Super greens like chlorella are perfect for rejoicing this time of year. Why?

Well let's go back a little bit . . .

For thousands of years, green has been celebrated as a symbol of life. And for good reason . . . people tied to the land understood firsthand how much their survival depended on the work of green plants.

Every bit of food one way or another comes from the green power in plants. Unique among organisms, green plants contain the pigment chlorophyll which gives them the power to turn the sun's energy into stored biochemical energy.

Generations ago, when the darkest, coldest days of winter hit, symbols of green's imminent return were cherished. Sprigs of green gave people hope that spring and the growing season would come back. They reminded people that somewhere, hidden beneath the ice and snow, green life was simply sleeping. Ready to spring forth with the kiss of sun and nourish them with its lush growth.

Of course branches of holly and evergreen were used traditionally to represent the green that life depends on. But when it comes to embodying the powerful life force green brings to the planet, chlorella is truly a much better representative.

How can I say that?

Let's start with that incredible ability to transform sunlight into stored energy thanks to chlorophyll . . .

Chlorella has a higher concentration of chlorophyll than any green plant on the planet. Because of this - combined with its powerful chlorella growth factor - chlorella is perhaps one of the most efficient producers of stored energy on earth. It's a photosynthetic champion!

And when it comes to its nutritional profile . . .
- Chlorella has twice as much protein per ounce than a t-bone steak.
- It has six times more beta-carotene than Popeye's spinach
- Chlorella beats liver when it comes to vitamin B12. In fact chlorella is one of the very few plants that have the active form of B-12 our bodies can use.^[1]

And this is in addition to its ample supply of zinc, folic acid, healthy fats and vitamin D. Not to mention its concentration of important minerals like magnesium and zinc. Pound for pound, chlorella beats out just about any other form of food when it comes to concentrated nutrition.

But chlorella is not just a nutritional powerhouse . . . it's also a resilient survivor with multi-tasking potential.

When it comes to celebrating life, this tiny one-celled alga personifies defying the odds and thriving.

For over 2.5 billion years, chlorella has thrived on this planet. Through all the thousands of climate changes this earth has gone through - back and forth through multiple ice ages and tropical heydays - chlorella has stayed strong.

Yet through all these changes in its environment, chlorella's genetics and physiology hasn't changed at all according to paleontologists. Somehow, billions of years ago, this little super green alga developed a structure that could weather any storm that came its way.

And this resiliency also contributes to its nutritional power.

- Chlorella's has a cell wall that's different from any other algae. It's fortified with the polysaccharide, chitin, typically only found in the cell walls of fungi and the shells of crustaceans.^[2] This special fiber gives it exceptional resistance from viruses and other attacks. When broken down, these fibers work extremely well in helping remove toxins from your body and clean out.

- Chlorella's unique chlorella growth factor (CGF) allows it to quickly regenerate. If the local environment is especially conducive to growth, chlorella can quickly ramp up reproduction and spread. By the same token, if something develops that wipes out a large chlorella colony, this same growth factor can help it quickly restore its numbers through cellular reproduction.

This same growth factor is what many health experts attribute to chlorella's unique ability to spur tissue repair and regeneration in our bodies.

Chlorella's exceptional health benefits are in part directly linked to its history as a tough survivor.

But that's not all that chlorella offers us humans when it comes to surviving and thriving . . .

Many people speculate our future survival depends on our ability to create human-friendly environments in the unfriendly realm of space.

To truly make this work, we still need green and its ability to nourish us. Chlorella has already grabbed NASA's attention as an ideal food for space travel. With minimal input - just some sunshine and some mineral-rich water - it can produce some of the densest nutrition we know of.

But in chlorella's case, space engineers aren't only tapping its potential as a food source.
- Chlorella is being studied as a source of biofuel. Its high concentration of healthy fats can provide power outside of our bodies.
- Russian space engineers have shown it only takes a 17-liter culture of chlorella to produce enough oxygen for a person to live on for days.^[3] In fact, when it comes to more "down-to-earth” applications, one enterprising engineer has already designed special pods that use chlorella to clean and re-oxygenate polluted city air.^[4]
- Best of all, with its 2 billion years of survival through thick and thin, chlorella can establish a foothold in many tough environments.