Chlorella vs Spirulina and Bees, Too

Where in green hell have I landed?  While looking for a yeast-based coconut flour bread recipe as I am dying for a regular slice of bread that I can toast, butter, and eat without tipping the carbs into the dangerous currents of Charybdis, I fell into the Hole of Green Gunk.  Yes, I have lost weight, yes, there is more to go, but I miss bread, potatoes, and the usual European staples that made up most of my childhood diet.  Do not eat too many carrots, watch the fruit, stick to above ground vegetables, more protein than fat, bacon bacon bacon.  I have honestly become adverse to bacon.  I do not ever want to see more bacon.  Don't mention pork rinds, cheese, or omelets.  But hold on.  It works for me, has lowered my blood sugar, and thus I scour the internet for recipes that disguise food and sort of make it look similar to ye olde sustainers.

Like cauliflower.  I haven't gotten tired of that, but don't try to pass it off as a substitute for mashed potatoes.  I roast it in a dish with olive oil, butter, and salt as this diet produces a diuretic effect and you lose sodium, drop blood pressure, and then maybe pass out so put a little salt on your food.  This is backwards from medical advice, and while my doctor was clapping her hands at the disappearance of  &% pounds, I related the how and her face went HEARTATTACK.  BRAINATTACK.  ATTACKATTACK.  I feel great, have more energy, and continue to lose and so have let up on the "induction" phase, added more green vegetables and the occasional chocolate.   She said ten more pounds and I can halve the blood pressure meds, so I'm continuing.  But need recipes.

During the search, I bonked into a debate as to which algae performs better chemistry for the human body, chlorella or spirulina; chlorella makes chlorophyll, which aids in processing oxygen, a wonderful characteristic; it detoxifies and absorbs heavy metals, being used in mining towns to strengthen the inhabitants' reaction to exposures.  Spirulina is not a true algae, but a cyanobacteria rich in complete protein whose blue color is a phytochemical, phycocyanin; this supports brain and heart health, the immune system, and bone marrow.  My brain will take all the help I give it.

But algae?  Are humans supposed to eat algae?  Well, look where we come from originally; it tweren't the cabbage patch, but the ocean of deepest blues in which cyanobacteria evolved 3000 megaannum ago, meaning 3000 million years ago.  It wasn't the first form of life, but it was the branch that snapped away from prokaryotes, cells without a nucleus or organelles, which released oxygen into the oceans in such amounts that iron ore was formed amid the thousand foot tides created by a much closer moon.  Winds of hurricane force whipped everything into a Archean smoothie, possibly churning the ingredients which began life on land.  Sorry if this is boring, but I am fascinated by the theories of beginnings, probably more than my recent fascination with making fake mashed potatoes.  So, yes, algae.

Now I admit, I got the Whirly-Pop out and made popcorn, which, according to these folks, is similar to injecting drain cleaner into your veins, making your pancreas look at you with exasperation.  I just cleaned you up, it says, and you do this to me.  But oh, it was the best popcorn ever.  Sidenote: I eat potato chips with chopsticks (or I used to), and popcorn with a spoon so my fingers stay free of grease, very useful when keying or working with paper.  Don't bother me with sneering, grease gets into pores and lodges itself there no matter how many times you sing Happy Birthday while scrubbing; it's a bane to artwork as paper loves grease and will argue in it's defense like your 16 year old daughter will about her boyfriend's penchant for stealing cars.

Eat your greens folks, the more ancient the better.  Kale, on the other hand, sends me into depression because, well, it's kale, and further is goitrogenic, which means that kale inhibits absorption of iodine and can worsen hypothyroidism.  Cook the stuff.  By the by, toss out that expensive sea salt and get salt that has been iodized; there is a growing amount of deficiency in iodine, first solved by putting it in salt.  It is the leading cause of mental handicaps in the world.  Just watch the sea salt, get some that has had iodine added.  Or, eat more seaweed, not a bad idea.

This is the weekend of the time change, a spring forward so you lose an hour of dear sleep.  But light is returning, and I will gladly give back twice that hour for a glimmer of the coming seasonal change.  Friends have seen robins a bit further south in Ohio and Maryland; right now there is nothing for the birds to eat here; the ground heaves and cracks, with subzero temperatures alternated with mild thaws, and neither worm nor insect could venture forth without a parka.  I do enjoy the smell of worms in the fresh rain; maybe I shouldn't have told you that, but now you know the chopstick thing and the worm thing.

Wet leaves, damp earth; first shoots, returning flashes of wing seen amid branches crushed in a perplexity of blossoms.  Months away; there is still snow and ice which by now appears as crystallized black moraines, the roads yawn and mutter with potholes that would hide a sled dog.  Lenten doughnuts, the fastnacht kugels, have appeared; with the warmish days and cold nights, the sap will rise for gathering and boiling into syrup.  Spring is in the works by the calendar yet mostly unseen, like a cat at midnight.

So dream of tendrils green winding up a pole, guided by a chariot pulling the sun towards meridian, truer than any dipleidoscope; someday you'll have peas for supper.  There are buds hidden deep under the earth, thinking of rising and bursting into thimblesful of nectar, making the bees go mad with industry and humans delirious with the essence.  Grow wings and hover above stamens, climb into cupped petals, anthers pollen yellow; imagine being inside a flower, surrounded by curtains of iridescent colors.  Count your walls of six within the honeycomb, number the orchards laden with rose-gold magnetism.  Oh bee,  merrily, merrily shall I live now, under the blossom that hangs on the bough.