Interview with Catherine Arnston of Energy Bits

Well, I am so excited to talk to my guest today, Catherine Arnston, the founder and CEO of Energy Bits. Catherine is an expert. I mean, she has the Ph.D. on algae, algae for wellness, nutrition, beauty, biohacking, mitochondria and longevity. She is a thought leader, a seasoned corporate executive, an experienced entrepreneur and a sought after speaker. She's highly, highly qualified, has a ton of degrees, and like myself, is a board certified health coach. We both went to IIN. Yay. Yay. And Catherine's journey into this world of algae began in 2008 when her younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and advised by her oncologist. This blew me away that it was in Canada. Well, that's why. Her oncologist suggested an alkaline diet, and this led you to leave your corporate career and, you know, end up found founding this amazing company. You and I have a lot of things in common. I also had a family member who's my mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. And unlike your sister, she did not have this forward thinking oncologist who prescribed an alkaline diet. This is where I'd like to start, Catherine, because, you know, alkalinity is is is the basis really for for this conversation. So can you can you explain what alkalinity is and what's important about it? Sure. Well, so just like we know that our body temperature needs to be at 78.6 to maintain health or a range around there. There's another number, the pH of your cells. This is the potential for hydrogen. And the range is from zero to 14. Zero is acidic and 14 is alkaline. And algae is the most alkaline food in the world. And it's it's sits at around, I think, 12. There is no food that's more alkaline than that. So the situation is this. There's a scientist back in the four German scientists back in the 40s who won a Nobel Prize for discovering this. His name is Otto Warburg. He discovered that cancer can only exist in an acidic environment. And your cells to be maintain health need to be right smack dab in that middle of the acidity to alkalinity range. It's seven point one. Now your blood, which is needs to be seven point three four. So it's a little more alkaline. Different parts of your body's like your stomach lining needs to be very acidic to to digest food. But for your cells, seven point one. Now, when there's seven point one, which is slightly alkaline, that means that there's sufficient oxygen being available to the cell for metabolic health, for exchanging ions, for processing communications. So it's it's it's like when you get the right radio station, when you're on dial, you can hear what you're what you need to hear when your cells are slightly alkaline, everything works properly. But when you're so when your cells start getting more acidic and that happens because of our diet, that could be acidic foods like dairy, animal protein, any processed foods, sugar. Those are all acidic. And so that changes the acidity of your blood and of your cells. Emotions cause a effect of you're releasing cortisone and that's acidic. Any illnesses are acidic. And when your cells are slightly acidic, that means there's less oxygen in there in the cell. They are not they do not have the right balance of nutrients. Probably what happens is they will not. Probably what happens is your cell membrane starts become inflamed. And when that happens, then the cell membrane becomes damaged, which means that it's not very porous, which prevents nutrients from getting in and toxins to get out. So it's a very slippery slope as your cells become more acidic. They gather more bacteria. They attract things like cancer. They stop communicating. And it's a it's just a welcome mat for disease. It all and on your blood, when your your blood needs to be, as I mentioned, seven point three four. Now, your body is so intelligent when you eat acidic food like sugar and dairy and processed foods. Your body is so intelligent because it would know that if it let that acidic food change its own acidity, you would die. You would literally die immediately. So what it does is it constantly pulls minerals, which are alkaline, calcium, magnesium, potassium out of your bones and out of your cells and out of your organs to instantly bring back that acidity to its range to keep it more alkaline. But the problem is when that happens over and over and over again, that is a is a strain on your immune system. And that's why my sister's oncologist didn't want that strain because my sister did go through chemo and she and you were going through chemo. You need the strongest immune system possible. So by having an alkaline diet, which was primarily a plant based diet because of the chlorophyll and the phytonutrients that are alkaline, she was helping her at least keep the tip, the balance towards the right side of alkalinity so that it would not deplete her body of vital minerals that maintain that alkaline balance. So and I'm so grateful. I mean, I'm so lucky that she was in Canada because we I'm Canadian and I live in Boston, but we have a different health care system up there. And it's not quite as controlled by the pharmaceutical industry as it is here in America. And that's the only reason I can determine why this kind of nutritional advice was given to her. Although I will point out at the time I was a corporate executive, I knew nothing about nutrition. So anyone who's listening, if you don't have any nutrition background, that's OK. I didn't either. I am completely self-taught. I mean, I have lots of degrees, but none of them were in biochemistry or plant biology or anything remotely science. So but I have educated myself by reading probably two to three thousand NIH articles and about twenty five to thirty books or more. So I just assure you that you can learn how to protect your health from people like myself who are eager to share. I turns out I'm quite I am. She's scientific officer of our company, and I love digging into the science and making it easy for you to understand. And as you'll see, I've got some really great teaching materials that make it almost entertaining, because what I've learned, and I'm sure, Christina, you'll agree, people don't know no more about how their cell phone works than how their body works. It's true. And once you know how, you know, you know, I'm a I'm a baby boomer. And, you know, trust me, technology is not my friend. But once someone shows me, you know, I can I can get in with the groove. And so once someone shows you what your body needs and how to how to give it what it needs with easy things like algae tablets that we're going to be talking about today, then you're going to start to find that being healthy and having, you know, aiming towards longevity without any diseases or brain fog or fatigue is possible. So I'm here to help make it easy for people, easy and safe. And when I tell you about algae, you're going to. Yeah. Tell us about algae specifically, because, you know, broccoli sprout powder and some other, you know, wheatgrass, some of these, you know, green superfoods get a lot of attention. But tell us about the benefits of algae. Yeah. What's so fascinating about it? Well, I'll give you a little bit of history first so you understand what algae is for the context. So it's first algae was the first life on Earth almost four billion years ago. And we'll get to that in a minute, because it's very important when it comes to mitochondria health. But I'm not going to I'm not going to give you any spoilers on that. And it's it's everywhere. It's in the oceans, the lakes, the rivers and streams, your swimming pool, your aquarium. And there's there's macroalgae, which is also known as seaweed. That's the big stringy stuff that washes up on shore. It's called seaweed because it comes from the sea. We're going to talk about microalgae, which is called microalgae because it's microscopic in size and it is everywhere. Seaweed is only in the sea. Microalgae is everywhere. Now, the two and there's tens of thousands of strange strains. There's two types that are harvested as food crops. And those are the two we're going to talk about today. Spirulina and chlorella. Now, first of all, you might be surprised to know that algae is a food. It's not a supplement. And you can't show me a supplement farm, but I'm showing you some algae farms. This one's a spirulina farm and this one is a chlorella farm. So and it's they're grown in fresh water. So even though algae does exist in the ocean, the algae that we sell or that you buy from Whole Foods or Amazon is all grown in freshwater farms. So hydroponic, hydroponic. So we happen to be known for having the highest quality algae because it's in triple filtered spring water and all that stuff. But number one, algae is a food crop and it's grown. It's a multibillion dollar in the United States is the farm in the ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine percent of it is grown in Asia. So that's Japan, China, India, Taiwan, Korea. Virtually none of it is grown in America, although my plan is to grow it here. But it's as big as the beef industry is in here. It's enormous. That's why I tell people algae isn't new. It's just new to you. And it stuns me that it hasn't taken off here. It's been sold here for 50 years, but people take it. They're not sure why. They don't know what it does. And but in Asia, they certainly know a lot about it. And I'm going to show you another production pitch. So we we grow it in freshwater, then we air dry it again. This is very important. We dry air dryers without high heat. Everybody else uses high heat, which kills enzymes. This is going to be very important when we talk about mitochondria, because there is an enzyme called superoxide dismutase. I know it's a mouthful. Also called S.O.D. that protects your mitochondria better. Well, it's only the only one that really protects them. But anyways, we dry it into a powder without heat. So our enzymes are alive and well. And then we just press them into little tablets that we call bits because they're bits of nutrition. They're about the size of a baby aspirin. Here's this is spirulina. It's a blue green algae. So pretty. And this is chlorella, which is a green algae. See, look, I mean, I mean, we're wearing green to honor my my algae. So we call them bits of nutrition. Why? Because they are so nutrient dense. Each one of these tablets has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables. So if you don't like vegetables, you don't have time to eat them. You have trouble digesting them or you're not available. You're traveling. You can't get access to them. This is your answer. Arguments of the tinder tables are over. You never have to eat vegetables again if you don't want to because you'll get 40 vitamins and minerals and all the chlorophyll that you need. And the reason I could come up with that calculation is because we have a quote from NASA that says one gram of algae has the same nutrition as a thousand grams of fruits or vegetables, one to a thousand. And the reason why it can be so concentrated is because microalgae, which is minuscule, you can get a million of these on the head of a pin. So when you start thinking about the concentration level, it's it's almost mind boggling. So there are two, two algaes, blue, green algae spirulina, and it has two pigments. That's why it's called a blue green algae. The blue one, the blue pigment has healing properties. It's called phycocyanin, also a big word that phycocyanin has been shown to stop the growth of blood vessels to tumors. It has what's called anti angiogenesis properties. But basically, spirulina is known for energizing. It energizes you because it has the highest protein in the world. It has three times the amount of protein as steak, and it has loaded with B vitamins that convert the protein into energy. And is it a bio available as a steak? Versatily, it is virtually 99 percent bioavailable. And and here's why. And I'm going to show you why. Number one, the protein and algae is all in amino acids, so it gets absorbed instantly. By the way, it has 18 of the 20 aminos and it has all nine that your body can't make. So it's a complete protein. Now, when you eat animal protein, it's all bound up and it can take up to three days for your body to if you have the factors and cofactors to get access to it, to get to the minos. Collagen is in bound up in smaller groups called peptides. But algae has individual aminos. So there's no work for your body to do at all. The other reason why it is such high bioavailability is spirulina is a bacteria, a cyanobacteria. This will be important, too, when we get to mitochondria. The reason why that's important to know for the absorption rate is that it has no cellulose wall because it's a bacteria. Nothing for your body to have to break down to get access to all the aminos, B vitamins. It's loaded with boron, which help with your synapses and thought. It has essential fatty acids like omega three. It's a vasodilator, which releases nitric oxide to open up your blood vessels. It has all the all the athletes take this, don't they? It's fantastic for energizing your body, your muscles, your brain. People use it. We feel five NHL teams, Olympic teams, ultra runners. We have ultra runners that go 100 miles and they run throughout the night with just the spirulina and water. So it's now the energy you get won't be crazy. It's it's just from nutrition. There's no chemicals, caffeine, only one calorie per tablet, and there's no carbs. So anyone who's listening, those of you who are doing intermittent fasting, which I strongly recommend, it's terrific. It doesn't take you out of ketosis. It has and it does not affect your glucose. So great for diabetics as well. Pre diabetics, insulin resistance. I was just on a insulin resistance summit would be launched in about a month or so. But high protein, zero carbs, zero carbs. This is the answer for keto. Yes, there's a lot of people on keto don't want to eat vegetables because of the carbs, but you're cheating yourself of the chlorophyll. Absolutely cheating. Yes. Yourself. And then you smell bad, too, because that's if your pH balance is off whack and you're too acidic, you're not going to smell very good. Yeah, so I think of these nutrients as very also just deodorizing and beautifying. Yes, absolutely. Well, and we'll talk about chlorella in a minute, and it has the highest chlorophyll in the world. And also when you're on keto, very often you get constipated and chlorella stimulates peristalsis, which is also known as a bowel movement. And that's very interesting for my people who have digestive issues or constipation. And that's that's amazing to know. Yeah, that's better than taking, say, psyllium husk, anything or anything like that's going to stimulate the bowels. OK. Yeah. So spirulina, generally people take you can take as many as you want or as few as you want. We try to encourage people to take, you know, ten a day. Five was started. If you only want to take two to get going. Remember, each one of these tablets has the same nutrition as an entire plate of vegetables. So while I'm talking to you, I just had a plate of vegetables. No, no trip to the grocery store, no cleaning, no cooking, no eating, no arguments with kids, no arguments with, you know, significant others. And when you're traveling, it just doesn't get any easier. So so can I ask you, are these safe for kids? Oh, they're fantastic for kids. They in in Japan, if babies can't digest mother's breast milk, the only thing they found that keeps them alive is either spirulina or chlorella in water. And in fact, I'm the one that discovered that the nutrient profile, especially the amino acids in spirulina, is identical to mother's breast milk. Absolutely the same aminos, same proportions. And it has something called GLA, which is gamma linoic acid, which technically is a big as an omega six. But because it's not heated, it behaves like an omega three and reduces inflammation. And the and the only place that has more GLA than spirulina is mother's breast milk because the baby's brain doubles or triples in size after the first couple of years of growth. And this GLA is an important amino essential fatty acid for for brain development. Now, we all need brain development at any time of our life. So it's and it's great for ADHD. Do you have any kids or people that have ADHD or who are on the spectrum? Spirulina is your answer. It's unbelievable. And lots and lots of studies that address this and prove it. So high protein, zero sugar, high essential fatty acids. Great for great for brain health, mental. So even for cognitive decline, for aging parents or anything like that. And especially for cognitive decline, when we get to the mitochondria part, I'll give you a couple of little teasers. They're realizing scientists have now realized, you know, the last 10 years they've been talking about how all disease is related to inflammation. And they are correct. But 90 percent of that inflammation they have discovered is in the mitochondria. Well, every disease is a mitochondrial disease. So can you explain for anyone who is watching what are the mitochondria? Well, I can't get through chlorella first. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Tell us about the only when we were talking about brain health. I just want to point out that. And we'll get to this in a second. Mitochondria are in all of your cells and they are in the highest number of them are in the cells that require the highest amount of energy. And your brain cells, every single cell in your brain has two million mitochondria per cell. That's a pretty well hacked, right? I didn't know your fat cells, just as a comparison, only have 100 mitochondria per cell. Wow. So this is why they're realizing Alzheimer's dementia is all a mitochondria disease, because that that's where the greatest energy requirement is. And and when your mitochondria aren't functioning, your brain isn't functioning. So but I promise I'll get to that in a second. But we just covered spirulina. And I just want to do a quick overview of chlorella. Chlorella was developed on Earth a billion years after spirulina. It's a green algae. Spirulina is a blue green algae. Spirulina has the highest protein in the world. Chlorella has the highest chlorophyll in the world. You may say, well, it's so important about chlorophyll. And I'll show you a picture. This is the chemical composition of chlorophyll. This always gives me the chills. I know. I love this. It gives me goosebumps every time. Look at that. They're almost identical. Yeah, the difference is your blood has iron in the middle. And that's what carries oxygen. Chlorophyll builds your blood. Keto people who aren't eating greens, they need it. Algae. So everybody needs everybody needs to put green in their body to clean their blood. Everybody, whether they're keto or not. Exactly. Whether they're they they're doing any plan. Really doesn't matter. But we all know because this is what got me to algae. I taught plant based nutrition for about a year, and I found out that people said, well, yeah, we'd like to get all the benefits, but it's too much work. You know, vegetables are heavy to carry home from the grocery store. They take too long to clean to eat. So that's what led me to algae. I'm with you. I was a raw vegan in 2008. So I remember just slaving over preparing foods. And unfortunately, it was not good for my constitution because I ended up fracturing bones being plant based. But but I am a huge fan of greens no matter what, for this very reason, for this, you know, blood cleansing. And now there's so many more benefits that I didn't even know about. We're just we're just getting started. Yeah. Just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. So when you have healthy blood, you're going to have a healthy body. And, you know, even if you're eating greens, chlorella has 500 times more chlorophyll than arugula. It has a thousand times more chlorophyll than Chinese greens. There is nothing in the world with more chlorophyll than chlorella. That's why up until even World War two, if they ran out of blood for transfusions for the injured, they would give them liquid chlorophyll because they would heal just as fast. See that there's maybe about 30, 30 tablets. You could fill a 2000 square foot room with arugula and not even get half of the the chlorophyll that's right there in your hand. And you know how easy it is to take these? I'm going to take another one. I just had another plate of vegetables. How easy is that? This is fast food. You want fast food? This is it. That's food that's going to love you back. Yeah, that is food that's going to love. I'm chewing because I, you know, I eat them all the time, but most people swallow them, but they're totally. So how many how many of those bits do you eat in a day? Well, we recommend for people just for maintenance, five or 10 a day of each one. But better is 20. If you could, you know, I way more than that. But then, you know, I've been eating them and I and for 12 years, by the way. So and I'm 65 years old. I'd just like to mention. So I have the energy, a mental acuity. I would never know that. I would never, ever know that. Nobody, nobody ever does. Never, ever know that. I'm proof that this stuff works. I have no wrinkles. Beautiful skin. Yes. Botox, ladies. No Botox. So so yes, I'm going to start on a strict spirulina and chlorella regimen ASAP. Give your body in the cells what they need and they will feed everything else. Everything starts from its beauty. Beauty is an inside job. Yes. So is health. So I just want to show you one more thing about the chlorella. So I mentioned that it has very high chlorophyll. And one of it builds your blood, that chlorophyll. But it also heals your cell walls because it's a fat based pigment. Here's and here's proof. I put tablets of spirulina in water. See the beautiful blue color that dispersed evenly. And then over here is the chlorella with the chlorophyll. But it didn't disperse. It just clumped. I did this about 10 times until I had my epiphany. Check the science. And I was right. Chlorophyll is a fat based pigment. So when we're taking omega three and D and E for the healthy fats to build our heal our cell walls, because the key to health is the mitochondria. But you have to keep the cell walls permeable so that the nutrients can get in and the toxins can get out. And the chlorophyll is one of those healing a fat based nutrients. So I tell people, you know, when you look outside, if your windows are dirty, you can't see out and sunlight can't get in. Think of chlorophyll as window washers for your cell walls. They just keep everything clean. So everything can go in and out. And we're in homeostasis. So so that's really great about chlorophyll. One more thing about chlorella. Remember, I said spirulina was a bacteria with no cellulose wall. So it gets quickly absorbed. Chlorella, completely opposite, has the hardest cell wall in the plant kingdom. That cell hard cell wall attaches to toxins, lead, mercury, radiation, all the heavy metals, alcohol. Athletes use it after workouts, so it pulls out lactic acid. So it helps you recover from any kind of toxicity of any kind. And it will remove them. So you don't need activated charcoal. It's unbelievable. So it helps you recover. Real detox. Yes. Real detox. So we call our our chlorella recovery bits. And by the way, we call our spirulina energy bits because it helps give you energy mentally, physically. And so the recovery is a combo of the two. No, no, no recovery. This is all chlorella. All chlorella. This is all spirulina. This is all chlorella. We do have we do have a combo called vitality bits, which I'll get to in a minute. But the other important thing to know about chlorella is and when to take it, we recommend it before bed, because when you sleep is when your body goes through a detox and repair cycle. So if you have chlorella in your body, it will pull out more toxins. It's like having the cleanup crew in there, right? You're getting your beauty rest and that's scrubbing down the cells and pulling out toxins, getting rid of the garbage. Also, it has the highest tryptophan in the world, which is a precursor to melatonin or so it will help people sleep better. But we get into a deep sleep. It stimulates peristalsis, which is a bowel movement. Very, very important. So it's just very cleansing. Chlorophyll, by the way, is one of the two nutrients that can get into the inner membrane of the mitochondria. The other one is that superoxide dismutase that is in the spirulina. Chlorophyll is also one that can get in there. So that's amazing. It's very, very healing. It's just a wellness algae. So again, if you took we'd like to say ten, but, you know, if you only want to start with five tablets, ten is better a day. And then but for detox, you need closer to 20 or 30. And if you take this every day, it's like giving your body a shower from the inside. I tell people, you know, we take a shower from the outside every day. This will pull out everything that shouldn't be in there. And it's not just the outside toxins. You know, people may not think about it, but our body is constantly regenerating itself, remodeling itself. You have new bones, new skin, new organs. Some of them take six or seven years. Some take 20 days. But where do you think the old cells go? If you don't get rid of the old dead cells, they clog up your lymphatic system, become acidic, change the pH of your cells to more acidic. And then you start that slippery slope into disease. So even if you lived in a bubble, you would still need something to clear out the toxins, because I remind people, you don't take the garbage out from your house after a couple of days starts to get pretty smelly. So same thing happens in your body. And this is the answer. And even if you're taking it for detox or repair, you're still getting 60 percent protein and 40 other vitamins and minerals like K2, which moves excess calcium out of soft tissue like your heart, your blood vessels and moves it into your bones to help prevent things like osteoporosis. So and it has the highest RNA and DNA in the world. It's very much a healing algae. Spirulina is an energizing, nourishing algae. Chlorella is a healing and wellness algae. So they were completely opposite to one. So they really are the true original super food. Absolutely. Yeah. So can we talk about the mitochondria? And perfect. OK, you are on this on deck. So what what are they? Why are they important? Totally agree with you about all everything you've said about the mitochondria. But for those folks who don't know what the mitochondria are, can you explain that first and then and then tell us what these amazing algae do? Fantastic. So the mitochondria, they draw them as a little peanut shaped organism. They're little. They're called they're called organelles. There are many organs that are inside your cells. And historically, they've always been known for generating the energy for your for living. And it's not just for thinking and running your errands. It's cellular energy. They generate the energy for breathing your heartbeat. Just that's your gas. It's just fuels your life. So they are the fuel for your life. And they're I call them mighty, mighty, mighty mitochondria. Now, I already mentioned a couple of facts about mitochondria, but the fact there's two million of them in your that's amazing. So there's the mitochondria average lifespan, though, is only 100 days. And what people we scientists recently discovered is that mitochondria have their own DNA. You know, we have our regular DNA. There's twenty five thousand of those. They're called nuclear DNA. Well, the mitochondria have their own DNA and there's only 37 of them. But what you're going to find out is that those 37 control the other 25,000 and they control absolutely everything in your body. They are the the main power switch. So the mitochondria DNA are like the air controllers at an airport. Air controllers control everything that's going in and going out. And if they aren't working, planes crash. When your mitochondria DNA isn't working, your health crashes. So so something I specialize in is nutrigenomics in my practice. And but what you're saying is very interesting. You're saying that the genome of the mitochondria actually are regulating your very gene expression and turning things on and off. Exactly. Wow. This is a pretty new discovery. They cross communicate with one another. And what's also very fascinating is that with your regular DNA, 50 percent of it comes from the sperm and 50 percent comes from the eggs. Mitochondria DNA all come from the egg, every single drop of it. And so remember, I said the highest concentration of mitochondria are in your brain. The second highest is in women's eggs. Wow. There are 600,000 mitochondria per cell in each egg. Why? Because mitochondria are where the highest energy needs are. Takes a lot to think. Takes a lot of energy to make a human. Right. Yes. So and then the next highest is your heart, which is about five to seven thousand mitochondria per cell. And general muscles are about 5000. As I mentioned, your fat cells have about 100 or skin cells. So it's wherever the highest energy is. So, again, your mitochondria produce your it's called ATP is your energy. And when you have energy, you have cellular life. But here's the problem in the process of creating ATP. The other the downside is you create free radicals. It's it's it's just part of production. You know, you often see factories with big black smoke coming out of that. Well, that's what's going on. And the worst, highest concentration of free radicals come from a carb based diet. The free radicals are like exhaust and they exhaust your mitochondria. Right. So just as though even though you need that ATP, you definitely don't want those free radicals. And here's what's happening. Here is a picture of yourself, OK? Here's your regular DNA and see these little peanut shaped things. That's your mitochondria. So just imagine your brain. There's two million of these and each one of these cells and in each one of these little mitochondria are where your DNA are located. Your mitochondria DNA. But that's also where the mitochondria ATP is produced. So your DNA is sitting right smack front row where the ATP is produced and where free radicals are produced. If anybody has ever sat by a bonfire or a fireplace, you got too close. You would get sparks, right? And sparks would possibly start to burn your skin. Well, think of the free radicals like sparks, and they are burning your mitochondria DNA every single nanosecond. So the trick is you want to reduce the free radicals or find a way to remove them. And there's two ways we can do that to reduce the free radicals. You have two options. You can have a keto diet. You can or a or plant based one. Well, any kind of keto diet will have is a cleaner, releases fewer free radicals or algae, which releases virtually no free radicals or fasting. There's always going to be a few because of just metabolic process will always throw off a few free radicals. But if you're on a carb based diet, this is what's going on in your mitochondria. Not a good thing. So imagine if you put all those three things together, you know, low carb ketogenic plus the algae and the fasting. Now you're a superhuman. Now, exactly. If you're doing intermittent fasting, maybe cycling in and out of keto and you're adding algae. Yeah, this is this is probably number one that everybody can do. Staying on keto. Yeah, no, you don't want to. You don't want to do it 100% anyway. But intermittent fasting, once you get used to it, you almost can't imagine living any other way. And I've been doing it for a long time. And it's and I use the algae to get me through because I get up in the morning and I'm hungry. So I have algae, but it doesn't and it doesn't break the fast. And it doesn't break autophagy processes at all. Interesting. So it's very good. Wow. So it's putting out the inflammation of the mitochondria. Yes, that's number one. Number two. So that's to reduce the number of free radicals that are produced in the mitochondria. Option two is to remove the free radicals. Now, what you don't most of you, I didn't know either. Your mitochondria are very unique. They are the only cell structure in your body with two membranes every. And I'm going to tell you at the end why there's two. Every other cell membrane has one cell, has one membrane and antioxidants can get in and out and proteins can get in and out. But with your mitochondria, it has that second inner membrane and no antioxidants can get in there. No vitamin C, no E, not even glutathione. The only ones that can get in there are something called superoxide dismutase, chlorophyll and actually melatonin, interestingly enough. So here you are with all this free radical stuff and you've got to get rid of it. There's just one antioxidant that can get in there and it's called superoxide dismutase. And the worst free radical that is produced in this process is called superoxide. It is like the free radical king, because what it does is it causes a cascade of other free radicals in addition to being so damaging on its own. And the dismutase sounds like it's muting the the the radical. OK, so this dismutase, the superoxide dismutase is like a fireman. It's putting out the fire. Remember, I made the analogy of the sparks of the free radical. So it's putting out the fire of the free radicals. And in fact, what it does, you'll love this. I didn't even think of this until now. The analogy continues. It turns the free radicals into water. Not harmless, harmless water. And this is all documented in science. So I'm not making any of this up. But here's the problem. You can't get superoxide dismutase in any food. There's a minuscule amount in cabbage and even smaller in broccoli. But they found out that the small amount that exists gets damaged in your stomach, the digestion. Same with SOD supplements. They get damaged in in digestion. And even and even though our bodies make some superoxide dismutase, you get some when you're little, but as you get older, it makes fewer and fewer of these superoxide dismutase. So you're stuck. Your mitochondria are getting fried. Your body's not making superoxide dismutase. You can't get it from any other food or it gets destroyed in digestion. But the good news is the highest quantity concentration of superoxide dismutase in the world exists in drumroll spirulina algae. And I'll give you an example. They did a test and they gave people who were exhausted, depressed, had no energy. They gave them one hundred and four units of superoxide dismutase. And within weeks, their energy returned. Their anxiety was gone. They were like completely different people. Hundred and four units. And in each one of our spirulina tablets, there's a thousand units. And if you took our 30 tablets a day, which I pretty much have, that's twenty four thousand units of superoxide dismutase. And here's the cool thing. Remember, I said at the very beginning, spirulina is a bacteria, no cellulose wall, so it gets absorbed instantly and virtually bypasses digestion. This is why the superoxide dismutase in spirulina gets into your mitochondria, because it doesn't go through traditional digestive processes. It gets absorbed so quickly. So that's why it's going to be the godsend for protecting your mitochondria. And because they can mitochondria DNA, because they control aging disease, absolutely inflammation, cellular communication. This is your answer. But there's a downside. Superoxide dismutase is an enzyme. Remember, I said at the beginning how high heat kills enzymes, including superoxide dismutase. And unfortunately, all the other algae companies that are out there, there's lower priced and high volume, whether it's Whole Foods or Target. So they use high heat to dry their algae, to get it to market quickly because that's their business model. But I started the company to help people be healthier because I helped my sister and then I helped more people when I was teaching. So I learned at the very beginning that high heat kills enzymes. I didn't know about superoxide dismutase 12 years ago, but I do now. And so we don't use high heat to dry our algae. That's why ours seems to work better than almost everybody else's. And now I know why it's because at the cellular level, it's protecting the mitochondria DNA so they can live longer, which means you're going to have healthier mitochondria and you can have more of them so that they generate more energy at the cellular level and also in your brain and your muscles and in your body. So the other thing you could get it from would be raw or rather frozen spirulina. There's not many companies that make it. And nobody wants to eat that. So it's messy and it's hard to put powdered. It's so messy. And my smoothie is a long time ago. Yeah. Well, I have one more thing about spirulina and mitochondria that. OK, this is the most powerful of all. So remember, I said spirulina was the first life on Earth four billion years ago. Yes. Well, guess what? Turns out that your mitochondria is directly related to spirulina. And I'm going to show you why or how. And it's all proven in plant biology is a process called endosymbiosis. So about four billion years ago, Earth was just gas and water, no oxygen. I don't know why, but a little cell called cyanobacteria, which is a spirulina, started growing. It was anaerobic and generated ATP. And after about a billion years, there was so much oxygen on Earth. Larger cells could start growing and they were aerobic. Now, the little guy who was anaerobic didn't survive very well in the anaerobic space, and the big guys were having a hard time generating ATP. So the big cells basically said, hey, why don't you come and hang out with us? And they engulfed the little cells. But instead of digesting them, they had them coexist. And and it's called endosymbiosis. And that little cell turned into your mitochondria. And the best analogy I give to people is, you know, if you've ever had a friend who gets kicked out of their apartment and they say, hey, you know, can I come and stay with you? And you go, oh, well, fine. But then they do your laundry, they make your bed, they do your grocery shopping, they pick up your dry cleaning and you go, hey, stay, stay forever. That's exactly what happened. These guys are generating ATP so well for the big cells and the big cells are protecting them from the oxygen that they couldn't live in very well. The cyanobacteria became mitochondria. So when you give your body spirulina, you are giving your body itself spirulina and your mitochondria are the same. They came from the same family. It's like meeting your long lost twin. And this is now why I'm going to tell you why mitochondria have two cell walls. All cells have an exterior one cell. But this interior cell is a remnant of when it was by itself as its own little cyanobacteria out there in the world. And then when it got engulfed, the big cell formed a second membrane around it that exists in all of your other cells. But this is why spirulina has all the nutrients that your mitochondria need to thrive. Superoxide dismutase, chlorophyll and melatonin. That that everyone needs to take this. Absolutely. Everyone needs to take this. And so, unfortunately, I have a client. So I do have to cut us short. I feel like I need to do a follow up to this conversation, because it's crazy. I know there's so much to know. And we'll send you all the links that you can post. And I've got hundreds of links. So I want to I haven't made any of this up. The part about mitochondria and the cyanobacteria, it's been known and documented for 60 years, except it's all known in plant biology and nobody in plant biology is talking to metabolic health people. I'm like the, you know, cross the bridge. Yes. So come visit us at EnergyBits.com. We have a 20% discount code Keto Symposium. All one word, which you're doing, I know, is in New York. Yes. And I hope and I hope you'll be there. I know you're doing the tour. You're biohacking Congress. You're at KetoCon. So, yes, if anyone is around in Boston this weekend, they can they can go talk to Catherine or go to Texas. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. People will be coming to meet you in New York. And you're oh, you're going to Dave Asprey's biohacking conference as well. Yeah. And so EnergyBits.com is your website. Yes. And Keto Symposium. All one word will get you 20% off again. The EnergyBits is the blue one. It's blue green algae. Chlorella is the green one, which is recovery bits, which is a green algae. It's why I design all the packaging. And there's a blended one called Vitality Bits. Sorry, that's kind of red. It's a half. Weren't there some beauty bits, too? Or also beauty bits and beauty bits and energy bits are identical. And I'm not trying to trick anybody. OK, just that I found we found women didn't like the packaging or the name. And because there's so much collagen, there's more collagen in spirulina than there is in collagen powder. It is that beauty, that beauty in hair. So it's beauty from the inside. Exactly the same thing. But, you know, I'm a girl and I just prefer this one. So totally. Yeah. Well, Catherine, thank you so much for your time today. Yeah, thank you. Yes, everybody, everybody watching. You must you you must be consuming this product so we can all look as good as you. Well, I know I just want people to feel, know that they can be well and it doesn't have to be complicated and something as easy and effortless as algae, which is scientifically proven, improves a keto diet, a carnivore diet, vegan diet, any diet, any any diet. Yes. Animals. It's unbelievable. So fantastic. Well, thank you for this important work that you're doing. So thanks for admire it. Absolutely. It's such a pleasure. All right. And we'll talk soon. OK, thanks. Thank you. Bye, Catherine.