was just gas and water.
I have no idea why algae, and it was spirulina in particular.
It's a single cell Organism and frankly it's a bacteria and
we'll talk about that in a minute.
It started growing and algae releases oxygen while it's
growing, and in fact almost 90% of all oxygen on Earth even to
this day. Is provided by algae.
Algae in the wall, in the oceans, in the lakes.
That is what allows us to to breathe.
And so after about a billion years of spirulina growing and
they have fossils to prove the, you know that carbon data to
almost 4 billion years ago, there was enough oxygen on Earth
that other plant life could take take form.
And that's how life on earth started nurturing itself.
So I tell people there's got to be some things magical.
That was the first living form on Earth and by the way has
outlived everybody. Ice ages, stone ages and it's
still here. So that is also very compelling
to me as someone who's quite interested in the history of the
world and I hope your listeners feel as well.
So let me there's probably about 25,000 strains of algae.
They grow everywhere as I mentioned, but about. 99.999% of
them are poisonous and you certainly do not want to stick
your hand in your local swimming pool or pond and scoop up a
bunch of algae because I promise you it will make you sick.
And algae absorbs whatever it is in the water, so if it's in a
stagnant pool, it's absorbing whatever toxins and are in
there. So the algae that has grown for
consumption is a crop. That is no different than kale
or broccoli and it's your listeners will find this
interesting to know that it's not grown in the ocean.
The the algae that you consume in from us or from other
companies is a crop that's grown in fresh water.
It's related to seaweed, which is from the ocean, but algae is
grown in fresh water and we grow ours in.
Are in Taiwan, which is world renowned.
We're having the highest constant, highest quality algae
and we grow ours outdoors because I feel that's the that
was the original way Mother Nature had it and it's grown in
triple filled ours is grown in triple filtered spring mountain
water. So again algae absorbed
whatever's in the water. So you need a very clean source
of water to ensure that you've got really high quality algae.
So the two. Crops, algae, crops that are
grown for consumption are spirulina and chlorella, and
some people have heard the expression blue-green algae,
Well that's spirulina and Chlorella is a green algae.
They think of, you know you have fruit and within the fruit
category you have bananas and oranges and apples or
vegetables. You have within the category
vegetables you have, you know, bean sprouts and kale.
Well, within algae as a category you have.
Chlorella and spirulina. So let's talk about the
differences between the two of them and what they do in your
body. And then we can later on talk
about why they're important for either sports or a ketogenic
diet or for health benefits. So spirulina, as I mentioned,
was the very first plant life on Earth and it is what's called a
blue-green algae. And the reason why it's called a
blue-green algae is because it has two pigments in it.
One pigment is called phygocyanin and it has certain
healing properties and the other pigment which most people will
be familiar with is chlorophyll. Now spirulina technically is a
bacteria. Up until a few years ago, I
hesitated to tell people this because.
Up until a few years ago, people were quite concerned about
bacteria. And now, thank goodness,
everyone realizes that we actually have more bacteria in
our bodies and we do cells. And the bacteria, if you have
good bacteria, they are almost more important to your health
than even your own cellular structure because they
contribute to the health of your immune system to digestion.
So I'm quite proud now to tell people that spirolina is a
bacteria, and what that means is the reason why that's important.
Is a couple of reasons. First of all, it does not.
Spirulina does not have a cellulose wall, so it gets
absorbed into your bloodstream almost instantly because there's
nothing for your body to break down.
The other really interesting thing about spirulina is that it
has the highest concentration of protein in the world, all of
which are already in amino acid form.
So again, nothing for your body to break down when you eat.
Animal protein, it can take up to three days for your body to
break that down into amino acids, and if you are missing
all some factors and cofactors, you could well end up only
absorbing, you know, 10% of that.
And so all of that is done, doesn't all, all of the protein
is what's called bioavailable because there's nothing for your
body to have to break down. So spirulina.
Because it has this protein that has all these gorgeous amino
acids, and it's loaded with vitamin B, which of course
converts glucose to energy. It gives you and your body
energy naturally in a very steady form.
It's also loaded with iron, which carries oxygen, so you
have energy. It's It's also loaded with
essential fatty acids, both the Omega threes and something
called GLA, which is. Typically an omega-3 but behaves
like an Omega or technically Omega 6 behaves like an omega-3
because it reduces inflammation and it's also loaded with
antioxidants. So spirulina is known as being
an energizing algae. And now it's not energizing like
sugar or caffeine. You don't get any sugar shakes.
It's our first customers actually were endurance
athletes, Olympic athletes. Run marathon runners because it
gave them steady energy and didn't upset their stomach like
all those sugary gels did. And it's certainly not you
don't. If you're a keto athlete, you
don't want to be taking those anyway.
So it's a terrific food source for having energy at work,
energy before your workout. We have surgeons, truck drivers.
It just improves your focus. We have parents whose children
don't have a DHD&E. Any longer, and it's the reasons
why it works so well, are all just based on the nutrient
profile of spirulina. There are no additives, no
caffeine, no sugars, no chemicals, no toxins, nothing.
It is just clean, pristine keto 0 carb nutrition 1 ingredient,
40 vitamins and minerals 64% protein, which is 3 times the
amount in in animal protein. So.
It is a slam dunk when you want some energy or you want your
hunger satisfied. The only downside to spirulina
is probably that it doesn't taste very good.
Yeah, you'll have a swallowing habit though, which makes it
nice. But you know, my algae are like
my children to me. And so, you know, so it has, you
know, it makes it gives a personality that you that it's
got this sort of side to it. I personally love to chew mine
because I love. This the feeling of eating
something, and I eat them with almonds and sea salt, which
helps improve the flavor. And I remind people that there's
another product that I can't, you know, that a lot of people
take. I don't endorse it at all.
It's Red Bowl and it's not good for you at all.
It's got all sorts of terrible chemicals in it, and people
don't like that flavor either, but they use it and so.
You would get better energy from spirulina.
Again, it's a flavor that you would probably need to get
adjusted to, but if you do not like the flavor, you can grind
it up and put it into smoothie, or you can just swallow it.
We made them very, very tiny. So that's why we call them bits,
because we think they're so cute.
They're bits of food, but you can swallow them and you get
exactly the same benefits as if you swallow them.
So Spirulina blue-green algae generally used for either energy
satisfying your hunger. Intermittent.
Fasting, it's fantastic for intermittent fasting because it
does not decrease your ketones or increase your glucose.
It's great if you're diabetic. Again it lowers your glucose if
you're diabetic. And also we we have a very, it's
a terrific preworkout fuel that's natural and not a single
additive. And and again the tablets are
very easy to travel with. We give you a little tin inside
our bag so you can refill them and all that sort of.
So it's it's been used for. Hundreds of years, quite
honestly. But in in Mexico in the 1600s,
the Mexicans were using it. It was discovered by the Dutch
chemist in the late 1800s to have the highest concentration
of protein. So.
So it is really amazing food crop.
So that's spirulina. Now its sister is Chlorella.
Chlorella developed about 100, about a billion years after
Spirulina. And it is officially in the
Plant Kingdom because it has a not only does it have a
cellulose wall where spirulina does not, it has the hardest
cellulose wall in the Plant Kingdom.
So hard, in fact, that it has to be cracked at production.
But and so it does take a little longer to get into your
bloodstream. But here's one of the beautiful
things about this remarkable the hard exterior cell wall.
It attaches to toxins and chelates them out of your body
like nothing else it's been used by.
Biological dentist for decades for pulling out mercury when
they take out people's ammograms.
It's been used by Mercury Poisoning Association.
It also pulls out radiation. It was used at Chernobyl.
Fukushima Hiroshima because it's known as the only thing that
pulls out radiation. It will pull out lead.
It will pull out. Athletes love it because it
pulls out lactic acid. So they use the spirulina as a
preworkout and they use the chlorella as a post workout so
your muscles aren't sore the next day.
It also pulls out alcohol, so if you take it after you drink
alcohol, whether it's beer, wine, spirits, you don't, you
are sober in an hour and a half. And you will never have a
hangover. So it's very it's known as a
very powerful chelator, far better than activated charcoal.
Activated charcoal pulls out all minerals in your body, all that,
you know, it pulls toxins, but all minerals.
Chlorella does not do that. Chlorella only pulls out toxins.
And in fact it's loaded with 40 vitamins and minerals.
So it it only it restores minerals.
And does not take minerals out, it only pulls out toxins.
I I call it intelligent food for two reasons.
You have to be intelligent to take it and it knows what to do
in your body. It's it's considered an
adaptogen. So in addition to being longing
to the plant Kingdom, well let me say one other thing, it does
belong to the plant Kingdom, but it's not technically a plant.
It's considered a seed vegetable.
And the reason for that is chlorella and spirulina do not
have any of the downsides. Of plant of plants, there's
what's called antinutrients, phytic acid lectins that are
found in a lot of plants that can cause damage to your stomach
lining and lead to food allergies and inflammation,
fatigue, and there are no lectins, there are no phyto,
none of these, what I call antinutrients in either of the
algae. So even though Chlorella does
belong to the plant Kingdom, it's technically.
We call a sea vegetable because it doesn't have any downsides,
only upsides. A couple other really amazing
things about Chlorella. Remember, spirulina has the
highest protein in the world. Chlorella has the highest
chlorophyll in the world, and most people know that
chlorophyll is what makes your plants green, and that's why
your mother's told you to eat your.
Veggies when you're young. So what does chlorophyll do?
Well, chlorophyll is a fat based pigment and the reason why this
is important is because anything that's fat based is going to
heal your cell walls. And we're all learning that, you
know, aging and health all starts in the cell, the cell
wall, the mitochondria. You need to do things that are
going to keep those mitochondria healthy and your your cell walls
nice and lubricant so that the nutrients can get in and the
toxins can get out. So, chlorella.
In addition to pulling out toxins because of the chi
chlorophyll, it builds your cells, it builds your immune
system, all those phytonutrients.
And in fact during World War One when the injured when they ran
out of blood transfusions for the injured, they would give
them liquid chlorophyll and they would heal just as fast as if
they'd had a blood transfusion. And if you know a lot of people
may not believe me, but then I invite you to look at the
cellular structure. Of chlorophyll, and you will
find that is identical to the cellular structure of your
hemoglobin, Absolutely identical X with one exception.
In the centre of your hemoglobin is an iron atom and then the
centre of. Chlorophyll is a magnesium atom.
Now if that one atom wasn't there, our blood, our blood
literally would be green. And the reason why that that
iron atom is important because that's what carries oxygen in
your blood and helps gives you an oxygen of course gives you
energy. So you have to say to yourself,
huh, if something is virtually identical to our blood
hemoglobin structure, it's got to be something important about
it. So you do need to have it in
your. In your daily diet, and I know
we'll circle back to the keto diet and very few people are
eating a lot of greens because they don't want the carbs.
But so you're you know you're cheating your body and your
longevity by depriving yourself of chlorophyll so you can get.
Way more. You can have a room full of
chlorophyll. It's, you know, you would have
to eat a room full of kale to get the equivalent chlorophyll
that might be in a couple servings of the chlorella.
So it's very, again very efficient nutrition and
ketogenic. So you're never coming out of
ketosis. And still you're getting your
chlorophyll met needs met. Chlorella just a couple other
top notes of Chlorella has the highest concentration of RNA and
DNA in the world. What that means is it helps as
you age your DNA and RNA are damaged and so this helps them
to grow back healthier. So that's very good news for
those of us who are over 20 and also has as I mentioned very
high amounts of of iron, so that boost your your oxygen and
reduces fatigue. And there was something else
that was going to say, Oh yes, the chlorophyll, it's very high
in K2. Are are you familiar with K2?
But the importance of K2? Yes, yes.
So vitamin K2 is a relatively new vitamin they discovered at
about 25 years. Ago, which I guess is new in the
science world and it's so different from K1.
People know that K1 is in green vegetables and helps your blood
clot. What K2 does is it removes
calcium from soft tissue like blood vessels, your skin organs,
your brain and it moves it into your bones where calcium should
belong. So in one fell swoop, it K2 will
help reduce heart disease Alzheimer's.
Kidney stones, wrinkles and help prevent osteoporosis because
everyone's taking calcium and they're taking D3 to help
absorption with calcium. But it's being absorbed in the
wrong places. And chlorella, both spirulina
and chlorella have K2, but Chlorella has twice the amount
of K2 in in it that spirulina does, and there's very few food
sources that have K2. They are.
It's really only it can only be found in grass fed animal
protein or a dish called nata which nobody in America eats.
And the reason why it's only in grass fed animal protein is that
animals have extra bacteria in their gut that allow them to
convert convert K1 into K2. So when we eat animal protein we
do get the K2 because it's already in the in the animal.
But not everybody can afford grass fed animal protein and it
may be difficult to find and you still may not be able to eat
enough of it to get sufficient K2 into your diet.
And there are K2 supplements now.
But K2 has multiple different variations and all the
supplements are made with something called MK47 which is
an artificial it's made from I think fermented chickpeas and
algae and animal fed protein has M4.
And the reason why I I feel M4 is the better K2 is a couple of
reasons. One is M4 is the only K2 version
that can get into your brain your.
So you know, brain health is obviously very important and if
I am also just a believer in sort of the more natural sources
for health and nutrition. So I'm really trying to get
people to take what you know is more natural because if it comes
from food, it has all the factors and cofactors so your
body knows how to absorb it and what to do with it.
So in summary, Florella is a Wellness algae, that's what we
call it recovery bits. Ours is recovery bits because it
helps you recover your health or recover from sports.
It's got the chlorophyll that builds your immune system, It
pulls out toxins. It's got the K2 to prevent heart
disease or osteoporosis. It's got the RNA&DNA that speeds
up your, you know, it keeps your RNA&DNA healthy and it has this
interesting thing. They didn't know what else to
call it. So they call it Chlorella growth
factor. Chlorella is the fastest growing
Organism in the world. If you've read anything about
alternative fuel, biofuel, they were always using Chlorella as
the material they were trying to trap the energy from when the
cells divide because it's the fastest growing Organism.
So what that means for you and your health is that when you
take Chlorella because you've got this RNA and DNA and all
these other wonderful nutrients, it helps your cells grow faster
and so you heal from injury or surgery in in much less time
with thanks to all these wonderful nutrients in
Chlorella. It is, it is hands down to me I
believe the most important food frankly in the world.
I think it's even more important than spirulina because we're so
full of toxins in our world and and we're struggling to stay
ahead of, you know, eliminating them, the ones that have been
gathering in our bodies and trying to get rid of the ones on
a daily basis. So.
So I think Chlorella is very powerful.
Spirulina has all that wonderful protein, but the Chlorella is
very, very detoxifying. So those are the 2 main algae
that are grown for consumption purposes.
And they are, if you grow them carefully like we do, I the
safest, purest, nutrient dense food, bar none in the world.
And the irony is, they're a multibillion dollar industry in
Asia and they're all it's all grown in Asia, India, Taiwan,
Japan, China. Don't ever get any from China
because you can't trust the labeling there or even the
purity and the quality. So I was thrilled to see that in
January of this year, the White House and Senate, Congress,
everybody, they sign into into being the very first algae
agricultural act as part of the farm bill because they're
realizing that algae is the most nutrient dense food in the world
is most cost efficient. You can, you know when you grow
corn or wheat, you get one crop a year, right?
And and it's mono cropping and you're killing the soil and it's
not good for the planet. It's not gluten's not good for
us anyway. So but farmers get lots of
subsidies to grow this stuff. So it's bad for everybody.
And yet with algae, because it takes a month to grow, you can
have 10 or 11 crops a year, not just one.
And since it grows in water, it can be grown in in arable areas.
So you can grow it in a desert and it uses a tenth of the land
to get 100 times more protein and it uses a fifth of the
water. So they've realized it's eco
friendly, sustainable, nutrient dense and it needs to be grown
in America. So I'm so excited about that
because now LG farmers will start to get some respect and so
maybe some money to to grow it because it needs we need it here
in America, we need it everywhere in the world.
I don't know. You probably aren't aware of
this, but back in the 70s, nineteen 74, the United Nations
had a global conference on on spirulina and declared it then
as the answer to world hunger because of its high protein
concentration. So there's so much science about
allergy. There's almost 100,000 studies
on the health benefits. So it's all evidence based.
But the problem is the knowledge and all this science has been
stuck in the scientific world and it hasn't made its way out
to consumers or practitioners or athletes.
And so that's basically what I've done.
We've made sure our quality is, is is unquestionable and we do a
third party lab test here to be sure that doctors can feel
confident when they recommend it to their patients.
But but I pride myself on going through the science, digging
through, trying to connect the dots for people and making it
easier for them to understand what this stuff is.
It's not pond scum. It's a nutritional rock star.
And the good news about chlorella, Remember I mentioned
spirulina is a little tough flavor to get to.
To around. Chlorella tastes delicious.
It tastes more like a soy nut. It's very dry and when you put
sea salt on it or you mix it with almonds or macadamia nuts,
you swear you're eating potato chips.
It is off the charts fantastic. So I can hardly wait to launch
a, you know, a trail mix or something, because if we can
show people how this tastes really good, especially the
Chlorella. And while you're eating
something that's tasty and you're basically giving your
body all the nutrients that it needs to either combat an
illness or prevent one, it just doesn't get any better.
At least I don't think so. Yeah, no, I think, I mean, I
just listen to your talk. It's it's apparent that you're
very passionate about it and for good reasons too.
I mean, I've dug into algae a little bit and.
The research that I've uncovered is is pretty pretty profound.
I mean, I don't think that people realize how beneficial
this stuff truly can be. Out of curiosity, why do you
think the States are so far behind Asia?
Sure. Well, it's not just the States,
it's any country outside of Asia.
And and there's three main reasons that I have I believe is
why it's it's not well known. One is that as I mentioned it,
it's all grown in Asia. So just like you know they've
been using, you've been eating sushi for decades and they've
been eating green tea for decades.
When your market is close to the source of your product, the the
awareness is just more is just deeper.
So algae's been sold in America for 50 years, but because the
market isn't very well developed, the Asian suppliers
basically have been selling the product here with the same Asian
packaging maybe just made it English, but it looked it looks
weird, it looks like it should be on the bottom shelf of some
Chinese, you know pharmacist so so that's not very consumer
friendly. So that's one reason is that
just the packaging has been unfamiliar to people and you
know it's not very welcoming #2 is there are homeopaths and some
vegan trainers, A handful of people in America that are aware
of algae and back in the 60s there was a little boom of
interest as sort of part of the anti war anti whatever.
But most of that came from China and it was discovered that a lot
of it was poor quality or they, you know, there might have been
some toxins included in there or they, you know, I've got
pictures where you know, they were in capsules, they had
ground up rocks to dilute the quality and the efficacy of of
the algae get you know get more for their money.
So the most of the suppliers up until recently, certainly until
us, have been focused on high volume, low quality.
So when I I wasn't even planning on starting a company, I just
want to help my sister and then I could help more people.
So I just decided for me quality was #1.
So it took me years to find which countries had the best
algae, which, you know, companies I could work with.
And so I'm very proud that we have very, very high and
stringent controls. And because we sell our algae
through doctors and chiropractors and homeopaths and
natural paths they have to be sure that the quality is
unquestionable. So we do third party lab tests
by FDA at FDA approved lab so that show that there are no
toxins. The nutrients are exactly what
they we say they are So we so that so we've eliminated the
problem with quality because that you know a lot of people if
you're a trainer and you've got athletes on your team you don't
want to recommend something to them that could be hazardous to
their health and get them kicked out of their sport.
So, so number one, we made the packaging more friendly, #2, we
eliminated the quality issue. The other reason is that nobody
has taken the time like we have to go through the science and it
takes a lot, it's a lot of work to go through.
You know, I haven't gone, I haven't gone through 100,000
studies, but I've gone through thousands, certainly thousands
of studies to try to understand the and pull out the, the most
important connections. For example, I think I'm the
first person that really realized that the nutrient
profile of spirulina is almost identical to mother's breast
milk. And I only stumbled across that
because I saw some chart with mother's breast milk and I
looked at all the amino acids and I thought, gosh, that looks
a lot. That looks familiar.
And then I ran to our chart that showed all of our amino acids
and spirulina and everything else that was in it.
My gosh, it's the exactly same amino acids in the exactly same
proportion. And then had other other
nutrients and and you know, we all know that mother breast milk
is, you know, mother's nature's perfect food.
Well, you know what? So is spirulina because it's
virtually identical to mother's breast milk.
I thought that was a pretty cool revelation.
So I'm quite proud that we've, I've taken a lot right.
And I personally have taken a lot of time to try to do the
heavy lifting on the science. So that I could explain to
people in sort of more layman's terms what these nutrients are
doing and what nutrients your body needs to perform at its
best to reduce inflammation to protect yourself from virtually
anything. Because our food supply is so
damaged or crops and our soils are so over farmed, there's
nothing really left for the poor old plants to pull out of the
root. They've got all kinds of toxins.
Even if you eat organic that's you're still not getting the
nutrients. They're finding that because of
the CO2 levels and the ozone layer is being just, you know,
ruined, decreased plants these days have more sugar and fewer
nutrients than they did 50 years ago.
So we're just nutrient deprived. We had somebody once who we
recommend 30 tablets for a single serving.
We had somebody e-mail us. They had two tablets and they
were anemic. And man, she said she had so
much energy, she went for a run and she redecorated her house
and painted her kitchen. You know, it's like, if that
just doesn't tell you something. I mean, man, if we could get
proper nutrients into people and their children and this stuff is
safe for any age. Newborns, pets, granddads, I
know we could help people be healthier, avoid a lot of
illnesses, have more energy, just enjoy life and live longer
with higher quality of life. And that's very, you know, very
compelling. So the reason why algae isn't
known in a in America or anywhere else is lack of
education, lack of poor of good packaging, poor poor quality
control, and let's face it, the Pharmaceutical industry and the
bio biotechs, they want you on drugs.
They're not going to, they're not going to spend time
researching something that they can't get a patent on.
This is you can't patent broccoli.
You can't patent kale. You can't patent algae either.
It's a it's a food crop, so they're not going to do it.
And the food industry, big corporations, what they they
don't nurture and develop new markets.
They wait for somebody else, a little company like us, to find
an opportunity, nurture it, educate people, and then they
eventually acquire it. That's what's happened with, you
know, CBT. That's what's been happening
with Paleo, that's what's been having collagen, lots of keto
products, whether you know Kettle and Fire, any of these
wonderful young companies that have been developing products
that are healthy, full of nutrients.
They've had to do it from scratch because we companies
don't do that sort of thing. So it's really left to people
with passion who choose to pursue something because they
want to make a difference like myself.
And that's what carries us through the difficult times,
trying to get people to take a look at something that's good
for them. And we're doing it because we
know it's good for them. We just want them to take the
time to understand why. Yeah, I really, really
appreciate that. I think a lot of companies, you
know, they're just out there to. To find a part that makes the
money as opposed to finding a part that fits a need and fills
that gap And and you being motivated originally by your
sister. I mean that right there.
I mean to me that it just gives you so much more weight in
everything that you said today. You know, like I really
appreciate. What you're driving motivation
is yeah and and it's it's the truth and you know I live for
the emails we get from our customers about their cancer
going into remission or they have normal blood pressure
reading for the first time or they're a 70 year old who's now
running races again and and winning in their category.
I mean we're making a difference and it and when you build a
company with that in mind it it informs every single decision.
It changes how I hire people, the way we spend our money.
Once we get bigger, you know, we'll just pour all the money
back into organizations that we can support.
Might, might, long term dream is to give this stuff away at
disaster areas and put in, get in school lunches.
Algae never technically goes bad.
It's either in its packaged form or even it's growing.
I'll tell you a funny story, algae is the only crop that
never dies. It will just go dormant for as
long as it is required and then it will start growing again.
I I I read an article in the National Geographic, some some
researchers went up to the North Pole and they got some, they
excavated some rock from some prehistoric glacier from, you
know 3 billion years ago and they brought it back to the lab
and they found some algae in the in the rock.
And out of curiosity, they, they took a little bit of it and they
put it into a Petri dish and put it in some water and lo and
behold, it started growing again.
Like, how crazy is that? So I and we get people emailing
us, you know the expirations dates gone by.
Is this still safe? It's safe forever.
That's why I would I talk about giving it to disaster areas.
I mean we could airlift this stuff to places and it could be
there for 10 years and it would still be fine.
So it's it's a remarkable food that way.
It's a remarkable, unusual plant that can do amazing things.
But yeah, I'm I'm very passionate because I know I've
seen the science, I know what it does.
I just want more people to bring it into their life so they can
start feeling great again. Absolutely.
There's a, you know, I look at several of the graphs and
whatnot comparing, you know, vegetable nutrient profile to
that of like a meat, for instance.
And especially, like in the the keto space, there's a pretty
popular graph that illustrates, you know, meat just totally
blowing. Kind of like I think a broccoli
out of the water as it relates to, you know, nutrient density
where where does you know chlorella and spirulina stack up
against other vegetables is there?
I mean I know it, it totally blows them out with with regard
to most things, but is there any hole in that graph whatsoever?
Like is there anything that is not met with the same kind of
density as another vegetable or or no?
Well, we have a nice quote from Nasau that says 1 gram of
spirulina has the nutrient equivalent of 1000 grams of any
other fruits or vegetables. So that's pretty powerful.
That's why they feed it to the astronauts and in fact I read
today in in an article that they're they really want to grow
algae in their their missions to Mars.
Not only because it releases so much oxygen like I mentioned
before, but because it is so nutrient dense.
But in it, it is a complete protein number one, and with 40
vitamins and minerals it's it can replace your vitamin, your
multivitamin. It can replace your minerals,
your calcium, magnesium, potassium.
You probably don't need Co Q10. You definitely don't need fish
oil as most people know that. You may or may not know most
fish oil goes rancid. It's just the nature of
oxidation. It can't be prevented.
So it's not your best source of omega-3.
Even though omega-3 is very, very important, and I tell
people, guess where the fish get the omega-3 from, they get it
from algae. So, so and algae will give you
all the omega-3 and other eccentrified acids that you
need. And they are in smaller
quantities, but they don't, you know, they don't go rancid and
they're certainly vegan. I will say, however, there is
virtually no vitamin C in algae. So what I do to compensate for
that is I when I get up in the morning, I always have a couple
of glasses of water with lemon squeezes in them.
So if you're on a keto diet and you don't want, you know, fruit
is not something that's obviously going to be on your
regular routine, mutine, I think the, the, you know, if you want
to take a vitamin C tablet, that's great.
Or the lemon, the lemon juice would also be an alternative.
So that's the only nutrient that I feel that is important because
it is an antioxidant. But there's other really
powerful antioxidants in the algae.
Chlorophyll obviously is one of them.
And in Spirulina, there's something called SOD superoxide
vismutase that actually is. Even more powerful as an
antioxidant than anything else. And there's it's very difficult
to find in any other food. But other than the the vitamin C
and there's not a lot of D3 either.
So I will probably, you know, suggest that people take D3, but
if you live in the South you you're good to go because you
can just go step outside. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like I'm
always listening to your different podcast guests and.
Experts in nutrition to see what I can do differently with my
nutrition and it sounds like if I just stick with the, you know,
high quality sourced red meat with.
You know, some energy, bits and squeeze of lemon in my juice
with with one of my keto bricks. I'd be good, good to go for the
day. That's all I need really, for
your energy. Yes, and and and so generally we
suggest because people like the energy throughout the day to
take the spirulina in the morning or the afternoon.
But definitely don't cheat yourself out of the chlorella.
And because your body goes through a natural detox at
night, if you wanted to get into a routine, we would say take
your spirulina in the morning, in the afternoon and take your
chlorella at night. And and the reason for that is
your body is you're sleeping, you're going through natural
detox. Also, chlorella has the highest
concentration of tryptophan. So it does help you sleep.
Now it won't, it won't make you sleepy during the day, but it
will cause you to, you know, have because trypophan is a
precursor to melatonin which helps you sleep.
So it does facilitate that. Also take it after a workout.
So spirulina is good for a preworkout, Chlorella is good
for a post workout. And again, you don't need any of
those carbs when you're, you know, when people transition to
keto, there's often this what's called the keto flu and it's
because your body is releasing so much water and when the water
is being released, it's carrying lots of minerals and so
including, you know salt. And so it's the it's the
deprivation of those minerals that can cause you to feel a
little fatigued. So in but the the algae, both
Spirulian and Chlorella are loaded with minerals, potassium,
magnesium, a little bit of sodium.
So it's really helps prevent that keto flu, although I do
also still encourage people that, you know, that's why one
of the reasons I like to suggest putting the sea salt on your
algae, if you like the chlorella, now you're getting
even more salt and the minerals and you're boosting your immune
system at the same time. So it helps alleviate that keto
flu and then you know it just keeps you topped off as you keep
going. And you're recommending, you
said, what, 3030 of these tablets.
Today, that's what we recommend. And the reason people say, well,
how did you get to 30? When we first started?
As I may have mentioned, we were working with a lot of athletes,
marathon runners, triathletes, Olympic athletes.
We actually had so many Olympic athletes.
I sent two of my team to the Winter Olympics and Sochi, and
we were invited into the Olympic Village for both the American
Olympic Village and the Canadian, because I'm Canadian.
But where was it going with this?
So. So we, we found that, you know,
for the athletes to get energy. We started with 10, then we went
to 2025. It wasn't until we hit 30 that
they consistently felt a boost of energy.
We've so that's how we we do single servings with 30 and we
recommend 30. But since then we've realized
the average person is so nutrient deprived that even 5 or
10 at a time will make a difference in your health.
And it's like a lot of things you kind of have to sort of play
around with what your perfect blend is.
I still personally like to suggest 30 if you are doing a
workout or you're getting started in the day.
But if if you get energy from 5:00 or 10:00 then that's that's
cool, take 5 or 10, it'll certainly make your your LG last
longer. On the other hand there is no
upper side. It's like you can't eat too much
salad or you we have we fuel 5 NHL teams and they take they
have 75 or 100 spirulina ground up in their smoothies before a
game and then they take the same amount of the Chlorella tablets
after the game to pull out the lactic acid.
And I personally have about that much myself anyways, and I have
for about the last eight years, and I couldn't live without this
stuff. So it's just like a very healthy
food snack. You can't, you know, or
vegetable. You can't have too much of it.
And because there's only one calorie and there's zero carbs
and it's ketogenic and vegan and pure and toxin free and all
those other jolly good things, it's a it's a real blessing to
your body. So if you want to start with a
smaller quantity to see how you feel, that's great.
It's also great for children and we recommend 1 tablet per age.
So if they're three, we suggest maybe three a day.
If they're five, give them five a day.
And pets. I'll just warn you, your pets
will love this stuff and it will become a, you know, a very
habit, a very expensive treat if they if they start using it.
But I I also say, hey, how many, how many foods can you and your
pet enjoy together, right? Yeah, yeah.
No, this is good. I did not even know it can be
applied to that. But I mean, it makes total
sense. We have our dogs Keto now, so it
only makes sense to to give them this.
Yeah, yeah, well, I have some friends who you know this one
friend. She had a small lap dog and she
made the mistake of leaving her bag of spirulina tablets on the
counter and somehow this little lap dog jumped up on the
counter, got to the bag and ate the entire bag.
So almost 1000. She was so worried that she was
going to die and I said no, no, no, he'll just throw up what she
did. He was perfectly fine.
But this dog had tried them and man, when he realized they were
up there, he was going to do everything he could to get
access to them. And another friend of mine has a
she lives in a three story house and she has five cats.
And she said she could be pulling her bag out of the
fridge and it'll rustle a little bit.
And those cats, they will hear that and they will run down the
stairs and circle around her legs waiting for her to give
them some. So it's very, it'll be very
interesting. I would love to have you give
your dog summons and let me know what the reaction is.
Because animals are very smart, they know it's good for them.
Instinctively, they go and eat grass when they're not feeling
well because they know that the chlorophyll and the grass is
very healing. So they know that there's so
much chlorophyll and stuff in this in the algae that it's good
for them. Absolutely, absolutely.
So what about just kind of dive into the process of how it's
made? Cuz like, I've seen the videos.
I've seen not videos, but I've seen some pictures of like these
I call like plantations, algae plantations almost, I guess.
Yeah, that's probably a good term for it, Yeah.
So just walk me through that. Sure.
Well, the farms are not small, so this isn't something like you
would have in your local garden. They can be as large as, you
know, football stadiums and you can tell what kind of LG farm
you're looking at based on the shape of the of the farm space.
So spirulina is called spirulina because it grows in a spiral.
So it first they started in a, they started in little test
tubes just to grow it to get sort of like a little seedling
and then they move it out into the the water tank, I call it a
tank. I don't know what some people
refer them As for spirulina, A runway, because spirulina is the
way it's farmed. You put the beginning, you know
it's almost the the seedlings at one end and it it's, it's sort
of like a rolling lane. It's very long and narrow
because what it will do is grow from one end.
It will spiral its way, filling up the runway with this sort of
stringy CBD looking kind of fiber until it reaches the end.
So that's spirulina grows in spirals in long, narrow, as I
say they call them runways and chlorella.
It actually grows, it puffs out. Remember I said it was the
fastest growing Organism, So it puffs out in in a circular
fashion, so it's in round tanks, and so it grows.
It starts in the middle and it grows out to the sides of the
circle. So what makes a difference in
the quality? First of all, there's different
strains of algae, just like there's different quality meats.
You know, you can have Kobe beef and grass fed beef and then you
have that stuff, I think they call it beef at McDonald's.
But you know there's variations. So same with algae, there's
different strains and some have more nutrients and some have
more protein. So we use the highest strain and
then it, you know, it depends on the quality of the water which
so ours is triple filtered spring mountain water because
you want to be sure that there's no toxins and then you gather up
the algae and dry it. Now we don't use high heat to
dry ours. We just sort of shoot it up into
the air and this and it's, it dries naturally, it filters down
into a pile and do that multiple times.
And the reason we don't use high heat is to preserve the enzymes.
So it's still considered a raw food.
A lot of companies and this was again stuff that you'll find at
Target or some of these now foods or what very inexpensive
algae, they use high heat because they're a volume
producer. So that kills the new, the
enzymes and it also deteriorates the quality of some of the
nutrients. So that's you want to be careful
of that And then we what's called tablet we we push the
water. There's a you know conveyor belt
that push the water out of the out of the dried algae and put
into almost like little muffin tins.
So it forms these little tablets.
There isn't. There are no binders.
There's nothing else in it. When a lot of companies have to
use binders to keep the LG together or they what they do is
they put it in a powder inside a capsule, but sometimes they
could put other fillers in that capsule and you don't really
know what that's in there. So we don't do any of that.
We make sure ours is just 100%, there's only one ingredient and
that's that and that's it. Nothing else and and on that
note I just want to make one sort of distinction between
spirulina and Chlorella. Remember I said spirulina is a
bacteria and does not have a cellulous wall.
Chlorella has the hardest cellulous wall that I mentioned
earlier needs to be cracked in production.
So when I started the company I found out that the common
technique used to crack the chlorella is they tumble it
physically with glass beads. Now this technique was
formulated by the granddaddy of Chlorella, which we're very
grateful that they learned how to grow Chlorella.
It's called Sun Chlorella. So I'm very, very grateful for
them for starting this back in the 50s.
And they patented this technique, it's called Dyno Mill
and virtually every other Chlorella company in the world
uses their technique, which is to tumble the the Chlorella with
the glass beads. So it basically pulverizes the
cell wall so that because if it wasn't pulverized or cracked,
your body could not absorb the nutrients inside.
However, there was always suspicion that the heat from the
glass, the glass heated up and that lead was leaking from the
glass into the chlorella. Now they denied that this was
happening, but just when I was starting the company, just the
state of California was informed of this potential problem.
So they did some tests on their chlorella and did indeed find
that the amount of lead exceeded acceptable levels.
I tell my my team, well, how much lead could be too much
lead, you know, would it be any lead.
So I decided we could not use that technique because the state
of California had determined that that technique was not was
harmful to your health and they forced the company.
They said you can either stop selling or put a warning on your
label. So they do have a warning on
their packaging that says, you know, this, this, this contains
A substance known by the state of California to cause, you
know, brain, brain defects and whatever.
And so I found a new technique right around that time that had
been developed with more expensive where they passed the
clarella through a sound chamber and it's the vibrations that
crack the clarella. So no heat, no lead, That's.
So that's what we use. And I was telling this to
somebody a few days ago and they said, oh, good vibrations in
your Chlorella. Yeah, I'm.
And I'm, you know, I'm actually a Reiki healer too.
And I'm all about energy and vibration.
So I'm very, very happy that we have clean Chlorella and
spirulina but and it's good vibrations and we've had, we've
had lots of people actually contact us and tell us that
they've muscle tested. They've never been able to take
Chlorella before but they muscle tested ours and found out that
they could take it and I think it's because it's doesn't have
the lead in it. So, so yeah, so Chlorella has to
be cracked to production and we pass our through the sound
chamber and then we package it into UV protected bags.
And the reason why this is important is because sunlight
will if if you have light packaging or you know light
colored bottles for your spirulina or Chlorella, the
light will pull the Chlorella out.
No, it's not damaging to the algae, but it means that you're
losing some of the power of the chlorophyll which is very
cleansing. So we made, we made sure that
our packages were 99% UV protected.
So we have large bags that are sold on our website and then we
sell single servings through doctors and nutritionists and
chiropractors and you can find and and and Amazon, we sell them
on Amazon. So, so that's and our packaging
is all done under proper FDA regulations and then we do the
when we we import the algae in bulk from Asia for the packaging
and then we have each batch tested at a third party lab
that's been approved by the FDA and we get those and we share
those lab tests with all of our doctors and nutritionists and
people who recommend or sell our product to their patients and
clients because we want them to know that we have nothing to
hide and that everything is safe and pure and clean and toxin
free. So we're doing everything we can
to ensure a healthy, safe, nutrient dense product that
will, you know, can be used for many reasons, whether it's
therapeutic or as a snack or for, you know, athletic
performance or keto diets, whatever.
And we were just at the Metabolic Health Summit in Long
Beach 2 weeks ago. Dominique D'agostino is one of
the founders of that. Yeah, I was there.
I saw your booth. Were you there?
Yeah. Yeah, I I needed.
I guess you were there then. I didn't even think that the
swing by and shake your hand. Oh man, Oh well, we'll be there
again next year. So, so wow, that's so exciting.
I'm hoping to speak out next year.
Yeah, yeah. Are you going to any of the
other conferences? Well, we do.
We're doing about 20 conferences this year.
We do a lot of chiropractic conferences and we're going to a
lot of Plantbased Dr. conferences.
We're starting to work a little bit in the spa industry.
So I think it's too late for us to be at Keto Con, but we'll
probably be there next year, but we'll definitely be at the that
metabolic health again next year.
And and for the last three years we've been at low carb USA and
I've spoken at them for the last three years as well.
Have you ever been to any of those?
Not the low carb USA I was. I was going to go to that one,
but I had to pull the trigger on the meta and go to the Metabolic
Health Summit, so I opted for that one instead.
But I plan to go there next year.
Yeah. Met of all outstanding and I've
told them that and we're we're going to support them and do as
much as we can to help them because they're doing all the
right things. They get really great speakers
that's a very, you know it's so wonderful to be part of this
community. We're all helping one another
and connecting one another and it's it's it's like a big
family. So because we've got an
important message to share. So you were there to see the
BMX. Yeah.
Yeah, Josh Perry was there. Yeah, that was awesome.
That was really in the Charlie Foundation.
It's such a great group of people.
We really love them. Well, I can definitely tell that
Y'all Energy Bits is breaking out into the keto space.
I mean, I think I heard of Y'all's product initially on a
Tim Ferriss podcast, I wanna say.
I think he was using it, but I mean it was just so cool to see.
I mean y'all are. I mean your brain has kind of
become more in line with keto. I see that in the space and it's
just just cool to see you know how the cross can path, how the
paths can cross rather and it benefit you know all groups no
matter what your nutritional protocol is exactly.
We're also going to be at Fitcon in the keto corner section
because I don't believe there are any other keto sports
nutrition products out there. Everything's carb and sugar
based and there's a growing number of keto athletes and we
want to know that we're here to support them because the out the
spirulina will give them the energy and keep their keto, keep
them in ketosis and the Chlorella will pull out their
lactic acid and speed up the recovery.
So we're very excited. We haven't even done a fitness
show in five years. So and we and they we met the
keto, the Fitcom people at this metabolic health summit, they
said please come to the keto section.
So we said, all right, we're in, we're gonna be there.
That's awesome. Yeah.
I mean, keep doing what you're doing, keep spreading the word
like you are. And I mean, I mean that's that's
the best way to go about it, just spreading it organically
naturally like that. I mean, that's how you really
gain momentum. Yeah.
And I I am available to answer any questions anyone has,
because I want everyone to understand that this isn't
something it may They may think algae is weird, but but it's
not. It's just unknown.
It's it's just unfamiliar. So just like keto was unknown
and unfamiliar, and first people thought it was weird and there's
pushback, but now the science is trickling out to show that
there's benefits, especially even if you can't get to the
full keto state low carb, you've got it.
People have got to get rid of those carbs and sugar.
I mean, it's so damaging. It's just crazy to think about
it. It's gone as long as it has.
So we're no sugar. Keto, vegan.
Whatever your dietary protocol is, I have the science that will
help you understand why it works.
Because you know, knowledge is power, right?
And so, and if I don't have an answer, I will, I will find it.
I could tell you you're very passionate about this, which is
just invigorating and exciting to witness.
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I'm loaded up with
algae. What can I tell you?
My mitochondria are just firing on all on all, you know, bullets
or whatever. And I I tell people selfishly, I
need people to take the algae because I have a feeling Dave
Asprey and I are going to be the ones that are going to live 180
years. And then I I need to be sure
people are my friends are around to hang out with me.
So. Yeah, well, definitely,
definitely. Where where can people go to to
to get some of this stuff and and try for themselves?
You bet. So we sell it on our website at
energybits.com and I'd love to give your listeners a 20%
discount code. So when you check out, you'll
see a coupon box and if you enter the word Keto Savage all
one word, you'll get 20% off. It works on everything all the
time so. That's the that's the best way
to do it. Remember, Energy Bits is the
spirulina. We actually have another
spirulina called beauty bits. So it's really more of a spa,
but it's exactly the same as energy bits, just we packaged it
in pink. Someone said, oh, you've got a
boy spirulina and a girl spirulina.
And basically, yes, that's that's the case whatever,
whatever it takes. And then Chlorella, which is a
green algae, is packaged in green and called recovery bits.
And then we have a blend which is vitality that's 50%.
Thorel and 50% spirulina, but yes, energybits.com And if you
aren't ready yet to try full bag, we also have a couple of
the options for you. We sell on Amazon and you can
purchase single servings. They're $4.00 each through
Amazon. Or you can go to our homepage
and click the find a retailer because we have practitioners,
chiropractors, spas, gyms all over the country who sell the
single serving. So there may be one nearby you,
and you could. You could.
Try a single serving from them. But Amazon is great for single
servings. We really encourage people to
try the single servings first, so you know for sure that you
like it and then you'll get a better price because you'll get
the 20% discount on energybits.com.
But the other funny thing is I'll mention I was on Shark Tank
a couple years ago and they, they keep airing my segment and
they aired it again the day before the metabolic health
summit. And so there I was or no the Cal
Jam. Yeah, we were at Chiropractic
showed last week and I had people.
Morning coming up to me. No, I have.
Were you on Shark Tank? And yes, I was, but I thought
that was pretty funny. But you'll start hearing more
about algae and hopefully energy bits soon.
We're just a very tiny company. Very bootstrap, but tiny but
mighty. That's, that's what I like to
say about us. I have most respect for you for
that. I mean growing a small business
myself like you get, you got to have so much passion and so much
desire to hustle on a daytoday basis.
So that's off to you there. Well, we'll we'll make sure you
get some algae to keep. Keep your hustle happening.
I love it. I love it.
Well, Catherine, I can't thank you enough.
I mean, I truly feel like your your intentions and motivations
are so pure and and I could just, you know, tell that you're
excited and passionate about what you're speaking about.
So keep doing what you're doing. Thank you and so much.
You keep killing it. Yeah.
Well, let's definitely hook up at the metabolic summit next
year. Absolutely.
Until then, Catherine, have a
great one. OK.
Thanks a lot, Robert. Bye, bye, bye, bye.