Spirulina is most effective when used in a natural food diet as one part of a personal strategy for self-care. This strategy embraces recommendations by the National Academy of Science, the National Cancer Institute and the American Heart Association. They call for more whole grains and vegetables and less fat, salt and sugar.

Following these guidelines will lower the risks of cancer, heart and degenerative diseases.

• How to use Spirulina powder and tablets.
• Using spirulina for natural weight control.
• Emphasize a natural food diet.
• Three day meal plan for a lighter diet.
• Reducing cholesterol.
• Reducing PMS.
• Lowering risk of cancer.
• Ideal for fasting and for body cleansing programs.
• Energy and endurance for athletes and body builders.
• Great for children and mothers.
• Easy-to-digest for older people on restricted diets.
• Anti-aging strategy.
• Recovery the morning after.
• The best storage and survival food.
  

Versatile powder for green energy drinks
100% pure powder is a uniformly dark green or blue-green color and has no other colored particles. Your body feels energy within minutes because the powder is naturally digestible. It provides quick energy and nourishment between meals or in place of a meal. Some have asked whether you can take too much. It is a perfectly safe natural food. Some people take two tablespoons or more each day.

The most popular way to enjoy it at home is to add it to your favorite fruit or vegetable juice in a blender. Start with one teaspoon (5 grams) and add flavors or spices to suit your taste. Later on you can increase the amount. Many regular users take one heaping tablespoon (10 grams) per drink. Try out our successful green smoothie recipes!

Hand held micro mixers are handy for mixing powder directly in a glass of water or juice. Easier to clean up than a big blender. Micro mixers use two batteries, and you can carry one with you in a purse or briefcase. Now you can take powder on the road, use it at work, or even in a hotel room. No longer do these circumstances keep you from your healthy green drink.
3.2. Author with a morning smoothie in a blender.

Helpful hints:
Don't stick a wet spoon in your spirulina bottle or put a spoonful directly into liquid. Water will stick the powder on your spoon. Add it to liquid slowly while stirring. Spirulina will keep well if handled properly. The dry powder absorbs water from the air if you leave it open, so keep the bottle tightly sealed when not in use. You don't need to refrigerate it, but do keep in a cool, dry, dark place.

Add a teaspoon to a tablespoon to dishes to enhance nutritional content. It's tasty in soups, salads, pasta, breads and taboulie. Even a little will give food a dark green color. With recipes that require cooking, heat spirulina as little as possible. Like many natural foods, heat can damage its sensitive nutrients. Creative recipes are found in Spirulina, The Whole Food Revolution by Larry Switzer1 and The Spirulina Cookbook by Sonia Beasley.2

Morning Smoothie: An instant breakfast to start your day
Blend 1 tablespoon spirulina in 2 cups of tropical blend juice (or orange, apple or pineapple juice). Add a fresh fruit (banana, orange, peach, pear, apple, pineapple) or berries. Options: almonds or sunflower seeds or flavors such as vanilla or lime to suit your taste. For a thicker smoothie, use more fresh fruit, less juice. (Mix well in a blender. Makes 2 servings).

Veggie Cocktail: A mid afternoon vegetable pick up
Blend one tablespoon spirulina in 2 cups of vegetable juice (or carrot or tomato juice). For options add whole vegetables, herbs (parsley, dill weed) or spices (cayenne, horseradish) to suit your taste. (Mix well in a blender. Makes 2 servings).

Convenient tablets and capsules
Quality tablets can be made without sugar, starch, fillers, animal parts, preservatives, stabilizers, colors, coatings, and with only a minimum of vegetable tableting agents. Made in this way, the color of the tablet should be a uniform dark green without light colored spots or specks. Capsules should also be free of excess fillers or additives, and now, vegetable capsules are available.

Many bottles provide nutritional information for a six tablet serving (3 grams), but you can take more if you like. Often, people take 10, 15 or 20 tablets or capsules a day. Twenty 500 mg tablets are equal to a heaping tablespoon of powder (10 grams).

Tablets deliver the same benefits as powder, but digestion takes about an hour. For faster results, some people chew or dissolve the tablets in the mouth. Because it is a natural whole food, you can take tablets by themselves between meals.

If you are using spirulina to balance your diet and help eat lighter meals, take tablets or capsules an hour before you eat. If there is a time of day when your energy runs low, take some tablets and see how your body feels one or two hours later. Both tablets and capsules are helpful with water after coffee or alcohol.

The following self-care programs show how people use spirulina to transform their health and vitality. It's best to examine your dietary habits and eliminate high fat, high meat, high sugar and junk food diets. You will notice spirulina is more effective as part of a lighter, fresher, more natural diet. These recommendations follow dietary programs advocated by leading medical experts for reducing weight, cholesterol and pre-menstrual stress, and for enjoying a longer, healthier life.

At the same time, researchers say increased stress from environmental pollutants and lifestyle demands have increased our dietary requirements for certain essential nutrients. As a result, many of us do not trust the quality of our foods. Twenty years ago only health food consumers used nutritional supplements. Today, at least some supplements are used by almost everyone.

The problem with today's modern diet
Our modern diet is driven by the appetites generated by consumer advertising. Many people are sold on fast convenience foods - usually rich in fats, carbohydrates and sugar, and low in natural vegetables and fiber. These foods typically increase body weight, raise cholesterol levels, and worsen digestive and colon problems in later years. We often eat food in the wrong combinations, or out of compulsion or nervousness, and do not heed our true appetite signals.

Many conventionally grown and over-processed foods loaded with chemicals have low nutritional value, especially low in essential trace elements. The human digestive system, when overloaded with fatty non-nutritious foods, doesn't assimilate enough quality nutrients. Under these conditions, the body is continually starving for more nutrients, triggering appetite and compulsive overeating. Without exercise, extra calories stay on as fat. Overweight people often remain trapped in this cycle, a difficult one to break.

Crash diets, fad diets and drug diets do not work
Sudden weight loss with diet drugs or crash diets is very stressful and may have adverse side effects. Research shows common diet drugs containing phenylpropanalomine (PPA) may be addicting and have dangerous side effects on the kidneys and heart. Weight loss from drug diets is often temporary, and when the weight returns, the percentage of fat to body weight is higher than before dieting. This vicious cycle continues because the real problem is neglected Ð improper diet and its accompanying reinforcing attitudes.

Natural weight control
A more natural diet satisfies hunger because it satisfies the body's real hunger for nutrition. Spirulina is a very concentrated natural food. As part of a wholesome natural food diet suggested in the following pages, it can help restore natural body weight. Many people use it along with a low carbohydrate diet and exercise to eat lighter meals and avoid fattening snacks.

Take a heaping teaspoon of powder (about 5 grams), or at least 6 tablets one hour before meals or snack breaks. You know when you're going to be hungry, so plan ahead. Tablets take a little more time to be assimilated than the powder.

This green superfood can help satisfy a body's appetite. It is not an appetite suppressant in any way, and contains no drugs or chemicals that trick the body. It is simply concentrated, easily digested natural nutrition. Especially important to dieters, it is rich in iron, often found deficient in women on low calorie diets. One resource book written on this subject is The Spirulina Diet by Dr. Saundra Howard.3

At mealtimes, eat a balanced diet of natural foods, minimizing high calorie fat foods. Exercise daily to burn off calories and fat deposits, and to maintain a toned body. Your goal should be to lose weight slowly while you are reprogramming your eating habits. Both must happen together for long term success. This way you can graduate from the destructive cycles of food binging, crash diets and diet drugs.

Because metabolism and biochemistry are different for each person, weight loss results may differ. Track your weight over several weeks. If you want to strengthen your program, increase the amount of spirulina slowly in order to eat lighter meals. It is important to eat regular nutritious meals.

Slow but steady weight loss is desirable. Often dieters are able to stabilize their body weight at a more ideal lower level. Spirulina can help us remember the wisdom of a natural diet. Most of all, it helps us to lighten up, and provides the energy to make the switch from a bulky unhealthy diet to lighter, more powerful nutrient rich foods.

Here are dietary suggestions to eat lighter, low-calorie foods, get plenty of exercise, and supplement your diet with spirulina for extra nutritional support.

Switch to natural foods.
Add more of these fresh, natural, high fiber, low fat foods to your diet. They provide the nutrition you need. Prepare foods simply, without adding sugar and with a minimum of oil, butter and salt. Natural herbs and spices can enhance the flavor.

Fresh fruits, vegetables and legumes contain natural vitamins and minerals. Canned or frozen foods are often loaded with sugar, salt and preservatives.

Whole grain breads and cereals provide excellent nutrition and a source of natural fiber, important for digestion and regularity. Once you use whole grain foods, you may find white bread, polished rice and sugary cereals less appealing.

Low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheeses have lower calories. Add fresh fruit to plain yogurt and cottage cheese, and avoid the excess sugar in flavored products. Use naturally aged cheese rather than processed cheese spreads.

Fresh fish and fowl are good sources of lean protein. Look for chicken and turkey that is not grown on factory farms, where birds are pumped with antibiotics and drugs to prolong their lives in unhealthy conditions. Avoid toxic foods.

Juices, herbal teas, mineral water and fresh water are healthy liquids. Use beverages made from natural ingredients free of added chemicals, flavors, colors, and sugars.

Exercise for more energy.
Regular exercise is an important part of any weight loss program. Find several activities you enjoy regularly. It might be aerobics, tennis, jogging, swimming, bicycling or brisk walking. Drink lots of fresh clean water. Breathe deeply and oxygenate your entire body. Regular exercise will give you a more positive outlook towards life.

For a natural dietary program to lose weight, keep your total calories below 1100 calories per day with meals like those below. As much as possible use fresh, organically-grown produce to minimize intake of pesticides and herbicides.

Day One

Breakfast: 1 egg, 1/2 broiled tomato with basil, 1 slice whole wheat toast, 1 pat butter, grain coffee or herbal tea.
Lunch: (6-10 spirulina tablets 1 hour before) 1 small tossed green salad, 2 tbsp. lo-cal dressing, 4 oz. sauteed lean fresh fish, 1/2 cup fresh green beans, 1 tbsp. slivered almonds, herbal tea, mineral water.
Dinner: 2 lean pieces tarragon chicken, 1/2 cup steamed brown rice, 1/2 cup steamed broccoli, herbal tea.

Day Two

Breakfast: 1 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup low-fat milk, 1 tbsp. raisins, 1 bran muffin, 1 pat butter, grain coffee or herbal tea.
Lunch: (6-10 spirulina tablets 1 hour before) 3 oz. water-packed tuna sandwich on whole wheat with alfalfa sprouts, lettuce and tomato, 1 cup homemade minestrone soup, herbal tea or 6 oz. low-fat milk.
Dinner: 1 green pepper stuffed with brown rice, 1 steamed ear of corn, 1/2 fresh apple, iced herbal tea, mineral water.

Day Three

Breakfast: 6 oz. orange juice, 1 cup bran cereal, 1/2 cup low-fat milk, 1/2 sliced banana, wheat toast, 1 pat butter, grain coffee.
Lunch: 1 cup gazpacho soup, 1 cup taboulie salad, 4 cherry tomatoes, 4 cucumber slices, celery sticks, iced herb tea.
Dinner: (6-10 spirulina tablets 1 hour before) 1 spinach salad, 2 tbsp. lo-cal dressing, 4 oz. baked red snapper with lemon and parsley, 1/2 cup steamed zucchini, 2 crackers, mineral water.