I’m joined by Catharine Arnston, Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientific Officer of ENERGYbits, the small-but-mighty algae tablets to discuss the potent superfoods found in ENERGYbits as an effective solution for supporting your mitochondria and overall health.
I’m joined by Catharine Arnston, Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientific Officer of ENERGYbits, the small-but-mighty superfood algae tablets. Catharine shares her vast knowledge of the powerful healing properties of algae and how these superfoods may be the key to help heal chronic health issues.
Catharine’s journey into the world of algae began in 2008 after her sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and her oncologist advised an alkaline diet. While helping her sister find alkaline foods that could improve her health, she stumbled upon thousands of studies on algae’s healing properties. Catharine shares how algae has the power to heal disease and improve your well-being and the specific makeup of ENERGYbits.
From there, Catharine details the importance of sourcing, the difference between fresh spring water and natural waters, and why intentional sourcing is a long-term investment for your overall health. Catharine illustrates the health and diet benefits of two types of blue-green microalgae — chlorella and spirulina — and notes the spiritual essence of spirulina as the highest vibrational food on earth.
Then, Catharine explains how mitochondria generate cellular energy in the body and the many reasons why it's considered “the powerhouse.” She also shares why damaged mitochondria DNA can lead to treating health and two ways to protect mitochondria in support of health and longevity. Plus, Catharine provides the historical relevance of spirulina and evolutionary studies around human aging.
Listen to this jam-packed episode and learn about the incredible benefits of algae and ways to support and activate your mitochondria for health, energy, and vitality.
If you are enjoying these conversations, help me hit 100 reviews in celebration of my 100th episode! (And thank you LittyChar for your review — it makes me smile from the inside out!) Please subscribe and spread the love by leaving a review and sharing it with your friends. Thank you.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you. Hi, everyone.
Dana Frost 00:53
Welcome to the Vitally You Podcast. I'm Dana Frost your host and before we get started, I want to thank Liddy char for this review. vitally you X. Exclamation point. Dana's podcasts are filled with wisdom, love and positivity. I love the life enhancing tidbits I get from each episode. Well, thank you, Liddy char for that review. I really appreciate it. Each podcast review makes me smile from the inside out, everybody. Okay, let's dive into today's podcast episode because it is longer than usual. But I think you're going to be very happy that I allowed extra time for today's guest. My guest is Catherine Arnston, Founder, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of energy bits, makers behind the small but mighty algae tablets. Catherine will share her most recent findings about the potent superfoods in energy bits, and how they can be a simple, effective solution for supporting your mitochondria and so much more.
Dana Frost 01:56
I met Catherine at the biohacking Congress in Miami, the energy bits Booth was near my life wave table and I became so curious about Catherine when I saw that she was so swamped after her presentation, which I had to miss because I was working my own booth. I will tell you that Catherine has spent more than a decade researching algae and its powerful healing properties. You're going to learn the origin story of spirulina. Something I'm sure you didn't even imagine you would want to know or need to know. But trust me, Katherine's research will fascinate you at a minimum, it has the power to uplevel your health. And it might be a key to helping you heal chronic health issues. I want you to stay tuned to the very end
for a very special gift from Katherine. Real pleasure to have you as a guest this week. Well, thank
Catharine Arnston 02:54
you, Dana. It was so great to meet you a couple of months ago. And then here we are again together.
Dana Frost 02:59
Absolutely. People were raving about your talk at the biohacking Congress. And I was not able to hear you. Because I was at my booth. And I'm really curious to know the origin story of energy bits. And how you found yourself taking this deep dive into algae.
Catharine Arnston 03:19
Yeah, cuz LD is definitely a bit of an esoteric area to be a specialist in and I've spent 13 years in it. So let me give you the backstory. I'm Canadian by birth. But I've lived in Boston for the last 33 years. And I did all my schooling in Canada. I have an MBA and my MBA was an international business and I had a career in international business. And then 15 years ago, my younger sister in Canada, who I'm very close to develop breast cancer. So first thing I need everyone to know is that she completely healed and we celebrate her being cancer free every year. And I saw her just a month ago. But as she was preparing for her chemotherapy, her oncologist, which happened to be a woman, fortunately, told her she needed to change her diet to an alkaline diet, because it would help with her healing.
Catharine Arnston 04:07
Now, she didn't tell her what an alkaline diet specifically was or why it was specifically Good for her. So the first call my sister made was to me after that appointment, because I'm her big sister who loves her. And I just am a good researcher, no science background, but a good researcher. So I said, I have no idea what this is, but I will find out and I did an alkaline diet was primarily a plant based diet because of the phytonutrients in the chlorophyll that have been proven to help build your immune system. So I did some research on foods that she should eat when she should get rid of. She went through her chemo completely healed. And that was 15 years ago. And in the process of helping her right, I started reading I discovered PubMed, I'd never known of this thing called PubMed, and I read about 100 articles on your alkaline diets plant based diets.
Catharine Arnston 04:53
I read about 10 books and finally I was learning all this great stuff and that well Why isn't anybody talking about this because As it was 15 years ago, nobody was talking about plant based nutrition. So I thought, well, you know what, I've learned all this great stuff. I think maybe I should do something. So I gave up my corporate career, I went back to school, I went to a place called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, also known as I N. And it just gave me a very broad health coaching certificate, nothing deep. Although I now I'm such an expert. I'm actually applying for a PhD because I'm so fascinated by the science. Anyways, after I graduated, I taught plant based nutrition, I put my own curriculum together. And I gave my lectures at hospitals and corporations, just trying to get people eat more vegetables, because I'd seen the science, but I got so much resistance because people said, well, you know, they're too heavy to carry on for the grocery store. Vegetables take a long time to clean to cook to eat, they go bad quickly, they give me gas, my, my husband won't eat them, my children eat them.
Catharine Arnston 05:50
So I thought, Okay, I've got to find something that's easy for people to get and fast to get the nutrition they need without any of the work. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that. But I went back to everything I found for my sister and did a deeper dive and once I got to algae, that's when I discovered the miracle and and the reason is algae is first of all the most alkaline food in the world. It's also the most nutrient dense food in the world. We have a quote from NASA that says one gram of algae has 1000 times more nutrition than any other fruit or vegetable. It's the most studied food in the world as you're going to find out algae is not a supplement it is food. And we're going to show you that we grow ours in triple filtered Spring Mountain water we go ours in Taiwan. Yes, Aldi is in the ocean. It is in the rivers, it's everywhere. But we go ours in in freshwater, so it's been studied.
Catharine Arnston 06:39
There's chlorella and spirulina are the two algae we're going to talk about. And collectively there's about 100,000 studies documenting how they help stop cancer help stop heart disease helps reduce inflammation, improve your gut, improve your skin, improve your longevity. So none of this is conjecture. It's all science based, but who would know it's there if you weren't looking for it. And also, algae has been used in Asia for over 60 years daily, they, they it's a multibillion dollar agricultural crop, they grow it just like we grow lettuce or tomatoes here and water. And 99% of algae is grown in Asia and 99% of it is consumed in Asia. Oh, and the best part of it, all I forgot to mention is that it comes in these little tiny tablets, it grows in freshwater than its air dried into a powder and then pressed into these tablets that are about the size of a baby aspirin. Now the great thing about these app tablets is that they're so nutrient dense, because I use that quote from NASA that each one of them has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables.
Catharine Arnston 07:35
So while I'm talking to you, I just had a plate of vegetables, no work, no cleaning, no cooking, literally no digesting. Now most people do swallow them i to mine because I like the flavor. But this is the answer. I found out that you know each tablet because there's so much nutrition, you can get all the nutrition you need without having to eat vegetables, no more lugging all that heavy stuff from the grocery store unless you want to. You don't have to fight with your kids. They're safer newborns, children, pets, grandparents, they never go bad. We have an expiry date of three years, but technically they never go bad. It's it's literally a miracle food. It's got 40 vitamins and minerals, highest protein in the world, highest concentration of chlorophyll in the world has been endorsed by United Nations for 50 years as the answer to world hunger because it's three times the amount of protein is steak. The only trouble with algae, it seemed was twofold. In America, most of it had been coming from China, and the quality was not very good, because the standards weren't very high.
Catharine Arnston 08:37
And number two, nobody has explained in America. What LG is and what it does. People know what the superfood and they put it in their smoothie, but they're not exactly sure what exactly it's doing. And so I have spent 13 years finding out what exactly it does. And when you find out what exactly it does, I'll tell you, you're gonna want to run not walk to go get some because it's not just rich and chlorophyll and protein which we need. But it has properties and nutrients not found in any other food. So it's very, very powerful for helping prevent disease, helping you recover from disease, helping extend your life so that you have they live long and you live well. It protects your brain from dementia protects your skin from wrinkles, it protects your gut now, and there's two algae and we're going to talk about the two different algae because they do completely different things in your body.
Catharine Arnston 09:29
And the most important thing is that they protect your mitochondria. And as you're going to learn today, your mitochondria are what determine everything to do with your health, whether it's good or bad. And if you aren't familiar with mitochondria, you have come to the right place. Because I tell people I refer to myself as a citizen scientist because I'm completely self taught so I was in your shoes. 13 years ago, I knew nothing about science, nothing. I had been studying business, but I'm motivated to find a way to help people be healthy and not deteriorate as they age, it's not necessary, a blue zones have proven that. So I've gone through probably three to 4000 nih PubMed articles at this point, I've completely self taught myself all this science lingo. And now I'm ready, I've interpreted it. And I make it easy for you to understand. Because if you understand it, then you won't be afraid of it. And if you understand what your body needs and how it works, you won't be afraid of it either. And so when you do have some situation come up with regarding health, you'll know that it's not a death sentence. And you don't have to rely on the traditional surgeries and pharmacies solutions. There are more natural, less invasive ways to get you back to where you want to be. So. So that's what we're going to do today.
Dana Frost 10:51
That's awesome. Katherine. Thank you. So I'm just a curiosity question. When you said that you grow, you know, that's grown in Taiwan with freshwater versus the natural waters, the ocean. Can you speak in just a little bit about that? Because I think that that's, that's interesting. We tend to think that we want something that comes directly from the you know, where it is naturally present. Yeah. And so, I mean, I have a hunch in terms of why that can you speak into that a little bit?
Catharine Arnston 11:19
Yeah. Well, in most cases, it probably 99% cases you would be correct. Wild is always better, but not when it comes to algae because algae will absorb whatever's in the water. And you cannot, it's impossible to keep mycotoxins out of wild bodies of water. So that's lakes oceans. There's a company that grows their algae in Klamath Lake and I urge people not to use that algae because I have scientific papers that tested it and showed found mycotoxins now we're What if not the only the one of the few companies that do third party lab tests here in the United States. We import everything from from Taiwan. They give us their lab tests, but we sell our algae. It's physician grades, we don't sell through CVS or GNC or target or any of those other retail chains.
Catharine Arnston 12:10
We sell through doctor's offices, functional medicine, chiropractors, biohacking centers, and they need to know that the nutrients are exactly what they say they are, and there are no toxins. So we do full labs on all the nutrients we do full labs on proving there's no heavy metals, and it took me two years to find a lab that would test for mycotoxins and we of course have none, because we grow ours in freshwater. So here's a couple of pictures. This is a picture of a spirulina farm. And this is a chlorella farm. And so again, triple filtered, very, very clean water. And we all we do after we grow the algae is we air dry, it takes 15 seconds. But we here's a very important thing to know is we do not use high heat. And this is very, very important as we get to talk about the mitochondria because there are some nutrients in both of the algae that are deactivated by high heat, and almost all the other less expensive algae companies use high heat to dry the algae. So you are missing all of these critical nutrients.
Catharine Arnston 13:16
One will stop free radical damage of your mitochondria and one stops cancer kills cancer cells. And I'd say those are pretty important things. So we'll get into that in greater detail, but we flashed Dryden without high heat into a powder. And then we just press them into these little tablets that we call bits, because they're bits of nutrition. So we want people to feel really comfortable with the product. But again, one tablet has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables that you didn't have to go grab from the grocery store. Maybe you don't live near a grocery store, maybe you can't get organic. Maybe you have digestive issues, a lot of people have a hard time digesting fiber. And as you're going to find out spirulina, chlorella, have virtually no fiber. Spirulina has zero fiber. So this is why you can give it to newborns because there's zero fiber and spirulina although has 40 vitamins and minerals and has a nutrient profile virtually identical to mother's breast milk minus the chlorophyll, of course. So it's like Mother Nature's second perfect food. Breast milk is the first one. And spirulina is the is number two. Yeah,
Dana Frost 14:19
so I did not know that it was that nutrient dense. I did not know it had the same value as a whole plate of bowls. It's
Catharine Arnston 14:28
crazy. And the reason for that and let me back up a bit because we jumped into algae. But algae has its own food category. As I mentioned, we grow it in freshwater, but there are two main types of algae. There's macro algae and micro algae. And we're talking about micro algae today. But let me help you understand what macro algae is. It's that big stringy stuff that washes up on shore, also known as seaweed or Dulce or kelp, and it is very high in fiber, high in iodine because it comes from the ocean, virtually zero nutrition I used to buy big bags of kelp noodles. And they'd be like three calories and the entire day because there's no nutrition in it. But fiber is good for you if you can digest fiber. And iodine is good for you, if you don't have a thyroid issue, micro AltY is completely opposite.
Catharine Arnston 15:15
Either no fiber, or virtually no fiber. Number one, no iodine, number two, because it's not from the ocean. Remember, we grow it in triple filtered Spring Mountain water and the most concentrated nutrition in the world. So it's completely opposite to macro algae, which has virtually no nutrition, lots of fiber, only from the sea, which is why it's called seaweed, and micro algae, which is in the ocean, the sea, the rivers, the the euro, the soil, it's also in the soil. It's everywhere your aquarium, but it's so concentrated nutrition because here's why. micro algae you can't see with your eye. It's called micro algae. Because it's microscopic, you can get almost a million cells on the head of a pin. That's how tiny it is. So when you start understanding when you consolidate it into these little, tiny little tablets are about the size of baby aspirin. That's why there's so much nutrition.
Catharine Arnston 16:09
And this is all documented. It's all in science, like as a United Nations and NASA have been endorsing spirulina and chlorella algae for 50 years as the most nutrient dense food in the world. But it's never caught on because nobody's really explained what it is you none of us grew up with algae una in Asia, you can't ride on your bicycle to school or drive by to work without going by an algae farm. They're everywhere. But here we have your corn or wheat or maybe tomato farms or strawberry patches, no algae, why would you even know about it? And it? Yes, it's been sold. But everyday people sell it as a supplement, which it's not, no one's explained to you what it does. So that's what I'm doing.
Dana Frost 16:54
I think it's so important, Catherine because especially when it comes to sourcing and understanding exactly what you're investing in financially and then putting into your body. Because if you have the knowledge that where something is sourced and what is the value of it, what is the cost of your this investment in your long term health? What is that cost you pay now, by investing in the things that you put into your body, the way you treat your body, your lifestyle, the way you move your body, the way you manage stress, or you pay later, in terms of healthcare costs.
Catharine Arnston 17:33
Well, it's not like buying shoes, or a handbag which will affect your health, maybe good orthotic shoes might maybe that's not a good example, but handbags not gonna change your life. Algae will literally change your life. And I'll help if you don't understand that by the end of this call. I haven't done my job right. But in terms of value, so we the best value are these bags we sell there's 1000 tablets in a bag, although we and you can also buy them in a little fun canister that has an opening in it comes with a bag. And once your tablets are gone, you just refill with the bag. But here's what I want to show you one of those bags with 1000 tablets, I use that same calculation with about one gram equal 1000 grams of nutrition. One bag is the same nutrition as 551 pounds of vegetables.
Catharine Arnston 18:17
That's a lot. That's about 30 grocery carts of vegetables in this one bag. And to bring it down to something that's even more understandable. We have a 20% discount code we're going to share with your community after we finish, and a bag is normally $130. And people go oh my god, that's a lot of money. But using this discount code brings it down to about 100. It works out if you take 10 tablets, we recommend 10 spirulina in the morning and 10 chlorella at night, and I'll explain why later on. But if you took 10 tablets a day, this bag number one will last two, three months. And it works out to $1 a day. $1 a day to protect your brain to protect your mitochondria to protect your health, regain your health, protect your skin, protect your heart, I'd say that was worth it.
Catharine Arnston 19:06
Plus, it satisfies your hunger, it gives you energy, your grocery bills will go down. I'll give you some examples of all that so so we're not talking about like it may look like a lot but when you look at everything else in the bigger picture, it's nothing. We spend 350 $4 on a Starbucks coffee and you could spend $1 a day on 10 tablets now if you have a health condition, we encourage you to have 30 tablets a day and I'll explain that to you later on. So but for wanting to maintain your health and remember this is in your mouth most people swallow them spirulina is a very earthy to a flavor so don't feel bad about swallowing them. I chew them everything's chewable because it's food by the way. You don't to your supplements do you you to this these are more like nuts except they're so concentrated in food.
Dana Frost 19:53
I think you're like nuts. Yeah, that's it reminds me more of like eating eating a nut.
Catharine Arnston 19:58
Yeah. So it's it's a I call it your health insurance, not just your nutritional surance. Because if you take these 10 tablets of spirulina in the morning and 10, chlorella at night, whatever else you eat for the day is purely for taste, social and true interest, whatever, but not for nutritional need. Because the way I describe it to people, if you aren't giving your body what it needs, particularly your mitochondria, and we're going to dig into that in some depth today, if you're not giving your body what it needs, it cannot perform for you. It's that simple. Now, we all know that our cell phones need to get plugged in at night to have their battery charge recharged. And if you didn't know that, you spent $1,000 on a new iPhone, and the next day it's dead. You'd be pretty annoyed. Right?
Catharine Arnston 20:42
But when someone said, oh, yeah, you got it, plug it in IT. Problem solved. Same with your phone, your car, if you didn't know the Jetta put gas in it. And it stopped running when it ran out. Until someone said, Oh, and you know, if you fill it up, okay, problem solved. Well, your body is the same way you need to give it the nourishment it needs, so it can perform. And once you know what that nourishment is, and fortunately, it's all in the algae. Thank goodness to Mother Nature. Now you have what you need. And it just may end it's effortless because you can swallow it or to it boom, in seconds and it's ketogenic. It's paleo. It's organic. If you're carnivore, there's no lectins or oxalates. I mean, it's one calorie per tablet, zero fiber or no fiber. I mean, honestly, it fits into every single lifestyle. You shouldn't be asking yourself, why would I take algae you be asked? You should be saying why wouldn't I? And I came up with an analogy recently, because you know, you know, because algae has absolutely everything.
Catharine Arnston 21:42
Your mitochondria need an absolutely everything, every organ, every part of your body needs. And it's effortless. It's like a trust fund. It's like a nutritional trust fund. And I tell people, would you ever turn down a trust fund, like a trust fund is like your ticket to life, it's your money to do whatever you want for it for the rest of your life. Algae is the same way it's a nutritional Trust Fund, do not turn this down. Because you can't find some of these nutrients in any other food anywhere else. Some of them your body stops making for you after you hit age 30 or 40, which is why I believe chronic disease is so prevalent after the age of 40. And algae has everything that your body stops making for you to prevent that. And we'll go into that in a minute. So like I said, it's like a, it's like your nutritional Trust Fund. Please don't turn it down. Give it a chance because you deserve a chance. And if you aren't feeling great now, you will feel great soon. I tell people it's never too late to feel great.
Dana Frost 22:39
I read something about you and I don't know I would love for you to share if you don't mind that I read that your biological age went down. Can you tell us? Yeah,
Catharine Arnston 22:47
sure. It was kind of fun. So I'm I'm chronologically I'm 67. And I take no medications and I have no chronic diseases. So that's pretty cool right there. But I was at the biohacking Dave Asprey biohacking show back in June. And there's a great company called Brain tap, I'm sure you're probably familiar with them very close to Dr. Porter. And they have a device that helps your brain stabilize. And of course, when your brain is working better, your gut works better, you absorb nutrients better, it's pretty cool. So the what they usually do is they hook people up to this device that measures all of these biomarkers determine their biological age, then they put them on the brain TAP device, and then they measure them again, and their age always drops as a small percentage.
Catharine Arnston 23:35
But we're gonna be doing some partnerships with them. And so we decided to do a different kind of test with me, we did my test with the biomarkers in one morning, before I'd had any allergy. Then I went and had a couple of pouches of spirulina and chlorella. And we waited about an hour, and then we came back and tested me again. And on that second test after taking my algae, my biological age dropped to 32. And I'm 67. So Wow, pretty cool. And you know, it's so funny, because I don't have his name in front of me. I've been reading all these articles about there's some guy, very wealthy, a founder, finance founder, and I think he's 47 or something.
Catharine Arnston 24:17
And he spends $2 million a year on all these different devices and stem cell things. And he's been able to get his age, biological age to drop two years out of spending $5 million. It's taken him five years to do it. And I'm thinking, Man, are you missing the boat? I just dropped 32 years and an hour, and I spent the equivalent of 12 of your six pouches or $6, these $12 So when I tell you that this stuff works, I'm living proof of it. And then I have these these documents that prove and it measures it's your heart rate variability and all these different markers so and honestly I feel 30 or 40 Most of my friends are in that age group now because people my age are retired and they're sick and they're not doing anything.
Dana Frost 25:07
You're very Yeah, you look super useful. Yeah, I read about this guy, I've read about several different biohackers. And to me, it feels very isolating the life that at least the ones that I've read about YouTube videos on. They're in a, you know, behind their four walls with technology and very protocol, I think limiting protocols. And I don't believe that, I mean, vitally you is feeling younger going older. To me, that's not necessarily feeling younger, going older, what is the essence that we're wanting out of this life? As we move through the process of this time that we are a human, with our skin on? You know, our soul has our skin on and we're moving through life? What? What is it that we want from life, and I love your take with inviting us to fuel ourselves with something that's so nutritious and dense and has benefits it's when we think about all of the essence of that's coming from those phytonutrients and from the sun. And it is literally illuminating us from the inside out. Exactly.
Catharine Arnston 26:21
And it's considered the highest vibrational food in the world. By the way, it was the first life on Earth 3.8 billion years ago, mankind has been on Earth only for 2 million years and algae. Before algae Earth was gas and water, nothing lived no oxygen. And then a cyanobacteria, like spirulina. Remember I mentioned it's a bacteria started growing and released enough oxygen on Earth, the other life forms could grow. Next one was chlorella, and then life and blah, blah, and it's still here. So I tell people, there's something spiritual about spirulina because it was the first life on Earth. And you're only the first once. And you're going to find out as we get into the mitochondria conversation, that your mitochondria actually evolved directly from the cyanobacteria. So this is one of the other things that pairs it so perfectly together because they're family. And it's all proven by evolutionary science. So again, I don't tell you anything I don't have a scientific reference for and there's hundreds of them about how the mitochondria evolved from, from cyanobacteria.
Dana Frost 27:22
Yes, let's get into that, because I wanted you to share with the listeners about the mitochondria. Because we haven't taken a deep dive into that yet. And it's such an important part of how our body functions. Right. And you know, now it's a term that people have heard, you know, they've read it somewhere. They've heard it on social media. And so can you give us context? What is the mitochondria? Yeah.
Catharine Arnston 27:47
And I also want to be sure I explained the difference between the two algae, go ahead and do that first, and then we'll move on. Okay, so there are two different algae, there's 10s of 1000s of strains of micro algae, but the two that are most commonly known are spirulina and chlorella. And that's what we sell as well. And spirulina is a blue green algae, which means it has it's called blue green, because as to pigments that it has a blue one, which is called phyto. Cyan. And I'm going to spell that for you p HYCOCYA. N I N, you've probably never heard of it before. But you're gonna want to know about because as you can see on my little sheet here, it's proven to kill cancer cells. That's pretty important.
Catharine Arnston 28:28
Anyways, so it's a blue green algae, phi cosine. And the second pigment is chlorophyll, which is, you know, what makes plants green. So what's spirulina is big claim to fame. It's known for energizing you and nourishing you. How does it do that? Well, it has the highest concentration of protein in the world, three times the amount of protein is steak, and all of the protein is already in individual aminos. This is really important because when you eat animal protein, your body has to break down the protein into individual amino acids, because it's all bound up. And it can take two or three days, and you might have been 50 grams of protein, but you only ended up with five grams of aminos because you didn't have all the factors. Then there's something called collagen protein, which is smaller clusters of aminos.
Catharine Arnston 29:17
But algae protein is an individual aminos. And that's important because it allows your body to absorb them almost instantly. So spirulina gives you all this energy because it gives you all this rich aminos 18 of the 20 that exist, including the nine your body can't make so it's a complete protein. And then it's loaded with B vitamins which convert the protein into glucose for energy. So and it's not like a stimulant. There's a big difference between energy from spirulina which is create cellular energy and a stimulant, a stimulant is like caffeine or chemicals or sugar and it gives you a burst and the burst is because it's moving molecules from your brain into your body quickly. It's the equivalent of In a paper on a fire, you get a nice big burst. But then you also have a crash. Algae is completely different. It's like putting a log on the fire. It's very steady energy because it's not a stimulant. It's working at the cellular energy to generate ATP. And when we get to mitochondria, I'll explain because they're the ones that generate that ATP for you. So back to spirulina, very nourishing, very energizing for your brain because it's also loaded essential fatty acids, you get energy in the moment because of the B vitamins, and it satisfies your hunger.
Catharine Arnston 30:32
It has 40 vitamins and minerals, rich protein, Richins essential fatty acids, one calorie per tablet. So it's great if you want to if you don't want to take ozempic and you want to do a weight loss program or you're just in a rush, most people love to have them in the morning because that's when they're hungry or tired. You can have a little pouch of 30 tablets for lunch, it's only be 30 calories, we'd recommend generally the energy bits which is the spirulina because it will give you not a big full feeling like a big bowl of pasta, but you will it will stop your hunger and it stops cravings. Lots of cravings are because your body is missing particular nutrients, missing particular minerals. This is loaded with all the electrolytes, all the minerals that you need and all that protein so very, very nourishing. And as you're going to find out it also generates energy at the mitochondrial level.
Catharine Arnston 31:25
And because your brain has the most mitochondria, there's 2 million per cell in your brain. Think of spirulina as brain food because once you start healing and protecting those mitochondria, it heals your brain. So nourishing, energizing, great for intermittent fasting great for a snack great as a pre workout and just gives you very, very steady energy, no drama. With algae. There's no rush, and there's no crash. I just call it steady Eddy. I don't know about you, but I don't I'm not seeking drama and algae doesn't give it to you. So most people, as I say we recommend it in the morning because that's when you're hungry, tired or through the afternoon before a workout. Now chlorella is the other algae and we call ours recovery bits. And the reason for that is because it's a wellness detoxing algae so helps you recover your health. Now it has the highest chlorophyll in the world. Remember spirulina has the highest protein in the world. Chlorella still has 60% protein, but not as much as as spirulina. But the chlorophyll is very, very important for a number of reasons. Here's a chart that shows you the chemical composition of your hemoglobin, the red blood cells, and this is your chemical composition of chlorophyll.
Catharine Arnston 32:35
And you can notice that they're virtually identical. The only difference is that your blood has iron in the middle. And chlorophyll has magnesium. That iron atom is what carries oxygen in your blood. But what the reason I showed you that diagram and you can go online to see the same thing is that chlorophyll builds your blood. It's that simple. And because chlorella has the highest chlorophyll in the world, it has 500 times more chlorophyll than arugula 25 times more chlorophyll than liquid chlorophyll. There is nothing in the world with more chlorophyll than chlorella algae. That's why it's called chlorella because of the chlorophyll. So I'm very happy that people are starting to take chlorophyll water. But why would you take chlorophyll water when you can take chlorella and get 25 times more chlorophyll plus 60%, you know, protein and 40, vitamins and minerals. So it's the real deal. The other cool thing about chlorophyll is that it's a fat based pigment. We all know that we have to take Omega three and vitamin D and E. For our cell walls. All of our cells have what's called a lipid membrane, which is a fancy word for saying fat. And so as long as there there's lots of lungs are moist, nutrients can get in toxins could get out oxygen can get in, you help prevent. You keep the pH the proper pH which is slightly alkaline, which prevents cancer from taking place. Well, because chlorophyll is a fat based pigment. It does the same thing. It helps heal the cell wall.
Catharine Arnston 33:57
So that's really important. Chlorophyll also kills bacteria for years naturopaths used to topically on cuts or scrapes. It kills bacteria in your mouth, in your gut in your colon. And you know everything is better your breath is better your poop is better, but it just kills bacteria and we want to keep the bad bacteria down. The most important thing to know about chlorella is that it has a hard cell wall. Spirulina has zero cellulose wall has zero fiber. Chlorella has the hardest cell wall selling this wall in the plant kingdom. And what that cell cell is while does is it attaches to toxins and heavy metals, lead Mercury radiation, aluminum, alcohol, spores, mycotoxins from mold and key lakes them which means they pull them out. So it's a very, very important way to get rid of heavy metals, whether it's and the average adult I read has 700 toxins in their body and those toxins are interfering with the way that your body's functioning your brain is working. So you want to get rid of them.
Catharine Arnston 35:00
So chlorella does this now because it's so healing because of all the chlorophyll and detoxing because of the heavy heart cell wall and has fiber, which feeds your gut biome, which generates healthy bacteria. This is very much a wellness algae. This is a gut health algae. So it's completely different from spirulina, which is a nourishing energizing algae, and really is more for your brain. So I came up with this analogy to help people understand the two differences because I speak at a lot of conferences at hotels, and I sometimes I get room service and it dawned on me why no room service brings me everything I need for the day it fills me up very nourished. That's sort of like spirulina, it's very nourishing fuels you for the day gives you whatever you need, and then later on housekeeping comes in and cleans out my room gets rid of all the junk. I don't need sodas, chlorella. So chlorella is sort of like housekeeping gets rid of all the junk in your trunk, stuff that you don't need. And spirulina is very much for your nourishment.
Catharine Arnston 35:59
So it's more like room service. So room service, and housekeeping or if it also helps you think of spirulina as brain food. By the way, we all know that salmon and cold fish are known as brain food. And lot of it's because of the Omega three that's in them, or where do you think the fish get the Omega three from? Algae, right? So and by the time lots of people eat fish oil, it's rancid by the time you get it. So do yourself a favor, skip the middleman, just get the algae and its brain food. And then gut your your chlorella is here for your gut health. Now we generally recommend chlorella before bed, you can take either one of them anytime a day alone together with food instead of food, but definitely chlorella before bed, and you say well, why? Well, let me tell you when you sleep, that's when your body goes through a detox and repair cycle. This is why sleep is so important.
Catharine Arnston 36:53
By the way, chlorella has the highest tryptophan in the world, which is a precursor to melatonin, which helps you sleep helps you get into that deep sleep. So while you're getting your beauty rest, if you have chlorella in your body, it's pulling out. All the heavy metals is pulling out aluminum from your brain, it's helping your mitochondria heal, it's helping get rid of all the immune functionality. It also stimulates peristalsis, which gives you that nice bowel movement in the morning. So very, very good for before bed and for wellness benefits, you could take 10 tablets. For detox purposes, you're going to need closer to the 30 tablets. Now, remember, they're very tiny. Again, this is the chlorella, which is green spirulina is that blue green. Now the great thing about chlorella is it tastes pretty good, especially if you put sea salt on it. i
Catharine Arnston 37:40
My favorite snack is chlorella. With pistachio nuts, I have a flavor that I like salt and vinegar, or macadamia nuts. So if you can learn to like eating them, it's so enjoyable as a bedtime snack, chlorella or spirulina. You know, nothing really improves the flavor. I'll be honest, so don't be ashamed for swallowing it. But if you can enjoy eating, the chlorella doesn't stick to your teeth. Now you can really get the detox benefits. If anyone's has a health condition of any kind, you're going to want to take double or triple the amount until you get a clear diagnosis. So yeah, so spirulina in the morning, chlorella at night, and that pretty much will help build your nourishment, your brain, your mitochondria. And chlorella will provide you with gut health and detox benefits.
Dana Frost 38:28
That's wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that, Catherine. And so let's revisit the mitochondria. Mitochondria.
Catharine Arnston 38:37
Okay. So if you haven't been hearing much about mitochondria, you will, because it's probably the the most important thing that determines your your health. So what are mitochondria? Well, they're, they call them organelles. They're in all of your cells. And what they do is they generate cellular energy.
Catharine Arnston 38:55
Now we're talking about when we talk cellular energy, we're not talking about energy just for you to go run to the store, or have a great workout. This is what propels everything in your body, cellular energy, and it's called ATP gives your body what it needs to have your heart beating your neurotransmitters working your immune system to be functioning, your lymphatic system to be functioning, your cellular turnover to be functioning. So cellular energy is where the rubber hits the road. And you and once you start decreasing your cellular energy, nothing works as well. And the best analogy I've come up with recently is you know, it was we just had Thanksgiving.
Catharine Arnston 39:34
And if you only had one pie and you had 1000 guests, you know that's a lot of guests to nobody would get a large piece of pie, they would just get a little sliver or a little morsel and nobody would be happy. Well, the same thing is like with cellular energy, if you don't have enough cellular energy, none of your body parts, get what they need. And so everything is working sub optimally. But suddenly, if you had 1000 pies and you had a thought wasn't people, everybody loves you? Well, when you can start generating more cellular energy, all of your body functions start working better it whether it's your brain power, your digestive power, your skin wrinkling, everything works better. And what you're going to find out is that spirulina and to certain degree, chlorella, have the nourishment that your mitochondria particularly need. And these are, these are nutrients that can't be found in any other food.
Catharine Arnston 40:27
And some of them are nutrients that your body would have been making for you, but stops making them for you after the age of 30. Which is why after once you hit 40, and 50, why I believe chronic disease starts happening. So mitochondria are known as the powerhouse. Now the interesting thing is that mitochondria have their own DNA. And you wouldn't know why would you know that? No, there's no reason there's only 37 of them. And by the way, we all have 22,000 Regular DNA. And you think well, how important can 37 mitochondrial DNA be? Well, let me tell you, they're like the air controller at an airport. They control everything, your mitochondria, DNA control, your regular DNA, they control cellular communication, they control your immune system, your brain, they control everything. And so when they get damaged, the first thing that starts dropping is all of the functionality of your other cells and of your other DNA. And you know what air control, you can have a huge airport.
Catharine Arnston 41:24
But there may only be three or four people in that air control, but they control everything. And that's like your, your mitochondrial DNA. So let's, let's find out what's going on with that mitochondria DNA, why are they getting so damaged? And why does that lead to your health failing. So in your cell, you have your nucleus, and then you have a bunch of other stuff, but you have these mitochondria now in your, the highest number of mitochondria where your greatest energy needs are. So that's your brain, there's 2 million mitochondria per cell in your brain. The next highest, by the way are women's eggs, there's about 700,000 mitochondria per egg. After that, it's your heart was about 7000 mitochondria per cell in your heart, and then it drops down to about 5000 of your muscles, and then down to like 1000 in your skin or fat cells. But anyways, inside that cell are these mitochondria. And inside the mitochondria. This is where the ATP is produced. This is the language. This is what's called cellular energy. But the problem is nobody tells you that a byproduct of ATP are free radicals.
Catharine Arnston 42:30
But it's also where your mitochondria DNA are. So they're exposed to free radicals every single nanosecond. This is why your mitochondria DNA, the average lifespan is 10 days, your regular DNA lasts a lifetime. But your mitochondria DNA only lasts about 10 days because they are being fried by free radicals. What's a free radical, free radical is a molecule with an unpaired electron in its outer circuit. And nature loves harmony and balance. So when there's an unpaired electron, that molecule will steal another electron from another neighboring molecule to balance itself out. And then that molecule is now unbalanced. And so it's still somebody else's electron. And that's what leads to tissue damage. It's sort of like when you were a kid, if you went to the cafeteria and someone stole your lunch, so then you would steal somebody else's lunch, and then they would steal somebody on it.
Catharine Arnston 43:25
So it's just having that goes on all the time. So because there's all this free radical damage going on, at the mitochondrial level and to the DNA, you get all this very bad, extensive tissue damage and the mitochondria start dying, or they start mutating, and these fire, wrong signals. And so this is why what leads to disease, this is what leads to aging. And the problem is twofold. Because your mitochondria, I have I have two membranes. Remember I mentioned earlier, all your cells have a lipid membrane where your mitochondria have a lipid membrane around them as well. But they also have a second inner membrane. Now normally antioxidants, your blueberries, vitamin C, vitamin E, could get into a cell and neutralize these free radicals because that's what antioxidants do. They have extra electrons to give away. It's like someone brought two lunches to school and they give their extra lunch to somebody who had their lunch stolen. But your mitochondria have an inner membrane that prevents virtually all antioxidants from getting in there. It's crazy. Drugs can't get in there. Almost no antioxidants can get in there, but there are three that can. One is called glutathione. One is chlorophyll. And the most important one is called superoxide dismutase, also known as S OD, so we'll refer to it as S od because that's a little easier to understand.
Catharine Arnston 44:50
But this so D stops free radical damage. And it's very, very powerful to protect your mitochondria. I could go geekier, but I I'm going to skip some of the slides. But I want to show you what a damaged mitochondria looks like. A normal mitochondria has all the inner work all the connections working, damaged mitochondria has all these big gaps, which is shows that the ATP production has been damaged. And that causes more what's called leakage of electrons. And when the electrons leak out, they become free radicals. The key to life is to protect your mitochondria. And the way you do that is based on lifestyle and your diet. And I'm going to help walk you through how to do that. Because when you understand this, then you can help protect your mitochondria there on your side, they want to protect you to they can't make the proper choices at the salad bar only you can.
Catharine Arnston 45:43
So you know, it's up to you to help the and I tell people I never eat alone, I eat with my mitochondria all the time. So, so there's two ways to protect your mitochondria, you can either reduce the number of free radicals that are being produced in that process, or you can remove the free radicals that are produced. Now let me walk you through how you do that, because they're actually easier than you think. The first one is to reduce the free radicals. How do you do that? By reducing your your simple carbs, sugar, processed foods, anything white, they generate the most free radicals. Think of it as like exhaust coming from a car, they exhaust your mitochondria.
Catharine Arnston 46:21
And when they're exhausted, they mutate and die. Not not, they're not happy campers. So you could change to a Keto or a low carb diet, because they have fewer free radicals as a byproduct. Even better is fasting, intermittent fasting or algae. There's virtually no free radicals produce when you eat algae, or when you do intermittent fasting. So I recommend intimate intermittent fasting to everybody, you can start gradually, all it means is you just delay having breakfast, maybe you normally had it at nine next time, have it at 10. Maybe it got a couple days later have it 1112 Push it as late as you can, because when you're not digesting food, you're not producing free radicals. And it also gives your body time to clean up all the junk in your trunk, because it's not busy digesting and it can divert energy to the cleanup crew. So that's number one, change your diet, so there's fewer free radicals.
Catharine Arnston 47:12
Number two is to remove the free radicals. But as I mentioned, there's only a handful that can get in there. Glutathione superoxide dismutase and Klerk chlorophyll. Fortunately, spirulina has the highest concentration of all three. And the reason why other antioxidants can't get in there is because normally your cells have something called porins. They're little openings in your in your lipid membrane that allow nutrients it in and out toxins in and out. But there aren't any porins in that mitochondria. But algae has everything that can get in there. And we'll I'll explain to you why in a minute. The most important antioxidant that protects your mitochondria is that antioxidant called superoxide dismutase, also known as S OD. And what it does is it converts those free radicals into water. absolutely harmless water now, and superoxide is a type of free radical. In fact, it's the most damaging free radical because it has three unpaired electrons.
Catharine Arnston 48:14
So superoxide dismutase is like dim muting, like the muting a light, it turns those free radicals super oxygen is into water. Now there's 25,000 studies available in the NIH Library in PubMed, proving that superoxide dismutase is an essential antioxidant, protecting you from inflammation, Alzheimer's, heart disease, virtually every chronic disease that exist, the problem has been that there's no source of superoxide dismutase except spirulina, but not all spirulina because it turns out superoxide dismutase is an enzyme. Now, if you're not familiar with nutrition, and I wasn't earlier either, enzymes are damaged by deactivated by high heat. And so anything over 114 degrees Fahrenheit kills all enzymes. Virtually all the other algae companies that are out there, they're lower price so they have to sell more to get to market and make money. They use high heat to dry their algae because they have to get to market quickly and that kills and deactivates this superoxide dismutase.
Catharine Arnston 49:24
So you can't just go out and buy any spirulina, it has to be dried without high heat. And we have never used high heat and I didn't even know about this superoxide dismutase when I started the company, I just knew that you know high heat killed enzymes and I knew that wasn't good. So we found a way to make sure we could dry ours without it. So it's very very important to ensure that you have either add spirulina because it will protect your mitochondria by stopping that free radical damage. And when the mitochondria are protected, they multiply. They work properly. They send all the right signals that you want and they will risk or your health or protect what you have. So it's sort of like having a fireman in your cells putting out all the fire. Because think of the free radicals like sparks from a fireplace because they can cause really big damage.
Catharine Arnston 50:12
So, so think of superoxide dismutase, as the fireman that's going in there to save your mitochondria. And when your mitochondria save, they save you. And the amazing thing is Mother Nature's so brilliant, she gave us superoxide dismutase and our body's ability to generate it from the moment we're born. So from the moment you're born, you and your body and your mitochondria are protected from all these free radicals, until they get from the moment your children, teenagers, 2030, and then boom, it stops, it slows down. And by the time you're 40, your body is not making that protective, sad any longer. And I believe this is why chronic disease hits so hard after the age of 40, because we're no longer protected. It's like we were we were Superwoman, Batman or bad girl or whatever.
Catharine Arnston 51:00
And our superpowers were suddenly taken away. And I wondered about that. And, you know, nature is usually so intelligent. Why? What's going on? Well, here's what's going on. We've only lived past the age of 30, for the last 150 years, for 2 billion years, we died at 30. Our biology thinks we're gonna die at 30. So it stops making certain protective nutrients that women go through menopause, we're not able to bear children after certain age, our hormones decrease, while this thing called superoxide dismutase, also decreases and disappears.
Catharine Arnston 51:36
And I think this is what is a main factor because when your mitochondria are damaged, you are not getting the protection, that you used to have free radical damage to the mitochondria. And because they control all the aging, all the disease, all the health issues, all the cellular energy. And when you have less cellular energy, you can't recover from illness, you can't recover from anything, you can't live optimally. So it's pretty cool that you know, spirulina has everything that you need, including that superoxide dismutase, and at least ours does. The other thing you could use is frozen spirulina. Because again, it has not been exposed to high heat, but it's messy, expensive, doesn't travel well expires quickly. And you have to eat it, at least with ours. You can swallow it if you don't like the flavor.
Dana Frost 52:20
That's what I was gonna say I used to, I used to use frozen spirulina. So one curiosity I have is, and I'm just so curious about, you know, how life on earth has evolved. Because if we go back, you know, 150 years, we're really kind of talking about the modern human. And what you're saying is true. But if you go way, way back millennium, humans lived longer. And so is it because I mean, I'm just curious, is it because there was a stronger connection to the spirulina, there wasn't, you know, just naturally on the planet, there wasn't as much of an exposure to the modern day toxins that we have kind of curious about that. Well,
Catharine Arnston 52:59
we didn't live longer, ever until about 150 years ago, when shown that most people died around 30. And I've got some evolutionary studies about that. The Aztecs in Mexico 250 years ago, or 400 years ago, whenever they lived on spirulina, they had big ponds have spirulina, that was their main food, and then the Spanish conquered them. And they thought that the, these big ponds were just swamps, they drain them all. And that's when the Aztecs started getting sick. And those Spanish conquered them because they didn't have their strength. They didn't have their health back anymore. So it's an interesting sort of historical relevance to the spirulina.
Catharine Arnston 53:39
When people were, you know, as they started using eating more fish, of course, there was omega three in the fish, which came from the different kinds of algae, we cultivate spirulina, chlorella, we are company and other companies all around the world, because I don't know why those two were selected, but they were 60 years ago, and the industry kept growing. Whenever someone ever asked me who's my mentor, I say Mother Nature, these foods were provided to us for a reason. And I want to tell you one more cool thing about spirulina. Because again, it's very powerful because when you have healthy mitochondria, this is going to protect you from heart disease. And we work with a lot of heart surgeons, because everybody they they all know about Super oxidation because they've read all the same papers I have. It's just you the consumer is not aware of them.
Catharine Arnston 54:26
So superoxide dismutase is the number one for protecting your heart. There's other reasons why spirulina helps protect your heart, but that blue pigment that I mentioned earlier, called phi cosine, and well guess what? It's proven to kill cancer cells. Here's an example of a scientific paper. They took cancer cells and dyed them purple and put them in a petri dish. And then they put some fire cosine and the blue pigment from spirulina into the petri dish and for 24 hours, they did some photography in cancer cells, and 24 hours later, almost gone. And I found out that more One of our spirulina tablets had 4000 times more phi cosine than they used an experiment. But FICO Sinan is also deactivated by heat. So once again, if you're going to be using less expensive algae or not, it's if it's been exposed to high heat, it deactivates that FICO sign. And so you're not getting the cancer prevention capabilities.
Catharine Arnston 55:20
And, you know, I can walk you through, you know, how it actually does it is it does something with something called the cytochrome c molecule, but that's probably too geeky for you to want to know. The other thing that blue, the blue does bluefly cosign and is it's proven to stop the growth of blood vessels to cancers or, or tumors. And there's an organization a nonprofit called ngo.org. And it's run by Dr. William Lee Li. And he's been running this nonprofit for 2025 years. It's funded by Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, all the other bills, but they called us to be at their conference third global conference a few years ago, because they said, Did you know your spirulina has five cosine in it and it stops blood vessels from going into cancer cells? So there's, there's a million different things that the nutrients do if the spirulina has been grown carefully, and its nutrients preserved? I can't emphasize that enough.
Catharine Arnston 56:13
Because it's like, you know, why would you cheat yourself by giving getting a cheaper version and missing 90% of the real value? And yes, people know that spirulina gives you energy and it satisfies your hunger, but it has many more preventative health issues, capabilities because of the nutrients. So it's not the spirulina that's doing it. It's the nutrients that are in the spirulina, that can't be found anywhere else by cosine and doesn't exist in any other food anywhere else in the universe is only in spirulina. So isn't that fascinating? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Mother Nature. She has she's got her back. But we, you know, the trouble of algae is in like, we were at the Biohacking Conference, and a lot of biohacking stuff is about devices. And I'm all about red light therapy.
Catharine Arnston 56:58
And I have some of my own and I'm very big on on it, cryo therapy, we're big supporter, hyperbaric chambers, all of those things are fantastic. And they all IV drips, and they're all up leveled, which means you get better, longer, deeper results when you pair them with algae but, but it's expensive to go to those facilities and they take you out out of your way they take you know, it's two hours to get yourself there. And then you do your drip or whatever. With algae, it's like one second down the hatch, you're done. And it's affordable at $1 a day every single person in the world should be taking this, it I feel it is the most important thing that you can do for yourself, for your children, for your family, to protect your health to nourish your health, to live optimally. And with an almost with no effort. If you can swallow water, you can get the nourishment you need in seconds.
Catharine Arnston 57:50
This is the key. Remember, I tried for a year to try to get to more people more vegetables, but it was just too much work. And guys don't like vegetables. Kids don't like vegetables. Mothers, give your children half a tablet or a tablet for their age of their six, give them three a day. If they're eight give them for a day. The kids love them. They love to chew them because it turns their tongues green. And they think that's really funny. So, and pets, your pets are gonna go crazy over this stuff. And I'd say pets know more about the about stuff. They're smarter than we are. But I want to show you one last slide because this will hopefully confirm for you everything why algae is so helpful for your mitochondria because your mitochondria determine everything to do with your health. So as I mentioned, spirulina, which is a sign of bacteria, was the first life on Earth almost 4 billion years ago. And it was what's called an anaerobic cell, which means it's a cell that did best without oxygen. And of course, there wasn't oxygen on Earth.
Catharine Arnston 58:47
So nobody knows why this still started growing, but it did. And then after a billion years, there was a lot of oxygen on earth because they the little cell made ATP and a byproduct is oxygen. Now, a billion years later, there's all this oxygen and the little cell is an anaerobic cell. It wasn't doing so well. Larger cells that were aerobic started growing, but they didn't generate ATP as well. So I tell people, I can imagine the conversation between the big cell to the little cell, the big cell says a little guy, a little guy. So you're struggling there with all his oxygen. How about we protect you from the oxygen, you come and make ATP for us? Because we're not doing so well on that. And that's affected. The conversation may not have happened, but that's basically what happened. So the original cyanobacteria, which was by itself, got absorbed by the bigger aerobic cell, but instead of eating it, it coexisted and became mitochondria. Cyanobacteria became mitochondria. Pretty crazy, right?
Catharine Arnston 59:44
But that's why there's that inner cell membrane and your mitochondria. The original cell membrane didn't disappear. It just got covered by a lipid membrane. And that's why there's no porins to because it's not a traditional cell wall and that's why Everything that's in the algae can get into the mitochondria because their family. Another example, little cell by itself gets absorbed by this big cell, and they coexist. Spirulina and Mir mitochondria are family, they are virtually identical. And it's all documented in something called endosymbiotic theory. It was a theory that was developed in the 60s, by a female scientist at MIT. She was laughed at she was ridiculed for 10 years by all her peers, typical right? And then they realized she was right. So this is the accepted evolution of your mitochondria. It came from sino bacteria. And spirulina is a sign all bacteria. I discovered this about almost two years ago, I felt like I'd won the lottery or is Are you kidding me? Because the thing was, it's so exciting to see all these great things on on functional medicine and, and longevity and, but people are in their silos.
Catharine Arnston 1:01:00
There's there's a silo for metabolic health. There's a silo for cellular health, there's a silo for plant plant evolution, but but my perspective comes from algae's perspective. And as I was researching algae, as I learned about, well, it does that for mitochondrial health. What does that for cellular health? What does that for metabolic health. So I don't think anybody has ever put that connected the dots like I did. And here I am just this regular gal. Somebody called me though the LG undulate recently, but I decided to say I call myself a citizen scientist, and I encourage everyone to consider themselves citizen scientists because the science is there. It does take a lot of work. It's taking me 30, almost now 14 years to dig through it to find these little pearls is when I discovered that cyanobacteria evolved into mitochondria was like, Well, that's it that explains everything as far as I'm concerned. And it's so effortless.
Catharine Arnston 1:01:56
So back to the shiny object and all the biohacking devices. were so in love with the fancy new exotic, big names scientists or big fancy devices. And algae just isn't sexy. It's so old. It's like there's Why would you even look at it, which is what I had to do, I went and that's why I designed our packaging to make it really friendly and give it more pop because I can't help anyone until I can get this algae into them. But we get emails every day from people whose cancer has gone into remission. We had one the other day from an 85 year old woman who said she was incontinent, couldn't sleep didn't have any energy. Within days of taking the two algae, her energy returned.
Catharine Arnston 1:02:38
She says today I went to pick up my grandson from his basketball game I went to visit my friend in the nursing home, I went through a three mile walk. I cleaned up my garage, I started cleaning painting my kitchen. Oh, and by five o'clock, I decided to maybe I'd have dinner because she only had 30 tablets. Previous to that and she says my grocery bill has plummeted. Because she's not hungry. She's completely nourished. The trouble when you go on diets, is you eat less than you eat fewer choices. So you get cravings and you're hungry. Never happens with spirulina, it just nourishes you satisfies your hunger cut your cravings. It's like I said, it's Mother Nature's ozempic. So think of it. As I said at the very beginning, this is your trust fund. This is your nutritional trust fund. This is your health insurance. This is your nutritional insurance. I couldn't imagine a day without taking both algae honestly, it just and because it's effortless. Swallow it chew it doesn't matter what you do to put it on your salad if you'd like to taste mix it with a trail mix. Give it to your kids, there's no in drug interactions, no contraindications, nothing. It's crazy.
Dana Frost 1:03:44
I can tell you, everyone because this will be airing in December. Everyone on my Christmas list is getting energy gets. It's like it's decided it's easy shopping.
Catharine Arnston 1:03:55
Once one size fits. All right. I really
Dana Frost 1:03:59
appreciate the depth of information like taking it all the way back to this discovery. And this connection that spirulina you know, is the last family member of the mitochondria. And mitochondria. Isn't efficient. Active activated? Yeah, you just just
Catharine Arnston 1:04:19
use just die. Nothing. It's like having a 20 watt bulb instead of 100 watt bulb. It just doesn't nothing in your work body works and, and it's all proven in science. Like I said, it's just endless a munch. There's a book called The brain energy. It's a great book. He's a psychiatrist at the medical school of Harvard. And his entire book is about how all brain issues depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder are because of damaged mitochondria. And he's completely right because when you heal the mitochondria with spirulina, your brain energy is going to come back and when your brain is working better, everything works better. because it's connected by the something called the vagal nerve, to your gut. So try to you can get this on Amazon brain energy, I really encourage you to check it out.
Dana Frost 1:05:09
This has been a double episode, which I think is wonderful, I think that the community is going to be listening to every word, I do want to ask you what I ask all my guests and that is, what does feeling younger, while growing older mean to you?
Catharine Arnston 1:05:26
I think feeling younger is just feeling that you can do anything, and that you get joy from everything. It's when you are your health starts to suffer, or you feel limitations by what society thinks you should do at your age. And I went through that emotionally myself when I got my Medicare card. I thought, I'm not old. But I felt old for about a year and I that screw it. I'm not old. Why should society tell me I'm old, I don't feel old, I don't behave old. I don't look old. And my joy is exactly what I'm doing now. Because I have found out how to be myself and feel good about it and have the energy and the interest and the passion for living.
Catharine Arnston 1:06:12
You want to find your passion for living, whatever it is, whether it's playing pickleball, or in my case, helping people be healthy by learning the how easy it can be with algae. That is the reason I'm here. So I'm so grateful that I found this and it was only by helping my sister. I mean, I wasn't planning on starting a company. I just wanted to help my sister and then I want to help more people and on and on it goes so so don't let anyone steal your joy. If you want to go dancing at midnight at a club with 18 year olds knock yourself out. Because they don't care. I started realizing people actually don't care. I used to think that they cared they don't. They're so wrapped up in their own stuff. So live large and live well.
Dana Frost 1:06:55
Yeah, I have to say, Catherine, everything that you just said it really speaks to we've just finished on the podcast, a six part series on Dr. Gladys McGarry his book six secrets to happiness and longevity. She's 102 year old physician who's still alive. And the first secret is find your juice. And then do it. But then what you said, you know, you started this journey, Katherine by helping your sister. And that's another one of the secrets is being of service in the arena that really is related to your juice. So I just made making that connection for the listeners, because I think that it's a great follow up to the six weeks that we've been talking about this. Yeah, it's for happiness and longevity. And
Catharine Arnston 1:07:39
I'll just wait one more thing, comment is that you won't find your juice. If you're so busy. I just wanted to help my sister and this little thing in the back of my head. You know, once I learned a lot about this plant based nutrition stuff said, keep going, keep going. And I kept arguing the universe No, I don't know any science pick somebody else. Now it gets a keep going. So okay, I'll go. And I just took it one day at a time. And but I was I will tell you I have been terrified. I've been doing this now for 13 years. For the first 12 years, I was terrified every single day that I was not going to get to the point where I could help people understand what this is. And now I think I'm making some progress. I'm starting to relax and actually starting to enjoy it. But i i If I was so busy worried because people my friends thought I was crazy. My family thought I was crazy, even though it started with my family. But I had to be quiet and listen to my inner voice. And you can only hear it when you strip away everything else. So please just give yourself that gift of self love because we all have it. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. And we you know, we want to have joy. We're here for joy.
Dana Frost 1:08:57
Yeah, that's so beautiful. Catherine, thank you so much for sharing your deep well of knowledge and your inspiration and your wisdom with us. Thank you. Yes,
Catharine Arnston 1:09:07
and I just want to let people know if you want to get some of the spirulina, chlorella, come to visit us at our website, energybits.com e n e r GYBIT s and we have a 20% discount code Vitally You all one word works on everything. And just remember, again, the spirulina is really the brain health and the mitochondria health and the chlorella is gut health and detox. And with the 20% discount code, it brings it down to 100 and change. And it's only $1 a day if you take 10 tablets a day and if you're not ready for the big bags, just go to Amazon and buy a little pouch for $6. Try it out and make sure that's what it's doing what you want it to do and then come back to the website so so don't panic but do come and visit us we also write a BIG BLOG energy at energy bits.com every month so you'll you'll come and learn a lot for sure.
Dana Frost 1:09:59
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, there's so much that we can learn from you. So thank you so much and I will put all of the information on your website the Vitally You code that will all be in the show notes so it'll be really easy for people. I'm going to be doing my Christmas shopping on site so much for making that easy for me.
Catharine Arnston 1:10:17
Yes, well, you should use your discount code to
Dana Frost 1:10:21
know for sure so thank you, Catherine.
Catharine Arnston 1:10:23
You're very welcome. Thank you for everything you're doing. I'm so glad we met and let's stay in touch. Yes,
Dana Frost 1:10:26
absolutely. Don't forget to take advantage of Catherine's 20% off with the code vitallyyou it will be in the show notes. Thank you for joining us this week for the vital you podcast you know the routine if you are enjoying these episodes if you are Joe enjoying Vitally You Feeling Younger, Growing Older, please like it, subscribe, download, share it with your friends and review it I'm still pushing for 100 reviews and I'm on number 63 I will be back next week for another solo episode and until then, I am streaming love from my heart to yours.