The Benefits and Harms of Spirulina, Who Should Not Take

The trendy super­food that is now rec­om­mend­ed by all nutri­tion­ists and food blog­gers is spir­uli­na. But what is it, how to use it and who should not? We will cov­er this in a new arti­cle.

Spir­uli­na is a super­food that every­one is crazy about these days. It is added to food and smooth­ies, tak­en in tablets and rec­om­mend­ed to friends. But why is every­one so excit­ed about spir­uli­na?

What is spirulina

Spir­uli­na is an ancient fresh­wa­ter microal­gae that is blue-green in col­or and has a spi­ral shape. Under nat­ur­al con­di­tions, it grows in only three lakes: its growth requires a spe­cial envi­ron­ment and micro­cli­mate.

How­ev­er, in many coun­tries, includ­ing Ukraine, spir­uli­na began to be grown on farms.

The health benefits and harms of spirulina

Spir­uli­na is not only an algae. Sci­en­tists believe that it is half a bac­teri­um too. There­fore, spir­uli­na con­tains a lot of pro­teins that are eas­i­ly absorbed by the body, amino acids and vit­a­mins that our body can­not pro­duce on its own.

Nutri­tion­ists are sure that spir­uli­na is an indis­pens­able addi­tion to the diet of veg­e­tar­i­ans, preg­nant women and chil­dren with low hemo­glo­bin, as well as those who suf­fer from ane­mia.

Benefits of Spirulina

So what are the known health ben­e­fits of spir­uli­na? Here are some rea­sons to con­sume it in your diet every day.

1. Lots of protein

Spir­uli­na is known for its high pro­tein con­tent, nutri­tion­ists say. How­ev­er, in order to sup­port the body with the norm of pro­tein every day, spir­uli­na should be com­bined with oth­er prod­ucts. So it will be tasti­er.

For exam­ple, you can add one table­spoon of spir­uli­na to your morn­ing smooth­ie with Greek yogurt and berries.

2. Great source of iron

One table­spoon of spir­uli­na con­tains 4.3 mil­ligrams of iron, which is 24% of the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly allowance for women and 54% for men. Spir­uli­na is impor­tant for the female body because we need iron much more than men. Espe­cial­ly dur­ing men­stru­a­tion.

3. Help with detox

Phy­co­cyanin, a pig­ment-pro­tein com­plex found in spir­uli­na, is very impor­tant for detox­i­fi­ca­tion. It pre­vents oxida­tive stress and pro­motes the nat­ur­al elim­i­na­tion of tox­ins from the body.

4. Lots of magnesium

Mag­ne­sium helps main­tain bone and heart health and helps reduce dai­ly stress. One table­spoon of spir­uli­na con­tains more mag­ne­sium than half a glass of fresh spinach.

Who should not take spirulina

Spir­uli­na is a very healthy super­food that def­i­nite­ly has a place in the fridge and in smooth­ies. But not every­one can afford such plea­sure for health rea­sons. Among them:

• peo­ple with gas­troin­testi­nal dis­eases;
• suf­fer­ing from chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease;
• hyper­ten­sion;
• peo­ple with indi­vid­ual intol­er­ance.

How to choose spirulina

Spir­uli­na is sold in tablets and pow­der. The tablets do not smell at all, but the pow­der has a pro­nounced fishy smell and taste that not every­one will like. It is rec­om­mend­ed to use spir­uli­na pow­der.

But even here you need to be care­ful. Spir­uli­na grown in the wrong con­di­tions and algae fed with bird drop­pings and harm­ful addi­tives will become tox­ic and will not bring any ben­e­fit.

Be sure to look for the des­ig­na­tion on the pack­ag­ing — a green leaf (organ­ic icon).

High-qual­i­ty spir­uli­na costs at least 200 hryv­nias per pack­age, so you should not deceive your­self with cheap algae: in this case, the miser pays three times.

How to take spirulina

Spir­uli­na is not a drug, but a dietary sup­ple­ment. How­ev­er, you should be more care­ful with it, because if the dosage is exceed­ed, you can get sick with pain in the stom­ach, intestines, tachy­car­dia, vom­it­ing and nau­sea.

For pre­ven­tive pur­pos­es, take no more than 1 tea­spoon of spir­uli­na, and for med­i­c­i­nal pur­pos­es — no more than 2 tea­spoons.

Spir­uli­na should be tak­en every day for a whole month, and then take a break for 2–3 weeks. How­ev­er, if you feel that you no longer want it, feel free to exclude it from the menu.

Rules for taking spirulina:

• do not heat or freeze;
• do not com­bine with dairy prod­ucts and post­pone dairy prod­ucts for six hours.

Spir­uli­na is tak­en as part of a smooth­ie, with sal­ads, fresh veg­eta­bles and fruits, juice.

Have you tak­en spir­uli­na? Did you like it or not?

Pho­to: Unsplash