Spirulina?

[Elizabeth Nolan]

I'm looking into these Go Raw Super Cookies made from sesame seeds and dates, and one of them contains a small amount of Spirulina (last ingredient on the list). I'm having trouble finding a solid answer on whether or not it's Paleo friendly! Thoughts?

[sezza85]

I hope so! Otherwise its a massive OOPS from me!!!

I look forward to hearing the answer..

[Johnny M]

Paleo friendly or whole30 friendly? I've never had it but after googling it it seems like some kind of algae? That seems technically paleo but paleo treats are out for the whole30. We want you to spend these 30 days learning to appreciate good whole foods like fruit or crudités for snacks instead of paleo-fied cookies!

[dana]

not sure about the cookies (which do sound like a paleo treat...though maybe not so different from larabars, if all they contain is dates, seeds, and spirullina).

but spirulina is a super-healthy micro-alga--can't imagine why it (alone, minus the cookies) woudn't be w30.

[Johnny M]

Larabars are a rare exception and we only want you using them occasionally but they're still a pretty unnatural density of sugars in a convenience food. It's not that the cookies aren't compliant but that again we want you to break habits and learn something new! Is that cookie potentially enabling you to minimize the optimization of one of your meals? Is it enabling a 10 pm sugar craving? I'm curious how you want to incorporate them in your day and if they're tied to a meaningful cue because that's exactly what we want to identify and work on.

[Elizabeth Nolan]

Thanks for the feedback, Johnny! This is my third time doing Whole30, but my first time doing it while incorporating CrossFit as part of my regular schedule. My Whole30 meals are generally egg whites and veggies in the morning, a big salad for lunch, and something like a chicken breast and veggies for dinner. I drink plenty of water, and I avoid eating at all between meals - but on my third day in I found myself getting a headache in the mid afternoon. I was attributing that to a heavy workout without enough calories, which I usually fix by slicing half a banana into coins with a little almond butter on each slice. This can get a messy. The Go Raw cookies are very thin, and just as big around as the banana slices, so I thought they would be perfect to stabilize my slippery little snack. Spirulina is touted as a SuperFood, so my reasoning was that if I'm going to add something like that to a snack, I'd like for it to be as nutritionally beneficial as possible.

What do you think?

[dana]

so far as spirulina (not the cookies), i've been using the powdered form as a sort of condiment alongside meals for many years (best to get it a little "wet" with liquid from the food you're eating, oil, etc.). i have to say, there's ginormous variation in taste. in the town where i was recently living, for example, i detested the taste of the co-op grocery store's product but loved the taste of the natural food store's product. both looked exactly the same; both sold in bulk form without much difference in price.

you're supposed to take a little and increase gradually, backing off on the dose if you get headachy from it (which is apparently common when people first start taking it, though i've never had that experience). i typically use about a teaspoon of the powder at a time--like most seaweeds, smaller quantities are a rich source of nutrition; large quantities generally aren't such a good idea.