Avoid Toxins in Wild Algae, with Dr. Catharine Arnston

Algae is the only food plant that I can think of. You never want wild because you cannot keep microtoxins out of wild bodies of water. That includes lakes and the ocean. So if you see anything about growing it in a lake, walk away because algae will absorb whatever's in the water.

If you want to live like you matter, ditch the pills, look great, and feel Freaking amazing. You're in the right place. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo.

And I'm Dr. Ed Levitan. Welcome to the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast.

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. I'm Wendy Trubo. So star sighting today. Ev Levitan and triple star citing because we have a newly minted PhD, Katherine Arnsten. Dr. Arnsten is an expert in algae nutrition, a wellness thought leader, an experienced entrepreneur, and a sought after speaker. She has an mba, ba, ons, is a board certified health coach and just got her PhD. So as we say in Boston, she's wicked smart and she has an algae company. So, Katherine, welcome to the show. First of all, it's lovely to see you again.

So, so great to see you. I didn't realize it had been two years. So well overdue, and I'm grateful to be back.

Great. So I have a question for you because. So you're producing this in Taiwan.

Yes.

Is it like kombucha that you save a piece of it to make the next generation of it, or how does this work?

Yeah, and I'll send you pictures of the farms. They're quite different. So spirulina is actually relatively easy to grow. It grows in a spiral. So you plant it like little, you know, small starter. It doesn't have to be transferred from one to the next. And it just, it fills in the farm area. They're very shallow. They're about maybe two feet deep. And it starts, you can't see it at first, and then it fills in. It looks like seaweed. And then it gets onto a sort of like a conveyor belt that shakes all the water out and then it goes into a dryer. And what makes us unusual is we do not use high heat in the dryer to preserve all the enzymes, because there's one I wanted to talk about a little bit called superoxide dismutase, which is a critical nutrient that protects the mitochondria. But it and our bodies make superoxide dismutase until the age of 30, after which it slows down and by 40 you have none. So that's why most chronic diseases kick in after the age of 40, because our mitochondria are no longer being protected by this antioxidant called superoxide dismutase. And you can't find it in food, but it's a, it's a, also an enzyme. So it gets deactivated by high heat, which happens with most, most other algae companies. So anyways, that's spirulina grows relatively easily. And then we carefully dry it and, and then we import it and we press it into tablets without any binders. There's no binders, the color is different. Spirulina, it's a blue green algae. Chlorella is the green algae. So you can see the difference in colors. Now chlorella is very complicated to grow. It took the Japanese 10 years to figure out how to grow chlorella for mass consumption, because unlike spirulina, it does have to start with a little starter and they start it in a small test tube and then after 10 days they move it to a larger test tube and then another 10 days later, a larger test tube. Then it moves out into the water farm, which is a small circular farm, because chlorella grows like spirulina that grows that way. So it goes in a small farm, round pool, and then it gets transferred to a larger one. And then it's complicated. But then we do the same thing. We harness all the, it looks like seaweed, then it goes onto the vibrator to shake all the water out and then it goes into the dryer, which is again, we do not use high heat to preserve all the nutrients. Gets pressed into the little tablets with no binders. And then we import it in large container cargo ships and we package it here, here in the United States. Now the interesting thing is, as I mentioned earlier, Taiwan is where we grow ours. And it's known as the gold standard for both spirulina and chlorella. Unfortunately, most algae that is available, whether it's a target or Whole Foods, comes from China. And the quality is poor, the regulation is limited. We do, by the way, third party lab tests here in the United States at an FDA approved lab. So this is why doctors like our brand and our products, because we validate all the nutrients, all the fact that it's toxin free. But what I wanted to mention is I plan to grow it here in America because I drew a line from Taiwan, which has the perfect environment, climate for growing algae. I drew it across the globe. And where did I get to? Florida. Anywhere in Florida. Same tropical environment. And so I can't do it yet because I'm going to need a good $10 million to do this.

Is that all?

Yeah. It'll take me about five years to get it done. But there is no reason why we cannot build an algae industry here in America. And I am going to do it.

And we are your witnesses. But actually, you bring up a really good point, Catherine, because we say to people, you want to be careful where the source of your particularly chlorella is because it's a binder. So if it's grown in a plastic test t, if it's grown in conditions where there are toxins, it will absorb it. So if you're eating chlorella that's not clean, you're just basically toxing up while you're trying to detox. So it's really important.

Yeah, and the same thing, frankly, because, al, this is why you never. Algae is the only food plant that I can think of. You never want wild. There's a company I won't mention who grows it in Klamath Lake. Please do not eat that, because you cannot keep microtoxins out out of wild bodies of water. That includes lakes and the ocean. So if you see anything about growing it in a lake, stay away, walk away. Because I can promise you, and I have scientific papers that prove that the algae from Klamath Lake contains microtoxins. It's impossible to keep them out because algae will absorb whatever's in the water. That's why algae blooms show up on beaches. Poor algae gets the bum wrap. Because the only reason why algae shows up, it's the cleanup crew. It absorbs toxins and it kills bacteria. It does this, and you can't see the bacteria or the toxins in the water, but you can see the algae, because that's what it's doing. It will still be toxic. So you want to stay away from it. But I tell people it does the same thing in your body. It kills bacteria and it pulls out the toxins. It's the cleanup crew, particularly chlorella, because that's what the hard cell wall does. That's what the glutathione does. And on the by the way, they both contain nutrients that also increase stem cell circulation. So as you get older, you don't have your access to superoxide dismutase, which protects your mitochondria. This is why so much chronic disease kicks in. You have Fewer enzymes, which affects your ability to digest food. And so chlorella, because it has these nutrients that are very healing, they use it for IBS and Crohn's disease. There are no lectins and oxalates in either one of them. Those are often causing leaky gut because foods like spinach and kale and almonds have lectins and oxalates, which are sharp, pointy proteins that puncture your stomach lining and can cause autoimmune disease. Never happens with either algae. And chlorella in particular is healing for the gut for that reason. So that's why I call chlorella your health insurance, and I call spirulina your nutritional insurance, because, again, they do different things in your body.

I have two questions for you, Katherine. One is, I just wanted to clarify, when you were talking about the algae grown in lakes or oceans, is it micro toxins or mycotoxins that you were referring to?

Micro. Micro. Thank you.

So small toxins, not myco. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was hearing properly. And then the other is, do you ever make this into a powder rather than pressing it into capsules?

Well, the main reason I got into this after helping my sister, and then I became a health coach and I started trying to help people learn about the importance of plant based nutrition. And found out they had. People either didn't like vegetables, that was too much work, or they threw them out because they went bad, or the kids wouldn't eat them, husbands wouldn't eat them. So my goal was to make it easy for people to get the nutrients found in vegetables without any of the work, without any of the gas, without any of the waste. Because, by the way, our algae lasts three years. What vegetable lasts three years? Right? So when I found out that in Asia, this is how they use powder. Yes, but they, but the tablets make it so easy. We have them in little pouches, too. You can take them to work, you can take them to the gym, you can throw them in your lunch bag. It's just effortless nutrition. So, yes, you. And you can grind the tablets up to make a powder if you want. As a small company, I couldn't do both powder and tablets. I had limited inventory, limited budget. So I chose the tablets because it made it so easy for people to feed to their. You know, you don't have to mix it. You don't need to be near a water supply. If you've ever had a powder and the lid came off, man, that's. That's a mess.

I Did I actually dropped. I had a powdered spirulina that I dropped because I was ham handed and dropped it and it looked like a bomb went off in my house. Oh, it went across. I was like, wow, look how far it went.

I know you weren't home and I just taped about 151 minute videos about what is algae, what is spirulina or when do you use them, how to use them. And I did one on why we do tablets. And I had a green powder and I said this is what happens with green powder. And I just, I hit my hand and I was green from top to bottom and I had to throw the shirt out because it was so messy.

No, no, you have to lean in and make it greener. Like it's in for a penny, in for a pound. Now you have a green shirt.

That's right. We're going green all the way, the whole outfit. So that's why I didn't do powder. It's too messy. I'm going for, you know, helping people be healthy with the least amount of effort and the maximum amount of benefits. And that's what you get from the tablets. Each one of these tablets has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables. No effort. Look up if you can swallow water or if you like to chew them. I just had a plate of vegetables while I was talking to you. How easy is that? Right?

So actually I have a question.

You can go and then I do.

A lot of times I will recommend patients either do a three day fast, water fast or if they can't tolerate that, do just as a reset to do some kind of protein powder just to make sure that they don't lose too much and that they have food in their bodies would I'm thinking myself for myself just try out. But have you had people do like a three day algae only and how do they, how do people do?

Well, we, we haven't had that particular test, Ella. We just finished a. I'm going to get the data next week. A 30 day mitochondrial test with a. There's a company called Me Screen that now is has a blood test, home blood test that you will test your mitochondrial mitochondria health. So we did the test and they had took spirulina every day for 30 days and we just finished the last test but on for just a sort of a nutritional purpose. We haven't done a clinical trial that. But Dr. Mindy Peltz recommends the spirulina particularly for fasting because if you take a Food that has minimal amount of protein and no carbs, it does not interfere with the intermittent fasting. Now if you're a purist and you want to do a three or five or seven day water fast, you know, I support that in terms of being the, a purist in getting the best benefit and get kicking in your apoptosis and your autophagy that will, that kicks in when you are doing that. But if you're not able to do that and you need some support, spirulina is the way to go. Even more so than a protein powder because it's absorbed so quickly, because no, no, no cellulose wall and the highest protein. Now I just want to put the protein in context because 30 tablets of spirulina gives you 5 grams of protein. And you think, well, that's not very much. But think of it this way. When you eat animal protein, let's say you have a fist size amount of chicken or beef, that would give you an average about 50 grams of protein. But it takes 16 or more hours to digest animal protein. And then what happens is your body then needs to convert it to aminos and you have to have the factors and co factors and all these things to allow you to absorb the aminos. And in many cases you end up only absorbing 10% as Aminos because you don't have all these. And it can take three days. With spirulina, you take five grams of protein and you get five grams of aminos. With animal protein you may have 50 grams of protein, but you only end up with five grams of aminos. So it's very efficient protein. Remember, 18 of the 20, including the nine your body can't make. And it gets into your system in minutes, seconds if you chew it like I do. So if you're hypoglycemic, this is unbelievable. I used to be hypoglycemic, so trust me, I know what it feels like. You break out into a sweat, you're blood pressure drops and this is better and faster than sucking on an orange slice. And also this is unbelievable for diabetics, balances your blood sugar, no carbs. It's been proven to reduce blood sugar or blood pressure. Your cholesterol, by the way, poor cholesterol gets a bum wrap. It's important because your body needs at least 2,000 milligrams per day to maintain cell wall integrity. And so, but get too much, then you have, then you have inflammation and you have, you know, you have issues in your, in your blood vessels. So this has been used. Spirulina has been used to reduce cardiac issues. Part of it for both of them. It has a nutrient called vitamin K2 that moves excess calcium out of your soft tissue like your brain, your organs and your blood vessels. Because what happens is if you don't have that K2 and it's almost impossible to find in food other than grass fed animal protein or dish called natto, it's also an algae most arteriosclerosis, what's hardening because that's hardening of the arteries. What's hardening is calcium. So this removes that excess calcium which restores the arterial functionality. No more arteriosclerosis, improved cardiac activity.

What's the timeline of something like that though? Is that a weeks, a months, years?

Weeks? It does not take long to, you know, obviously it depends on each individual how serious the plaque is. But just on that note, even with Alzheimer's and dementia, we've had clients who told us after 24 hours and they had terrible dementia. They couldn't figure out how to work their microwave and they couldn't remember their address. Within 24 hours, their brain activity was restored. Why? Because your brain has the most mitochondria in your entire body. There's 2 million mitochondria per cell in your brain. That's the highest concentration in your entire body. So because spirulina has nutrients in it that protect the mitochondria, restore the telomeres, has high essential fatty acids, the first thing that gets repaired is your brain. This is why it helps with focus and attention. And it does not take long. A day or two, you start to see improvement. Absolutely. It's crazy. I know if it wasn't proven in science, people would think I would make these making this up. But a hundred thousand scientific, scientific papers is really hard to argue with. People just don't know about them.

I, I have to have a question because one of the, one of the major issues with long Covid is mitochondria.

Oh, I know.

Have you seen. Obviously there may not be studies yet out, but have you, have you had reports of long Covid people recovering with a spirulina?

Oh man, you just hit my sweet spot. A report came out I think about three weeks ago and I will send it to you. And it's a study done in, I think it was in Israel and they. On COVID patients and I, I don't have the, I've been away, I've been away for a month. So I'm trying to remember the, the details of the of them. But anyways, they gave half of the patients with COVID spirulina and along with other Covid treatments, and half of the patients, no spirulina. The. The patients that got spirulina, virtually nobody died. And 99% or 95% were. Were released within five days. People that didn't get spirulina, the what. What's the word for deceased? Whatever. There's a word. Mortality rate was like 40% and it took them. They stayed in the hospital like three times as long. This was a controlled study, and I'll make a note to send it to you because I had probably 10 people who know me and know that I'm in algae and spirulina sending me the link. Did you see this? Did you see this? Unbelievable. And just on that note, even the University of Pittsburgh, when Covid was still in rage, they developed a no spray vaccine. Why? Because the blue pigment in spirulina sits on top of the ACE2 receptor cell, which is how the COVID virus enters your body. And Most of the ACE2 receptor cells are in your mouth, your nose, your throat, and your lungs and your gut. So by using a vaccine that was based on the spirulina which sprayed into your nose, it protected the cells from having the COVID virus enter through those cells. How incredible. Mother nature has provided us with the answer to longevity, health, nutrition, nourishment. She's been waiting 4 billion years for us to notice the amazing healing properties. People know about spirulina they put in their smoothie, they know it's a super. They have no idea of the healing capabilities. And I will not leave this earth until everybody, at least in North America, is aware that they can protect their health. They can regain their health effortlessly from a gift that was given to us by mother nature. If it's grown carefully, with all the nutrients preserved, and 99% of it is not, but ours is. So I feel like I should say amen, Catherine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My moniker is the Algae Gal. In fact, I wrote a little mini book and I called it the Algae Love Story. And I will send it to you because we're trying to make algae understood. It's just misunderstood or it's not known at all. And people think of as pond scum. And when you start to see the science, which is extensive, you know, and it will take me the rest of my life to do this, but that's okay. It's a mission worth, you know, it's.

A worthy life's purpose.

It's worthy life purpose. So. So yeah, I just. And I'm grateful for you allowing me to share this with you and your community because we're in a crisis, we're in a health crisis, we're in a nutritional crisis, we're in an environmental crisis. And I know it sounds crazy, but algae is the answer for everything.

I think that's the point to end. So before we end, I know that you had generously offered to provide a link that we will put in the show notes for people to get a discount on the product and then where can people find out more about you?

Absolutely. So our website is energybits.come n e r g y b for boy I t 4 tom sforsam.com by the way, we call our little tablets Bits because they're just bits of nutrition, bits of food, nothing else in it, just 100% nutrition. So energybits.com is where you can learn more, you can buy the product. We have a 20% discount code, as you mentioned. The code is five journeys, all one word, no space in between five journeys. It works on all the products, not subscriptions, but all the other products. And we are very science based. So if you want just quick videos or sound bites about nutrients, come to our Instagram handle, Energy Bits. We also do it on Facebook, Energy Bits. But that will give you a really fast visual on some of these facts about protein and chlorophyll and healing properties of mitochondria. Everything ultimately comes down to healing your mitochondria. And if we can just get these nutrients that are missing from all of our other food but found in algae into you, you will protect your mitochondria. I tell people I never eat alone. I always eat with my mitochondria because they're what generate life for you. They are your electrical system.

Right, Great. All right, so we'll make sure everything goes into the show notes. And on behalf of everyone, thank you so much. For the listeners, this is Katherine Arnsten, the founder of Energy Bits and a newly minted PhD. Congratulations.

Thank you. I have my certificate right here.

Catherine, thank you for being here for this episode and sharing this because it's amazing information that everybody needs to know. So thank you.

Well, thank you for allowing me to share and Mother Nature thanks you too.

Amen to that. All right, have a great day everyone. Thanks for joining us for the feel free freaking amazing podcast. Don't go it alone.

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