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Spirulina Experiment

I was recently watching the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Food” show, a segment hosted by a pudgy bald guy who goes around the world eating really strange things like bugs and grass hoppers and much worse, then reports on it. I usually don’t watch the show but stop when I am channel surfing and I come across it. To be honest, most of the stuff he eats I would probably try as well, just to say I did it. I do wonder if he vomits shortly after eating most of that food.

So last week I saw a show where he was in Thailand and did a segment on a drink called Spirulina. At first, it looked awful. Basically there was a large pond of dirty water with crap floating in it, that he scooped out and drank. He drank pond scum, stuff that I would immediately wash off my kids if they happen to come out of a lake with it dripping on their legs, for fear of infection. But apparently the algae and bacteria and other floating goodies in it are really good for you, sort of a dietary supplement. I try to eat healthy but don’t really take dietary supplements, but have been drinking green tea for a few years now and it peaked my interest. I also wanted to drink pond scum grown in the jungles of southeast Asia. I want living bacteria in my body, to make me healthy.

So while food shopping while at my sister’s house in northern Virginia, my wife, Patti, bought a drink with Spirulina in it. It was great. Granted, it had apples and bananas to make it takes good, but it also had a lot of Spirugoodness. And I did some research online, on this thing called the World Wide Web, kind of cool, and Spirulina has some pretty good benefits to it. With the only downside being painful stomach cramps and raging diarrhea, followed by days of hallucinations and sweat-lodge like perspiration. Maybe death, but only in about 20% of cases. Just joking, nothing bad that I know of.

So I decided to try an experiment. Working with supplements in pill form, not drinking a ton of this green sludge, I am going to see if it makes me feel better. I am going to take 6 disgusting smelling pills a day for one month and see if there is a change in my body, good or bad.

I think it might be a little expensive, because a jar of 100 pills is 6 bucks, which will last me about half a month, but if it improves my health, it’s the cost of doing business. And I am also going to look into non pill forms, like more drinks, although THAT might be really expensive, or powder or candy form. Not sure, I need to walk the aisles of some hippie health food stores in Cambridge to scout it out. It’s my mission for Wed night. Or late afternoon, whenever I can kick out of work.

Who knows, but if it’s good enough for the Aztecs, it’s good enough for me. Drinking something I would normally put bleach on and keep my cat away from might SOUND strange, but I need a physical experiment in my life. I am in marathon training mode and some extra green goop can only help.