The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
The Kick Sugar Coach Podcast
Dr. Catharine Arnston: How Spirulina and Chlorella Can Reduce Sugar Cravings, Detox the Body and Repair Mitochondria
Discover the transformative power of algae as we host Dr. Catharine Arnston, a trailblazer in the realm of nutrition and a fervent advocate for algae’s potential to revolutionize health and wellness. With a deeply personal story rooted in her sister's battle with breast cancer, Catharine embarked on a mission to uncover the astounding benefits of algae. Her journey led to the founding of Energy Bits, where she champions the remarkable properties of chlorella and spirulina. Learn how these ancient superfoods can detoxify the body, enhance mitochondrial function, and reduce sugar cravings, all while supporting an alkaline diet that could stave off diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's, and cancer.
Explore the vital role of mitochondria in safeguarding our health as we unravel the science behind spirulina’s ability to bolster cellular energy and prevent chronic illnesses. Catherine's insights, supported by clinical research and NASA’s endorsement, highlight the incredible nutrient density of spirulina, offering a natural remedy for the inevitable decline in mitochondrial health that begins as we age. With practical advice on integrating spirulina and chlorella into a holistic lifestyle—complemented by a keto diet and regular exercise—this episode promises to equip you with tools to reverse diabetes and elevate your overall well-being.
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hello and welcome everybody to an interview today with katherine arnston. As of two weeks ago we get to call her dr katherine arnston. Actually she just received her phd in nutrition um from a, a college um on the on the east coast. I believe that uh is that correct?
Catharine:college kingdom, college of natural health? It's natural health, yeah yeah, yeah, thank yes. I'm very proud of myself. It was very hard.
Florence:Yes, yes, she was just telling me about. The courses are like like med school level, like just really vigorous, rigorous education. And so we have with us an expert in the field of algae, which is a very ancient form of food that is so fascinating and has such potential to help repair a mitochondria. It can help detoxify the body, it can actually support us to unhook from sugar, it reduces sugar cravings, it rebuilds the body. It's like a genuine superfood, and Catherine has spent the last 14 years deep diving like nerdy, geeking out on this food substance that she now, and then she formed a company and she creates some of the highest quality algae products on the planet. Her company's called Energy Bits. Uh, she has two different. She has both chlorella and spirulina, and I'm so excited for you guys to you know, allow Catherine to share her passion and her knowledge in this area with you. I think it's going to be a game changer. So welcome, catherine.
Catharine:Thank you, Thank you for having me back, yeah, and thank you for everybody for wanting to improve your health, because we live in very challenging times and we have been surrounded by sugar and carbs and it's worked its way into every aspect of our life. And to pull the hooks of sugar out of your body and out of your brain and get your body back to balance is difficult. I will just tell you it's difficult because you're having to change mindsets, habits, change your taste buds. But it's worth it, because when you start feeling better and your blood sugar is balanced and your energy is balanced and your mental acuity is balanced, you, you, the depression that goes away, the fatigue goes away, the blemishes go away, the waking goes away. You're literally experiencing a rebirth.
Catharine:And and I know because I went through it too, because I'm just like everybody else I was watching my food intake and you know and knew about calories.
Catharine:And then I'll tell you how I got into this whole algae thing in a minute, because it was a result of my younger sister in Canada having breast cancer and she's completely healed.
Catharine:But once I started helping her and learning more about how the body works and what it needs, man, I went through about two years of kind of total. It felt like I was living in an alternative universe, because literally everything I had been told was wrong, Basically a lie. Or, if you want to be gentle, we've just learned so much more about ourselves and our bodies and our needs than people knew 20 years ago, and so you have to be okay with the fact that what you know now is pretty probably incorrect. And so there are people like Florence and myself and there's a whole biohacking world out there and a metabolic health keto and myself, and there's a whole biohacking world out there and a metabolic health keto. They're populated with passionate experts who are trying to help you get your life back. You get control of your own destiny, Because if you aren't feeling well and if you are on a roller coaster emotionally with sugar roller coaster, it's really hard to make changes and to adjust to a non-drama life, which is very fulfilling, by the way.
Florence:Amazing, so tell us a little bit about your story.
Catharine:Catherine, yeah, so algae people. Unfortunately, outside of Asia people just think algae is pond scum. But you'll find out that it's the most nutrient-dense food in the world. But I fell into algae, not looking for it. I tell people I didn't choose algae, it chose me.
Catharine:I have an MBA, I was doing international business, I'm Canadian, but I've lived in Boston for 35 years and out of the blue, my younger sister in Canada developed breast cancer 15 years ago 16 years ago. She's completely healed, as I mentioned. But when she was preparing for chemotherapy her oncologist, which is a cancer specialist, told her to change her diet to an alkaline diet. It would be important for her healing. She didn't tell her what it was or why it was good for her. So my baby sister called me. I had no idea what an alkaline diet was. You may not either, and I'll tell you a little bit in a minute, but I'm a good researcher, hence the PhD. So I found out an alkaline diet was mostly a plant-based diet because of the phytonutrients and chlorophyll which have been proven to build your immune system. And also there was a German scientist by the name of Otto Warburg who in the 40s won a Nobel Prize for discovering that cancer and, frankly, any disease cannot exist in your cells if they were slightly alkaline. So getting that alkalinity up to in the range of 0 to 14, so getting it slightly alkaline would prevent the cancer from growing any further. So I helped my sister figure out the foods to eat, which ones not to eat. Further, so I helped my sister figure out the foods to eat, which ones not to eat and as she was starting to heal, I just kept going and I discovered algae, which is the most alkaline, nutrient-dense food in the world. 100,000 studies document its different healing properties, from weight loss, preventing diabetes, preventing Alzheimer's, preventing heart disease, preventing cancer. The list is literally endless.
Catharine:It's been used for centuries all around the world. Things like bone broth have been used all around the world, or collagen for centuries, but you didn't know about them either until someone told you about them. Same with algae. It's been used for centuries and most recently in Asia. Daily they take algae.
Catharine:It's an agricultural crop. You may think algae is because we sell ours in little tablets. I'm going to show you some pictures of the tablets. These are tablets of this one's chlorella and this one's spirulina. I'll tell you about the two different algae. But it's a food crop. It's not even a supplement, and I'm going to show you, folks, some spirulina. This is a spirulina farm and this is a chlorella farm, so I want to prove to you that it's food. So when you take algae from us at Energy Bits, you're eating food and you're going to find out it's one calorie per tablet, zero carbs. So those of you who are doing keto, intermittent fasting, you can take these and not interfere with your fast.
Catharine:40 vitamins and minerals, and we're going to talk to you about how that has the highest protein in the world, which is really great for maintaining your blood sugar and getting you away from sugar.
Catharine:It's great for helping prevent diabetes.
Catharine:It also has essential fatty acids.
Catharine:So I fell into this, just helping my sister, and then I just kept going and I never stopped. And that was 14 years ago, and I'm more in love with algae now than I was even 14 years ago, because I've now got 14 years of research under my belt and so I've done all the heavy lifting for you folks, so you don't have to do all the deep dive that I've done. But everything I'm going to tell you about how this will help you kick sugar, improve your health, prevent or reverse diabetes are all scientifically proven. There's nothing I will tell you that is not documented in something called PubMed, which is an online medical library the fact that spirulina has the highest protein in the world three times the amount of protein a steak. It has the highest chlorophyll in the world, 500 times more than arugula. It's been endorsed by United Nations for 50 years, nasa for 50 years. You don't know about it because it's not grown outside of Asia and no one's told you about it. So I'm here to help correct both those things.
Florence:Amazing. I'm struck by the fact that there's. How could there be no calories? How can a food not break a fast?
Catharine:Well, there's one calorie per tablet. So there's an expert, dr Mindy Peltz, whose expertise is fasting and she wrote a great book called Fast Like a Girl and I was on her podcast and you can go on her stream and she and other fasting experts are now acknowledging that certain food, as long as the food does not contain carbs and has a relatively low amount of protein, it will not break the fast. Now, the great thing about spirulina and chlorella is they have the highest protein in the world. But when you're doing fasting, I would strongly recommend our spirulina brand, which we call Energy Bits, because it gives you energy. And the reason why spirulina in particular does not break the fast and, by the way, anybody who's keto or carnivore listen up, because you want this too is because spirulina isn't even a plant. It is a bacteria. It's called a cyanobacteria, and the reason why that's important is because it does not have a cellulose wall at all. Bacteria don't have cellulose wall, and the reason why that's important is because this allows your body to absorb all the nutrients that are in spirulina, including the 64% protein, high chlorophyll, all the pigments and 40 vitamins and minerals, instantly, absolutely instantly, if you chew it. We're talking seconds, most people, I will admit, don't like the taste of spirulina. It's very chewy because of the high protein and the high essential fatty acids, so you can swallow it. But if you did chew it and it would be instant, if you swallowed it it'd be completely absorbed in five or 10 minutes. By the way, just to put that into context, it takes you 18 hours to digest a steak, so minutes is pretty fast. So because it gets into your bloodstream so quickly, there's literally almost no digestion, it just is absorbed, so it does not interfere with the fasting. And also, 30 tablets, which is in what's in a pouch of our spirulina contains five grams of protein. So it's not an excessive amount of protein, but it's very bioavailable protein.
Catharine:And here's what's so interesting. So your body when you have animal protein. I'm going to show you a chart of showing how different proteins this is the animal protein. These are collagen peptides and these are individual aminos in algae. So algae is the only one that has individual aminos. Your body cannot absorb animal protein. It has to break it down into amino acids so that it can be absorbed. But that can take up to three days because you have to have a lot of these what's called factors and cofactors. So you made 50 grams of chicken, which is about the size of a wrist, but you may only absorb, in many cases, 10% of that as aminos. So 50 grams of chicken turns into 5 grams of aminos.
Catharine:But with spirulina, when you have 5 grams of aminos or protein, you absorb 5 grams of aminos. It's virtually 100% bioavailable. So it's a very efficient protein and, by the way, it's a complete protein. Anyone who's vegan, who's out there 18 of the 20 aminos, including the 9, your body can't make. And if you're taking collagen, by the way, it's an incomplete protein. And we have up to 400% of some of the aminos, more than collagen powder. So you can, when you take spirulina every day, you can eliminate a multivitamin, fish oil, collagen powder and many other supplements, so it actually saves you a lot of money and you probably will have fewer grocery bills. So it's very efficient food and very bioavailable protein that does not interfere with your fasting and because it's so rich in protein and also so rich in essential fatty acids, it balances your blood sugar.
Catharine:We call this energy bits, because it does give you energy mentally and physically, but I want to make the distinction that it is not a stimulant. A stimulant is like sugar, which we want to eliminate, coffee or refined carbs they give you a burst. Or chemicals right, they give you a burst, so it right. They give you a burst, so it speeds up your molecules. It's like putting paper on a fire. You get a burst and then you have a crash. And often when you have a crash you also have a blood sugar plunge, which can, if you're hypoglycemic. That's very uncomfortable I used to be that and then you may rush to have some sugar to get you back. And then you get on a roller coaster. That's with sugar or a stimulant, a burst, like a paper on a fire.
Catharine:Spirulina is like putting a log on the fire, because the energy you get is not a stimulant, it's generated at the mitochondria level. This is cellular energy, so it's very steady. No roller coaster, no rush, no crash. Your brain just comes alive. You just are more alert. Your hunger is gone.
Catharine:You could have 30 for lunch, one calorie per tablet, and you would not be hungry for about four to five hours for 30 calories and you would get all of your nutrients micronutrients, macronutrients, electrolytes, protein, chlorophyll all in one pouch. But you don't have to take 30, that's for lunch. Generally we recommend for maintenance 10 tablets in the morning is sufficient, because you generally are hungry and tired and maybe you're doing intermittent fasting in the morning. So 10 tablets of spirulina would be sufficient. If you want more, you can have another 10 or 20 or 30 for lunch, and if you want more in the afternoon, you can have more of those too. There's no upper limit because remember, it's food and in fact we call them bits because they're bits of food. We again grow them in water, we dry them without high heat into a powder and then we press them into these little tablets that we call bits because they're bits of food. So very, very efficient, fast, low calorie, high density food Incredible.
Florence:So have they done? How do they so tell me about the research that suggests that this food is all uptaken into the digestive tract, into the system, as food there's no cellulose to break down Like. How do we know that? How do we know it only takes five to ten minutes for it to, once we've dropped it in, you know, once we've got it in our bellies, to move into the system.
Catharine:Yeah, well, you can't argue with 100,000 studies, first of all. So it's not just a couple of studies, and the reality is there's almost too much research about algae, so it's been. It's very hard to weed your way through and find what specifically you're looking for. I've read probably close to 4000 studies at this point, and a lot of our research and a lot of the research is based on looking at the impact that algae has, and most of it is that. My work is focused on mitochondria health, and so we just did a clinical trial that I'll tell you a little bit about. So, in case people don't know what mitochondria do, you want me to explain what mitochondria are and why they're so important to helping you get off sugar, get off or prevent diabetes, to help you lose weight, to help you sleep. They're critical for everything, and so that's why I focus on that, because if you can get your mitochondria healthy, everything else is downstream. Everything else works effortlessly and synergistically. So the way I describe it to people is like think of your body, compare your body to an office building, and so in a building, you have offices where the work is done, and in your body, the work is done in your cells. Okay, the work is done. And in your body, the work is done in your cells. Okay, in the building, in the offices, the thing that allows the work to be done are the lights. You can't very well do any work if it's pitch black, right? So that's what the lights do for you. And in your cells, the lights are the mitochondria. They allow everything that needs to be done in the cells to happen. They allow everything that needs to be done in the cells to happen. But it's even more than that, because in the building, the lights are powered by electricity, but in your body, the mitochondria are the electricity and they are the lights. So they have a double impact for making sure your lights are on and you're alive, because that's where the electricity comes from. Now, in the building, when the lights go out, you just pick up the phone, call maintenance. They come and replace the lights. And in your body, you don't have a maintenance team.
Catharine:And sadly, as you age, particularly at the marker of age 40, this is when your mitochondria start to die, to mutate, and literally the lights go out in your body and as you have fewer mitochondria, because they generate the electricity and they allow all the activity in your cells to occur when they die and they decrease, you have less and less what's called cellular energy. Cellular energy is like having money when you have more money, you can do more things and you have more choices. When you have more cellular energy, your body has more energy to perform optimally. Your brain works better, your digestion works better, your elimination works better, everything your heart, absolutely everything works better. And if you don't have enough cellular energy, which is called ATP, that's when you run into problems, that's when you have weight gain, that's when you have metabolic health issues. This manifests as brain fog, chronic disease, alzheimer's, diabetes, poor sleep. Everything is because, ultimately, of damaged mitochondria. So the reason I want you to know about that is because algae, particularly spirulina, is proven to improve well. Actually, the nutrients in spirulina are proven to prevent all sorts of chronic illnesses, whether it's Alzheimer's, heart disease. There's 25,000 studies documenting a particular nutrient found exclusively in spirulina that prevents heart disease. It prevents weight loss or helps with weight loss. It helps with diabetes. So it's really important that you understand getting your mitochondria healthy will get you healthy. They're on your team. I tell people I never eat alone. I always eat with my mitochondria. But they get damaged by something called a free radical, which is a byproduct of making this cellular energy, and it's these free radicals that are killing your mitochondria every nanosecond, because after the age of 40, your mitochondria are no longer protected from those free radicals as they were up until the age of 40. And I can tell you what has happened. But once you get this mitochondria health better, you're fixed out, your cravings will go away, your weight loss will be improved, your diabetes will go away.
Catharine:We were part of a study two years ago called Reversed, where they took a group of diabetics to. I think they took them to Puerto Rico, costa Rica, costa Rica right, sorry, costa Rica and they had keto doctors there and they had them exercise, ate a keto diet and they gave them our spirulina and our chlorella daily and after 30 days they all reversed their diabetes. So it was a blend of these activities and if you aren't ready to go full on keto or you step up your fitness, all you have to do, all you have to do is take spirulina tablets every day. That will get you started on your journey to kicking sugar out of your life. Get your roller coaster balanced, get your blood sugar balanced, everything comes back.
Catharine:And if you can swallow water, you can take spirulina algae and it's so effortless because we'll talk about this later because we have a discount code for you. They come in these large bags of 1,000 tablets and I have a quote from NASA that says one gram of algae has the same nutrition as 1,000 grams of fruits or vegetables. So I did the math on these bags of 1,000 tablets and realized one bag of our algae tablets has the same nutrition as 551 pounds of vegetables 551 pounds of vegetables right here, but that's 551 pounds. You didn't have to drag home from the grocery store clean, cook, eat, throw out when your family didn't eat them or they go bad because you didn't want to eat them. Maybe they give you gas.
Catharine:I know a lot of people have digestive distress with vegetables. So you don't have to do any of that. Just take 10 tablets a day and you're on your way to getting back your health. You're getting sugar out of your life, getting your diabetes under control or preventing it. 10 tablets a day and 30 is what we call our sort of therapeutic dose. And, by the way, our NHL players have 75 spirulina tablets before a game because they want the energy on the ice and the focus. So there is no upper limit, because they're bits of food, nothing else, just 100% high-protein, high-nutrient-dense food.
Florence:Wild. So if it's so high in nutrients, can you overdose like vitamin A or like? Is there any sort of vitamin in there that you can overdo?
Catharine:Well, there is a lot of beta carotene, which is a precursor to vitamin A, but the answer is no, and every single person on the universe pregnant moms on the universe, pregnant moms, nursing moms, newborns, children, pets, teenagers, grandparents, octogenarians, every single person in the world should be taking spirulina algae tablets every single day, because we live in a world that is so nutrient deprived now Our soils are so damaged. Even if you are eating vegetables and eating organic, they're simply are not the same nutrients that your grandparents had. They've done studies it's like 50 or 100 less. So even if you are, you're not getting the nutrients. And then, of course, all the food is over processed and so they extract all the good stuff out and you're just stuck with canola oil, which is a terrible inflammatory. Omega-6, terrible gluten sugar berries just not. It's not good for most people, it's constipating, it's got sugar in it, so so anyways. So this is.
Catharine:I call spirulina your nutritional insurance, because it gives you everything that you need. You could live on this forever. I'm not recommending you do, but you could, because in fact I'm the one that did the analysis and found that the amino profile of spirulina is identical, virtually identical, to the aminos in mother's breast milk. Same aminos in the same proportions, so we all know that mother's breast milk is the perfect food. Well, spirulina is number two and, by the way, it was gifted to us. It was the first life on earth almost four billion years ago, so it was given to us by mother nature. Um, I can't take credit for spirulina chlorella algae, which are two of the most popular microalgae, but what I can take credit for spirulina or chlorella algae, which are two of the most popular microalgae, but what I can take credit for? We grow it so carefully that we go out and triple-filter spring mountain water in Taiwan. So there's no toxins, microtoxins, like other companies, and we do not use high heat to dry it, which preserve all of the nutrients. And there's some really critical ones, like the one I just mentioned that stops free radical damage. It's called superoxidismutase and it's deactivated by high heat. And virtually all the other lower quality algae companies use high heat to dry their algae, so you're not getting any of those benefits. So algae is here for everybody, especially spirulina, and there are no drug interactions of any kind period and it's been used safely for almost 80 years. Not a single negative interaction.
Catharine:All the nutrients are what's called organic. So they, they're food. It's from a and I tell people when you buy supplements, you know individual supplements vitamin c, fish oil, collagen powder. I say it's like listening to a grade three soloist that you know they, because your body only absorbs five percent of it, by the way, because most of it's made from artificial ingredients. So you know you get a little bit of something, but not a lot. Algae, especially spirulina, is like listening to an orchestra, because all the nutrients they synergize each other and there are harmonies that you get from an orchestra and in this case from algae, that simply are not possible by taking your supplements individually. And sometimes you can get to toxicity with some of those individual supplements. Like, if you're taking iron, please never take iron supplements which are made from rocks and inorganic material With algae, because it's a real food.
Catharine:If your body doesn't need the nutrient, you just won't absorb it. So there's never any toxicity or drug interactions, ever, ever, ever. You get what you need and you can take as much as you want. I try not to tell people how much I take because it overwhelms people. You want? I try not to tell people how much I take because it overwhelms people, but I've been taking it both spirulina and chlorella daily for over 15 years and over 100 tablets. I just told you. I'm not saying you need it, but I just want you to know I'm alive and well and healthy.
Catharine:And today's my birthday. In fact, I turned 68 today, 68. And I did some tests to find out my biological age. I'm biologically, I'm 30. Pretty sweet, right, so? And I credit it to algae because I've been taking it every day for 15 years. I don't do anything. I'd have you know. I do have some red light therapy, but I don't do anything else fancy.
Catharine:And there's this guy, brian Johnson, who's out there boasting that he's knocked two years off his chronological age, but he's spending $2 million a year to do that. Well, I spent the equivalent of $12 a day and I knocked 36 years off mine. So, brian, let's have a contest, let's see who's winning mother nature against all of your expensive technology. And this is why I love algae so much. It's for everybody, it's affordable by everybody. You could go on amazon we have a 20 discount code, so I encourage you to come to energybitscom and and enjoy that, because when you take um, when you take 10 tablets a day, as I'm recommending, and you buy the large bag with the discount code KICKSUGAR 10 tablets a day works out to $1 a day. Normally a bag is $1.30, but the discount gives it $1.40, $1 a day.
Catharine:You can get your life back on track, your blood sugar balanced, your weight loss under control, get sugar out of your life, improve your mitochondria, improve your brain focus, improve your skin, improve your sleep Although I do want to talk about chlorella, because it's better for sleep than spirulina For a dollar a day. Now, everything is achievable and it's effortless. If you can swallow water and take 10 tablets a day. We recommend all at one time, but you could spit it out if you want, or take even more 10 tablets a day in the morning with water for a dollar a day. There is no reason why every single person can't be looking better, feeling better, living longer. Aging is not declining. Aging is natural, declining is not, and we have to help the world get back their life so they can age with grace and ease and not have all these ailments and struggles that are being caused by this terrible food supply that we have been indoctrinated with to assume is natural. And it's not natural. Incredible, right.
Florence:There's so many arguments I've heard. I interviewed a man who I would not interview again, who was defending the feedlot, saying we need to feed people, like people need nutrition, and we're going to have to sort of, you know do. I just felt sick to my stomach and I just feel like there's always an elegant solution to every problem.
Florence:And if there is if there is a problem of a shortage of food being able to get out to people who need it, my gosh, it just seems like there is always a solution. This is a part of the solution of like reducing the feedlots and the animal torturing and all that garbage. That's justified because, oh, we have to feed people. They need protein. Well, can we not just give them spirulina?
Catharine:and chlorella? Absolutely, this is the answer. The United Nations in 1974, so that was 50 years ago had a global conference and you can go online and read about it, and in their global conference they said spirulina is the answer to feeding the world, for two reasons One, it has the highest protein in the world, and ours is 64%, so it's three times the amount of steak or chicken or fish, so highest protein in the world. And two, it's an eco-friendly, sustainable crop. There is zero carbon footprint. We grow ours outdoors we're old school, this is where algae started outdoors but there's zero carbon footprint. You can grow this. It's grown in. We grow ours in Taiwan and I do plan to grow it in Florida, which has a very similar tropical climate as Taiwan.
Catharine:99% of algae is grown in Asia, so it's Japan, taiwan, china and India. Most of it comes from China, but I caution you because they are not as careful with the way they grow it or dry it, and so when you go to Target or any of these lower-priced places, yes, you can get spirulina and chlorella, but if it came from China, I can promise you you're not going to get all the same nutrients, because the high heat deactivates many of the nutrients that we preserve in ours. But you can also get frozen or fresh spirulina, but that's expensive and expires quickly and you have to taste it. But what I do want to tell you, even though I'm old school and we grow ours outdoors, the future is something really cool. And they're already doing this. And this would allow algae to be grown anywhere in the world. And what they do is they grow it underground. It's already growing in Spain, france, and you'll die when I tell you.
Catharine:The next country, iceland. There's a company in Iceland that is growing spirulina algae underground, five floors underground. They're growing it just for the omega-3, because people eat fatty fish and they take fish oil because they want the omega-3. And I tell them well, where do you think the fish get the omega-3 from? They get it from algae. So you know, all this extra farm, we're destroying the oceans, farming for the fish, for fish oil. You don't have to take fish oil because get the and, by the way, by the time you get it it's already rancid anyways. It just oxidizes it. Just that's what happens. Get it from where the fish get it from. Algae never oxidizes in this last for three years, has shelf life for three years, but anyways, up in Iceland there's a company growing spirulina algae underground in glass tubes, glass test tubes, and they're lit with LED lights that mimic sunlight. They're growing it the same way in Spain, in France, and it'll probably take a good 20 years maybe 10, but more like 20, before this starts happening all around the world.
Catharine:Because you can put this in the Sahara Desert as long as you have access to the water supply for underground, you control the environment and you can be growing this 365 days of the year.
Catharine:You don't need a climate. If they can grow it in Iceland, right, you can grow it anywhere. We takes it's, you know, like we're talking $10 million investment, so it's not cheap. But once this starts replicating around the world and somebody takes a great interest, and I hope to be successful with my company because we want to really help people be healthy, and maybe that's the direction that I will go, because I I already have 15 years of knowledge of algae and so in another 10, I'll have 25. So I could very well be the person that makes this happen for the world. I'd be very, very proud of myself if I was, because we do not need feedlots, we do not need crappy rice, we need something that's nutrient dense, loaded with protein, and will actually give people the nourishment they need for their brain, their body, body and their livelihood, and that's spirulina and also chlorella algae.
Florence:Amazing. So I have to tell you my gut instinct, without knowing the details or the science behind this is I would much rather buy from your company that's doing an old school with the sun, because I see these hydroponic sort of farms you know that are so clever and led lights and there's efficient like no, can you just well, you much rather do it. Yeah, how would evolved it well.
Catharine:So what'll probably happen is you'll have just like. It's almost like the fashion is. You have couture and then you have designers and then you have, you know, fast fashion as you. So you know we'll always be old school, growing ours outdoors. But when you compare giving someone rice that's high carbs, not nutrition, versus spirulina grown indoors, it has maybe 75% to 95% of the value of the outdoor. Let's go with the indoor spirulina Because you just can't. There aren't enough places in the world. Well, maybe there are, I don't know because you know, because, again, it's grown primarily in asia. There's still lots of other places and all you have to do, you know the company that grows it for us. They've been doing it for 50 years. So we're growing very, very. We're doubling and tripling every year. They just, you know, increase. They're called ponds, they're farms, but they just have more. So we have more. So you know that's what we'll be doing, versus having them starve or have very nominal nutrients. Algae grown underground is definitely a far better solution.
Catharine:But in the interim I have a challenge, because nobody outside of Asia knows what algae is. And I tell people algae isn't new, it's just new to you. And think about it. Five, ten years ago you didn't know about chia seeds or matcha or kiwa or collagen powder or bone broth, but those had all been used in other countries for centuries. But then somebody, some entrepreneur because it's never a big food company, it's always an entrepreneur, passionate entrepreneur discovers the healing properties of whatever it was, whether mushrooms or matcha, and starts a company and educates people. So that's what we're doing with algae.
Catharine:I wrote a little mini booklet. We're calling it the algae love story, because algae is so misunderstood. All they know people know about it is that it has these blooms that close their favorite beach. And I tell people, algae gets the bum rap because the only reason that an algae bloom shows up on your beach is because there's toxins and bacteria there. You can't see the toxins or bacteria, but you can see the algae. Algae is the cleanup crew. It goes in there to kill the bacterias, to absorb the toxins, and it does the same thing in your body. Algae is the cleanup crew.
Catharine:Well, there's two types of algae. Spirulina is the nourishing, energizing algae which we have already talked about with the mitochondria and balancing your blood sugar. And then the other algae is chlorella, which I'll just tell you a little bit about because it also helps you with balancing getting away from sugar and balancing your blood sugar and it does it in a different way. Spirulina, as I mentioned, is a bacteria, no cellulose wall, so it gets absorbed very quickly and all the nutrients can get into your body instantly, in your brain. That's why I call it your nutritional insurance, chlorella. I call your health insurance because chlorella is a wellness detoxing algae so it improves your health. Now, the way it does that, it has a hard cell wall, cellulose wall, and that hard cellulose wall attaches to toxins lead, mercury, radiation, aluminum, alcohol, pesticides, glyphosate, absolutely everything and pulls them out of your body. Because if you don't get, the average adult I've read now has 700 toxins, average adult in North America 700 toxins in their body. And so even if you are taking nourishment like you would from spirulina, if you still have toxins sitting inside your cells blocking the nutrients from getting in, you're not going to get full value. So you need the chlorella to pull out the toxins out of your cells, out of your bloodstream, out of your organs, so the nourishment can be fully absorbed and get to work. And one of the ways it does it is with that hard cell wall.
Catharine:Chlorella also has the highest chlorophyll in the world. Chlorophyll is very cleansing to your body and it also builds your blood. I'm going to show you a picture. This is the chemical composition of chlorophyll and this is the chemical composition of your hemoglobin. You notice they're virtually identical. The only difference is your hemoglobin has iron in the middle and that's what carries oxygen, and chlorophyll has magnesium. Otherwise they're identical. So when you take chlorophyll you're building your blood and when you have healthy blood, everything in your body works better. But there's virtually no chlorophyll in our vegetables anymore because of the soils being so damaged. Chlorella has three um 25 times more chlorophyll than liquid chlorophyll, 500 times more than arugula. That's why it's called chlorella, because of the chlorophyll, so very cleansing chlorophyll. So that kills bacteria in your body. And then it also has fiber that feeds your gut biome.
Catharine:When you're a lot of they're realizing so much of our health, so much of our dysbiosis, which is your gut not working properly, is due to having too many of the wrong bacteria. There's good bacteria and bad bacteria. When you have too many bad bacteria, that's when you have something called candida and this contributes to cravings. It's your bacteria that are driving you towards sugar and chocolate and quick hits. So if we can get those bacteria under control, corral the bad ones and diminish them by helping the good guys start to grow and flourish and that's what chlorella does your cravings will go away. This will help eliminate also your desire to overeat. This will help because this will affect what's called leptin, which is a hormone that's released that controls your appetite and that, by the way, your appetite, the leptin, is decreased if you're not sleeping. And guess what? Chlorella has something called tryptophan in it. It has the highest tryptophan in the world, which is a precursor to melatonin that helps you get to sleep. So now it's feeding the good bacteria, so it's like a prebiotic. It's got the chlorophyll, which is killing bacteria and building your blood. The hard cell wall is pulling out the toxins that are interfering with your cellular metabolism. That's keeping you overweight and still craving. It's helping you get to sleep so your leptin starts being better managed so you don't overeat and it's helping you get rid of cravings because of those good bacteria.
Catharine:And I left one of the best things to the end. It stimulates something called peristalsis. Peristalsis is a fancy word for saying bowel movement. And if there's any carnivores in the crowd, listen up Because carnivores, people who are traveling, stressed, eating too much dairy, too much carbs, too many processed foods, I can promise you, you guys are constipated, it's uncomfortable and you need to get rid of what I call the junk in your trunk Because if it sits in your colon, your blood circulates around and picks up all the stuff that's there and what's there Stuff your body didn't want Toxins, pesticides, any kind of garbage. If you don't have a bowel movement, it's like having the garbage truck parked in front of your house all week. Right, it's stuff you don't want, your body didn't want, want you to get rid of. But you need something to help move that.
Catharine:Lots of people use fiber. To do that, you don't even need fiber, you just need chlorella. It has fiber in it, but it's the blend, that sort of harmony, that orchestra of nutrients that helps stimulate the peristalsis. It's the chlorophyll, it's the fiber and the 40 other vitamins and minerals. So this algae is a wellness, detox, healing, immune, health algae. And because your body heals and repairs while you're sleeping, we recommend chlorella basically before bed. You can take it anytime of day, but definitely take it before bed. And so, again, that's why I call it your wellness health insurance and spirulina is really your nutritional insurance because the two of them work completely differently. By the way, because it has so much essential fatty acids and heals your mitochondria, it's considered spirulina as brain food and chlorella because of the green chlorophyll, which is very cleansing and kills bacteria, and the fiber heals your gut bacteria. It's very much a gut food.
Catharine:And if you want something fun to remember what the difference between the two of them, I travel a lot and I stay in hotels and sometimes they get room service and I'm fully nourished and ready for the day after room service and I thought, oh, that's sort of like spirulina it gives you everything that you need for the day. You're fully nourished, you get out the door, you're energized, you're good, and then you come back afterwards and housekeeping has been in there and they cleaned out all the garbage, the wastebaskets, the beds made. Everything's looking clean and pristine. I thought, oh, that's like chlorella it cleans out all the junk in your trunk. So think of spirulina as room service and chlorella as housekeeping. And in terms of dosage, again, 10 is just for daily dosage amount for maintaining, 30 is for correcting any kind of situation that you have. Same with chlorella 10 before bed would be giving you the cleansing benefits, but for detox you need 30. Now the good thing is it actually tastes pretty good if you mix it with sea salt or pistachio nuts or something, so you might enjoy chewing it.
Catharine:Spirulina most people do swallow it, but both of them are high protein 40 vitamins, minerals and also you may not know this, but your body stores your toxins primarily in your fats. So if part of the reason you want to kick sugar is to lose weight, this will help you lose weight. Why? Because it's pulling out the toxins stored in your fats and when your body releases the toxins, it automatically goes. Huh, I guess I don't need that fat.
Catharine:We had a customer call us after taking chlorella for a month, she lost 50 pounds. She was obese. So this is not your average whatever. But I said are you sure it was chlorella? Oh, absolutely sure. This was like good 15 years ago and sure enough. And we I did some research and found out that's what's going on. So this will satisfy your hunger. So you don't have the hunger, you don't have the cravings, you are energized. So you can stay on point for whatever your dietary choice is, and this will pull out the toxins to ensure that nutrients are getting where they need to go, and it will help you, um, stimulate a bowel movement to get rid of the stuff that your body doesn't want. Um, and then it will also keep you um, refreshed and uh and sleeping, because sleeping is the other big thing you need to do to maintain your strength, to stay on point and get off sugar, and this helps stimulate a deep sleep.
Florence:Amazing how much, how much tryptophan is in 10 chlorella.
Catharine:I don't know, 10. And I I know it has five times on it because I did an analysis on an gram, because I was trying to compare it to different foods. So it has five times more tryptophan than turkey. So I don't have the numbers just on the top of my head, but we have our nutritional charts on our website. Tryptophan is an amino acid, so it's in both algae and it's also not in. I think that's the one amino that's not in collagen powder. So it's collagen powder. It's not a, not a complete protein. Um, but you can find out on 30 tablets and then, just you know, divide by 30 to find out per per one so, um, yeah, so it's.
Catharine:You know, I'm just so grateful that I've learned so much about algae and that I, my mission is to help other people. You don't have to learn as much as I do, because you know who has 15 years to commit to one little tiny thing, um. But, uh, I want you to enjoy the benefits of it, because maybe you're taking it to wait for weight loss, um, but you're going to find your skin improves, your sleep improves and your digestion improves. Maybe you're going to take it because you want better focus so that you can, you know, get rid of sugar. Well, you're also going to find that your lymphatic system works better, your elimination, your energy, your fitness, everything works better with algae absolutely everything. And it would almost be like a miracle if it wasn't all documented in science. And just on that note, we are starting to step up our own clinical research because there's, as I mentioned mentioned, 100 000 studies out there documenting what general benefits accrue from spirulina chlorella. But we want to know about our brand, because we do things quite differently. We do third-party lab tests. We're just, we're only lg recommended by doctors.
Catharine:So we just finished the first round of a clinical trial with a company called MeScreen, m-e-screen, s-c-r-e-e-ncom, and they have developed an innovative test. It's a little simple blood test. Consumers can use it Anybody can practitioners and it tests your mitochondrial health and it's normally $599 on go online MeScreencom. We have a. We're an affiliate with them, so you can use Energy Bits as your discount. It's only 399. And what? And so what we did with our clinical trial is we did a test. We did have a group of people. We did a test of their mitochondria health. Then we gave them spirulina every day for 30 days. But we did a test after seven days, another mitochondrial test with MeScreen and we did a third test at the end of 30 days. We're just getting the original data back now after seven days. We don't have the 30-day yet, but the mitochondrial health improved so dramatically.
Catharine:The scientist his name is Hemal Patel, p-a-t-a-l-e-l, and he works with Dr Joe Dispenza does all of his brain research. He's at the University of Southern California, san Diego. This is a brain trust of PhDs, so they know what they're doing. So when they analyzed our results of after people taking spirulina after just seven days, he said the results were so stunning. The only time he's seen better metabolic health improvements, which are from mitochondrial health improvements is when they did a clinical study where they had people doing intermittent fasting for three months. It took them three months to achieve the same level of mitochondrial health improvements that people got after seven days of taking spirulina. Seven days of spirulina gave you the same improvements as three months of intermittent fasting. Plus, there's even more big benefits because we have all these nutrients that you don't get from intermittent fasting. Plus, there's even more big benefits because we have all these nutrients that you don't get from intermittent fasting.
Catharine:By the way, intermittent fasting is unbelievable for your body because what it does is it's reducing what's called your feeding window to a smaller period of time. And what this does is it allows your digestion and the rest of your body to relax. And while it's resting, it does a couple of cool things. One process that cool thing it does is called autophagy. What is autophagy? It's cellular cleaning. It's like having spring cleaning in your house. Your windows are cleaned, you get rid of the garbage, the old clothes you never used, but your body never gets a chance to do spring cleaning. If you're eating every two hours all day long, it needs a break to be able to do that clean. And when you clean your cells, everything's just working better. You have more mitochondria, you have better energy, everything. You have less interference with all your hormones, like leptin. So that's one thing happens with intermittent fasting. It also happens with algae. It improves autophagy.
Catharine:The other thing that intermittent fasting does is it creates something called apoptosis. I know kind of a long word, but what it means is it's what's called programmed cellular death. And you go. I don't want my cells to die. Yes, you do. You want the bad ones to die.
Catharine:These are what's called senescent cells. These are cells that have replicated so many times. They're done, but they don't die, they just hang around. It's like someone who worked at a company for 50 years. They got retired, but they refused to go home. They keep coming to the office, they're knocking over the laptops and kicking garbage cans and they're just causing havoc. And they've been retired, but you can't get rid of them.
Catharine:That's what's called a senescent cell is it hangs around, it's inflammatory and it damages all the other cells. So this thing called apoptosis is a process by which the retiree goes huh, I'm done. I guess it's time to leave. And so, instead of causing all this havoc, it gives away all of its projects to all the next generation. And that's what apoptosis is. It's non-inflammatory. The cell actually divides itself into multiple little mini cells and it all has the different parts, like the different projects that the retiree used to handle. That's apoptosis.
Catharine:But when you don't have apoptosis, where healthy cells get a chance to say goodbye, I'm out of here, then they hang around and they're inflammatory and this leads to disease. This leads to chronic inflammation of your mitochondria until they get to a stage where there's now cancer, and what cancer cells do is they don't go through apoptosis. They have a process where, basically, they explode and all the garbage, all the free radicals, then blow up to the rest of the neighboring cells and that's why cancer spreads so quickly. So I know we're not on the cancer summit, but I do want you to understand that intermittent fasting does amazing things for you. But if you and you will up-level your intermittent fasting by adding algae to it, because it has even more benefits than intermittent fasting and it has nutrients that will leverage the effect of intermittent fasting On the other hand, if you just can't get your head around intermittent fasting, please just take the algae tablets, because you're going to get the same benefit and we have the scientific proof now, thanks to this clinical trial.
Catharine:So, as you can tell, I'm very much in love with algae. It's just, it's a love story. I think I feel like I'm married to it, because I want people to understand this gift that's been provided to us by Mother Nature. But it has to be grown carefully so that you get the full benefits, and we're the only company that I know that does grow it carefully so you get the maximum benefit. But we want people to get off this sugar train. Get your life back, get your health back, get your weight back. Get your energy back. Everything you know. Get your health back. Get your weight back. Get your energy back. Everything you know. Get your back back. You know? Isn't there a? Who? Is it? Justin Timberlake? Get your sexy back.
Florence:Right. Thank you so much, catherine, for all of your, your wisdom on this, your passion, the fact that you took the next step to actually create a company that creates one of the highest quality sources of these two microalgaes. And I'm thinking about Dr Lustig's book called Metabolical, where he talks about the eight not one, not two, not three about eight different ways that sugar, added sugars, processed sugars damage the mitochondria. So he does such a great job of talking about the problem and I love how you come in to say and we can repair this. Yep, we can repair this.
Florence:Now she's not saying you can go and continue to eat sugar and use spirulina and chlorella and undo the damage and reverse it. You can't. We have to unhook from the stuff that's stunning and damaging our mitochondria eight different ways, our bodies and brains eight different ways. But spirulina can come in in a really targeted, powerful way to begin the repair work, the detox work that almost everybody on the planet needs. But those of us that have been over-consuming sugar and ultra processed foods, we need this more than ever. So thank you so much. Is there any final words you'd like to share? Today and our children.
Catharine:the children don't know. I mean, nobody knows. You don't know what you don't know. I didn't know any of this, and my team keeps telling me I should write a children's book because then that will be for the adults, because there's so much people they're so misinformed about algae. Adults, because there's so much people they're so misinformed about algae. Um, so all I would say is that, um, you know, when you hear the truth, it's effortless, it makes sense. Um, and I just invite you to learn more about algae. Just come to our website, energybitscom. We write a full blog. Um, I've been on 300 podcasts, um, and so I was motivated motivated to get my PhD so I could learn even more.
Catharine:To help more people learn more about this, we need to do something. We are literally in a crisis a health crisis, a nutritional crisis and an environmental crisis, and it's causing mental crisis, family crises. I mean, they're all stacked, and I know it sounds simplistic and almost too good to be true that something as simple as algae could literally help correct all of those, and do it effortlessly, because the effortless part is critical. People just don't want to spend the time cooking meals for themselves that are nourishing, and they're busy, they don't have time. So if you can swallow water, you can get the nourishment that you need. Health insurance and your nutritional insurance from spirulina chlorella.
Catharine:So just try. Just give it a try. What do you got to lose? Right? It's just a very small thing that you'll, but it has very big impact. So, and it's mother nature at her best, honestly. So yeah, and we do have this 20% discount code kick sugar for your community to come to our website. If you don't want to buy the big bag, that's completely fine. Just go to Amazon. You can buy in America. You can buy a little pouch for $6 just to try it out. We want people to find their way back to health and we want to make it easy, so algae is there for us.
Florence:Thank you so much again, catherine. Thanks everyone for tuning in today. I hope. I hope this information changes your life. Thanks, thanks, florence.
