Algae, spirulina, and chlorella occupy a complex and largely cautionary position in Aajonus Vonderplanitz's nutritional framework. They are not foods he endorses for humans in any straightforward sense, with the partial exception of chlorella under very specific, carefully qualified conditions. His position is rooted in a fundamental biological argument: humans are not herbivores, and algae, being a form of primitive plant life, requires the digestive apparatus of either an herbivore or a fish to be properly broken down and utilized. When consumed by humans, the vast majority of these substances passes through the digestive tract entirely undigested, producing essentially no nutritional benefit while potentially causing harm through toxic byproducts, heavy metal exposure, and systemic stress.

Aajonus positions algae as occupying a specific ecological niche that does not include human nutrition. Algae eats rock. Algae eats metal. That is what algae does in the biological world. It breaks down mineral compounds, including heavy metals, from rock and concrete and converts them into a form usable by plants. This is why algae grows on rock surfaces, on concrete hot tub walls, and in natural bodies of water. It is performing a specific ecological service: mineralizing inorganic substances into a form that plants can then use, and that animals who eat those plants can then access. Humans sit much further up this chain. We eat the animals that eat the plants. We are not designed to eat rock, and by extension, we are not designed to eat algae that has been eating rock.

Spirulina is categorically rejected. Blue-green algae is identified as potentially toxic and mercury-contaminated. Chlorella is the single algae product Aajonus identifies as having any measurable digestibility for humans, though even chlorella's usefulness is severely limited by its low digestibility rate, its dehydrated and processed commercial form, and the requirement that it be rehydrated and fermented before any meaningful fraction can be absorbed.

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Aajonus's core argument against algae consumption by humans is biological. Humans have acidic, short digestive tracts that produce acidic digestive fluids, and these are not capable of breaking down the cellulose walls of algae. Herbivores, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, have digestive systems that are two and a half times longer than ours, and they possess 60,000 times more enzymes than humans for disassembling cellulose. They can eat dried substances. They can eat algae. We cannot. Accordingly, when humans consume spirulina, chlorella, or blue-green algae, the overwhelming majority passes through the digestive system without any breakdown or nutritional transfer occurring.

Aajonus repeatedly cited fecal matter tests and laboratory analysis as the basis for his claims about algae digestibility. His findings across multiple sources were as follows:

• Spirulina and most algaes (not chlorella): 98% passes out in the feces entirely undigested. In some statements, he gives the figure as 99%. In his fecal matter tests, essentially nothing is absorbed.

• Chlorella: Significantly more digestible than other algaes, but still dramatically low by any useful nutritional standard. Aajonus gives varying figures for chlorella's digestibility across different talks and writings, and it is important to note these variations rather than resolve them:
• - 2% to 5% in one statement
• - About 6% in another statement
• - 7% in a written Q&A response
• - 8% in another workshop statement
• - "Up to 20%" in one statement (which appears to be the most optimistic figure he ever offered, and may reflect chlorella that has been properly soaked and rehydrated in vegetable juice over a period of days)

The variation in these figures across different sessions and writings is notable. Rather than a single fixed number, Aajonus appears to be working from ongoing observational and laboratory testing, with the range reflecting either different preparations of chlorella, different quality products, or different testing conditions. What remains consistent across all statements is that even the most digestible algae, chlorella, leaves the overwhelming majority of its substance unabsorbed.

One of Aajonus's most practical diagnostic indicators for algae consumption is the color of the feces. He stated clearly: if you take a teaspoon of chlorella, your feces will be "green as green can be." This is because 96% to 98%, or by other measurements nearly all of it, passes out entirely undigested. The green color of the stool is the visual proof that the body is not breaking down or absorbing the material. He used this as a teaching point about the futility of consuming large quantities of these products.

Algae's primary biological function is mineralizing inorganic substances. Algae eats rock. Algae eats metal. This is why algae grows on concrete, on rock faces, and on the walls of hot tubs. In Aajonus's own Greek concrete hot tub, the algae was eating the oxides in the cement, the heavy metals that were mixed into the concrete. The algae was pulling those metals out of the concrete and incorporating them into its body.

This property of algae, its ability to bioaccumulate heavy metals, is precisely why Aajonus considered it dangerous for human consumption. When you eat algae, you are eating a substance that has been accumulating heavy metals, industrial toxins, and inorganic rock minerals. The mercury found in blue-green algae is a direct consequence of this bioaccumulation process.

Aajonus did make consistent use of the metal-eating property of algae, but not by consuming it. He used algae growing in his hot tub as a mechanism for pulling metals out of his body through skin contact, by lying on the thick, shag-rug-like growth of algae on the walls and floor of his hot tub. This is a topical/contact application entirely distinct from internal consumption. The algae draws metals out through the skin because that is what algae does, it feeds on metals. But you do not eat the algae to get this benefit; you let it work on you externally.

Aajonus identified a phenomenon he considered a false positive in algae supplementation: people who take spirulina, chlorella, or blue-green algae frequently report feeling an energy boost or a high. He attributed this not to genuine nutritional benefit but to an adrenaline rush produced by the body's response to toxicity. When the body detects industrial poisons, heavy metals, or other toxic material, which is present in algae either due to bioaccumulation or due to the processing methods used to produce commercial algae supplements, it dumps adrenaline into the bloodstream as an emergency response. The person feels high, feels energized, and interprets this as the supplement working. Aajonus stated explicitly: "That's not because it's healthy. It's like an adrenaline rush or a cocaine rush. Your body produces and dumps adrenaline into the blood to give you that energy. That's not the way to do it healthfully."

Aajonus made a specific observation about chlorella's biological classification. He described it as "more of a singular cell creature, even though it is crossed between an animal and a plant." He drew an analogy to mushrooms on land: "We have the mushroom that's crossed between animal and plant on the earth. In the water, it's chlorella." This crossing between animal and plant biology is part of why chlorella is more digestible than pure plant-based algaes like spirulina. It is not fully a plant, so the human digestive system can access some portion of its nutrition, though still a very small portion.

Chlorella has a cell wall that makes it difficult for the human digestive system to penetrate. When fresh and alive, this wall is somewhat more amenable to breakdown. When dried, as in all commercial chlorella products, the wall hardens and becomes essentially impenetrable to human digestive enzymes. This is why Aajonus consistently recommended soaking chlorella in liquid before consuming it: the goal is to rehydrate the cell wall so that it softens and becomes more accessible to digestion.

Aajonus noted that algae products could cause people to "shit better" and move the bowels more effectively. He attributed this not to absorption of nutrients but to the high sodium content in algae, which irritates the intestinal walls and creates a laxative-like effect, adding bulk and stimulating peristalsis. He was explicit that this effect should not be interpreted as evidence that the body is getting healthier or that nutrients are being absorbed: "That doesn't mean you're getting healthier. You're not digesting that stuff."

Beyond spirulina, chlorella, and blue-green algae, Aajonus addressed seaweeds and other sea vegetables in the same passages. Kelp, for example, is described as "not digestible" and "a sea vegetable. We don't even digest land plants, much less sea plants." The cellulose molecule in seaweed is even more complex than that in land-grown vegetables, because it has to be structurally capable of withstanding saltwater. Human digestive juices cannot break it down. He acknowledged that certain people crave seaweed and said they could eat it occasionally, particularly at sushi restaurants, because he knew they would not digest much of it, so the harm would be minimal. But it was never endorsed as a nutritional food.

Blue-green algae received particularly negative treatment from Aajonus. He stated that it "can be very toxic because of who harvests it and how they harvest it and process it." He further stated that there is "usually a lot of mercury in blue-green algae." He did not identify any form of blue-green algae that he considered safe or beneficial for human consumption. A person who raised the topic of using blue-green algae after Fukushima was told directly that blue-green algae is problematic because it is dry, and that by the time it reaches the sigmoid colon, anywhere from 19 to 24 hours after ingestion, it has only just begun to become active, meaning almost none of the nutrients have been absorbed during the transit. His specific advice in that email context was to soak it in water and get it reactivated first.

Aajonus was asked about phytoplankton as promoted by David Wolfe. His response was that humans are "not a fish" and not an herbivore. He did not elaborate extensively in the available passages, but the implication of his response, treating phytoplankton in the same category as spirulina and other algaes, is clear. Fish eat phytoplankton. Humans eat fish that eat phytoplankton. The appropriate way to receive the nutrients from phytoplankton is to eat the fish that consume it, not to eat the phytoplankton directly.

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Virtually all commercial algae products, spirulina, chlorella, blue-green algae, are sold in dried, dehydrated form, either as powders or compressed tablets. Aajonus was uniformly critical of this form, for reasons that compound upon each other:

1. Drying destroys the living structure. Algae that is dehydrated is no longer alive. Its cell walls have hardened. The enzymes within it have been denatured or destroyed depending on the drying temperature. The product that arrives in a consumer's hands is not the living organism it once was.

2. The cell wall becomes impenetrable. When chlorella's cell wall dries, it becomes hard and nearly impossible for human digestive enzymes to break through. Even in fresh form, humans can digest only a small percentage of chlorella. In dried form, this percentage drops even further, as the wall must first be rehydrated before any penetration is possible.

3. Tablets are worse than powder. Chlorella in tablet form has the additional problem of "sealers and binders", the substances used to compress the powder into a pellet form. Aajonus stated: "In a tablet you won't digest any of it. The sealers and binders that keep making it into a pellet. You can't utilize it." Powder is acceptable; tablets are not.

4. Drying temperature matters critically. Sun-drying is the only acceptable drying method for any algae product. If chlorella or spirulina has been kiln-dried or dried with any other high-temperature method or chemical drying agent, it is considered essentially a dead, destroyed food that the human body cannot use at all. He specifically said of chlorella: "If it's good quality and if it's not, it's sun-dried and not kiln-dried or dried in some other way with a chemical dry", meaning the acceptable form is sun-dried only.

5. High-temperature drying turns it into an undigestible vegetable. Aajonus stated that when algae products are dried at high temperatures, which is the commercial norm, the resulting product "turns it into a vegetable you will never digest." Even as a vegetable, humans cannot adequately digest plant matter. As a heat-damaged former-vegetable, the situation is even worse.

Aajonus made a clear distinction between fresh, living algae and dried commercial algae products. Living algae, growing on the walls of his hot tub, in lakes, in ponds, is a different substance from the dried powder sold in supplement form. The living algae in his hot tub was useful for external detoxification because it was alive and actively feeding on metals. It was not, however, endorsed for eating. Even fresh algae is not something humans are designed to digest.

The closest Aajonus came to recommending a form of chlorella for internal use was chlorella that had been soaked in vegetable juice for an extended period to allow rehydration and partial fermentation. This is the preparation that produces the highest digestibility figures he cited, possibly approaching 20% under optimal conditions. This represents the only form of commercial chlorella he considered worth consuming.

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For the limited cases where Aajonus recommended consuming chlorella, he specified quality criteria: - Must be sun-dried only, not kiln-dried, not chemically dried, not dried at high temperatures - Must be in powder form, not tablets or capsules (which contain binders and sealers that prevent any digestion) - Must be of good quality, poor quality chlorella is not worth consuming at all

Aajonus addressed the broader marketing of algae supplements, spirulina, blue-green algae, chlorella, and related products, as part of a wellness industry that he considered misguided at best and deliberately misleading at worst. He pointed to the fact that laboratory tests have been done on the digestibility of these products but the results have been suppressed or ignored because the companies selling them do not want to publicize findings that would destroy their market. He compared this to the food industry's suppression of research on purine: "just like the food industry with purine or general foods when they did the test a long time ago."

He was specifically asked about a line of products endorsed by Viktoras Kulvinskas, a prominent figure in the raw food world, which claimed to contain "enzymatically active" and "living" algae. Aajonus's response was unequivocal: Kulvinskas and vegans like him are "frightfully enzyme deficient because of protein deficiencies." When Aajonus himself tried the algae product, he experienced what felt like a THC detox, a hallucinogenic, disorienting experience he attributed not to beneficial detoxification but to the body's inability to properly digest algae and the resulting toxic byproducts of improper digestion. He stated: "More likely it was because our systems are not designed to digest algae."

In a 2013 analysis of a specific algae-based supplement, Aajonus identified that the two main elements of that particular formula, pectin-dense and algae-dense produce, were extracted by dissolving them in kerosene in metal vessels. This is how the pectin and algae fractions were isolated for the supplement. He raised the concern that this process could be responsible for the lead, arsenic, and mercury levels found in or associated with the product, and further noted a fundamental problem with how such supplements move toxins in the body: "colloidal pectin and algae draw the poisons into the blood, instead of the intestines for secretion and/or the lympha[tic system]." This is considered an unsafe and counterproductive detoxification pathway.

Aajonus mentioned a product described as "Dr. Scholl's organic mix of spirulina, blue chlorella" and said: "Well, that's a food. That's a living organism, a living substance. It's a little different." He was distinguishing this from purely chemical supplements. However, his qualified acknowledgment that this is "a food" and "a living organism" should not be read as a full endorsement, in the broader context of his teachings, even living algae products are not foods he recommends for human consumption at significant quantities.

Aajonus mentioned that there was one company, whose name he could not recall, that took certain chemicals and fed them to microorganisms, then called the resulting product "natural." He said: "I don't know how they can get by with it. But that's the only one that I know that comes close to anything remotely really organically active." This is an extremely tepid qualification, and he did not identify the company or recommend their products.

The toxicity of blue-green algae, in Aajonus's analysis, is not only a function of the algae's own bioaccumulation of heavy metals but also a function of "who harvests it and how they harvest it and process it." This suggests that even if the underlying algae were relatively clean, the industrial processes used to collect, process, and package blue-green algae introduce additional contamination. Mercury is specifically identified as a common contaminant in blue-green algae products.

When Aajonus did recommend consuming chlorella, the preparation method was specific:

1. Take a very small amount, an eighth of a teaspoon or a quarter of a teaspoon or up to a teaspoon (quantity depends on the specific instruction, discussed further in Dosage) 2. Place it in vegetable juice, not water alone, though water can also be used 3. Allow it to soak for hours or days, the extended soaking period allows the dried cell wall to rehydrate, soften, and begin to break down 4. The vegetable juice will begin to ferment at cold refrigerator temperatures over a few days, and this fermentation further activates the chlorella and makes it more biologically available 5. Consume the mixture after this soaking and fermentation period

He stated: "over a few days, it's going to ferment and become active in that vegetable juice, even in cold temperatures in the refrigerator. So you will digest more of it and you will get something from chlorella."

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Aajonus identified that one of the problems with consuming chlorella is that it passes through the body too quickly. To slow its transit and allow more time for digestion and absorption, he recommended combining chlorella with fat-rich foods. Specifically:

• Chlorella and cottage cheese, described as "a good combination, it will slow it"
• Chlorella and cheese, same rationale
• Chlorella and sour cream with meat, mentioned in the context of chemtrail detoxification protocols
• Chlorella and egg with cottage cheese, mentioned as his personal practice

The logic is that fat-rich foods slow the movement of food through the digestive tract, giving the chlorella more time to be broken down and potentially increasing the percentage that is absorbed.

The other pairing Aajonus consistently recommended was chlorella soaked in vegetable juice. This is not primarily for nutritional balance but for the rehydration and fermentation process that makes chlorella more digestible. The enzymes in fresh vegetable juice and the fermentation that occurs even at refrigerator temperatures help break down the chlorella cell wall more effectively than soaking in plain water.

In the context of dealing with chemtrail poisons, Aajonus described consuming chlorella together with clay and milk, as well as vinegar and milk. The milk serves to bind radioactive material and keep the molecules large enough that they don't absorb into the body. Clay acts as a binder and draws out poisons. Chlorella in this context is part of a multi-substance detoxification approach rather than a standalone supplement.

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This is perhaps Aajonus's most extensively documented use of algae, not as an internal food but as a topical and external detoxification medium. He described his practice in detail across many sessions:

• He maintained a Greek concrete hot tub approximately 10 feet in diameter, holding approximately 500 gallons, filtered by a 300-pound Hayward sand filter, a filter designed for a much larger swimming pool.
• No chemicals of any kind were added to the water. The sand filter alone kept the water crystal clear.
• Because there were no chemicals, algae was free to grow on the walls and floor of the hot tub.
• He allowed the algae to grow until it formed a thick, shag-rug-like growth, strands long enough to be felt as soft and silky, "like silk," "like a shag rug."
• He would lie on this algae or immerse himself in the water with algae growing on all surfaces.
• Because algae eats metal, it actively drew metals from his body through skin contact. "That algae growing in there will pull metals and toxicity out of your tissue directly."
• Every 3 to 6 months, he would scrape the algae growth off and use it as mulch in his garden or compost, where it dramatically stimulated plant growth. His jasmine plants, which used to flower three months per year (January through March), began flowering for seven months after he started applying the algae compost.

He noted one important qualification about his own hot tub: because he had unknowingly mixed toxic rock minerals into the concrete to color it a greenish hue, he was not entirely comfortable with the algae from that particular tub because it was eating those specific toxic minerals. He drank the water (which was well water filtered through sand and free of chlorine) but would not eat the algae from that tub.

Aajonus described a situation during his injury recovery (after a major leg injury) where he was walking in the deep end of a hotel pool. He convinced the hotel owner to reduce the chlorine, and within five days the pool had developed algae growth. He described this as "great" and beneficial for his recovery. The hotel owner subsequently restored full chlorine treatment, ending the algae growth. He then moved his rehabilitation walking to the ocean, where natural algae and bacteria in the water contributed to his healing.

In at least one documented consultation with a patient, Aajonus recommended hot tub therapy with algae as part of a treatment plan, specifying: - Temperature: 102 degrees - Filter: Hayward sand filter - No chemicals, no chlorine - Let algae grow on all surfaces - Scrape out algae every 3 to 6 months and use as mulch - "That algae growing in there will pull metals and toxicity out of your tissue directly" - If using municipal water, a little vinegar may be added, which will not harm the algae growth but helps neutralize some contaminants - Coconut cream can also be added to the water for skin benefit and will be cleaned by the sand filter within hours without blocking it

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Because of the dramatically low digestibility of chlorella and the complete non-digestibility of spirulina, Aajonus's quantity recommendations were consistently very small. The rationale: if you are going to consume something that is 95-98% waste, consuming large quantities means you are generating large quantities of waste with essentially no proportional increase in nutrition. Furthermore, the undigested material is not neutral, it can cause intestinal irritation and contribute to toxic load.

Across different sessions and contexts, Aajonus gave varying quantity recommendations for chlorella. These should all be understood as maximums, not targets:

• An eighth of a teaspoon in vegetable juice, mentioned in the context of soaking for rehydration; described as the amount to use when soaking in juice to start hydrating again
• A quarter of a teaspoon in vegetable juice first thing in the morning, for heavy metal detoxification purposes
• A pea-sized amount, "if you're going to have it, and let it soak in some vegetable juice for a while. Maybe you can get something from that"
• A teaspoon placed in vegetable juice before capping, then allowed to ferment over days, for those wanting to attempt higher digestibility through fermentation
• Up to a quarter of a teaspoon, general guidance if using chlorella; described as keeping it small, not eating a lot
• 1–2 heaping teaspoons per day, the highest dose, specific to active chemtrail/industrial poison exposure situations, consumed with cottage cheese and egg as part of a larger detoxification protocol

The most general and conservative guidance was: "just use a minutia amount. Don't use a lot."

Spirulina has no recommended intake dosage in Aajonus's framework. It is categorically not recommended for human consumption. The only dosage guidance is implicit in statements like "you're better off feeding it to a goat."

Aajonus effectively recommended self-monitoring through observation of fecal color. If your stool is visibly green after consuming chlorella, this is confirmation that the vast majority of the chlorella passed through undigested. This is expected and is not a sign of a problem with your digestion specifically, it is a sign that the product is not appropriate for the human digestive system at that quantity in that form.

By pairing chlorella with cheese, cottage cheese, or sour cream, transit time is slowed and the available window for digestion is extended. This is Aajonus's technique for attempting to push the digestibility beyond the baseline low figures. The combination is not just culinary preference, it is a specific attempt to make a marginally digestible food slightly more digestible.

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The primary culinary application Aajonus documented is: - Take freshly made vegetable juice, leaving the cucumber out until the end (as his practice with cucumber changed over time) - Add a small amount of chlorella powder (an eighth of a teaspoon to a teaspoon, depending on the specific session's guidance) - Cap the juice tightly - Store in the refrigerator - Allow to sit for several days, even at cold refrigerator temperatures, the juice will begin to ferment and the fermentation will begin activating and breaking down the chlorella - Drink after the fermentation period

This is described as a personal daily protocol in the context of chemtrail detoxification: - 5 tablespoons of cottage cheese - One egg - Chlorella (1–2 heaping teaspoons in this specific protocol) - Consumed with a meat meal

• Sour cream combined with chlorella
• Consumed with meat
• Specifically mentioned as a protocol for when "they're bombing us" (i.e., during active chemtrail exposure events)

Chlorella combined with raw no-salt cheese was mentioned as a way to slow the transit of chlorella through the digestive tract, giving the body more time to absorb whatever fraction it can access.

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Though not an internal food application, Aajonus documented extensively the use of harvested hot tub algae as a plant fertilizer and compost additive. This is the application for which he considered algae most appropriate, as food for plants, not for humans. His results:

• Jasmine plants that previously flowered for three months per year (January through March) began flowering for seven months after regular algae compost application, more than doubling the flowering period
• Garden plants of all kinds thrived dramatically with algae compost
• The soil and the plants "absolutely adore it and love it"

The reasoning: plants eat rock. Plants eat metal. Algae eats rock and metal. Therefore, algae is the perfect food for plants. Plants convert those inorganic mineral compounds into biologically available nutrients. Those nutrients can then be accessed by humans through eating the plants or the animals that eat the plants. This is the ecologically correct position in the food chain for algae, as food for plants, not as food for humans.

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Aajonus made a pointed accusation against the supplement industry: the digestibility data exists. Laboratory tests have been done on algae products that reveal how little of the material is actually absorbed by humans. But the companies selling these products have no interest in publicizing this information. He compared the situation to General Foods' suppression of research on purines. The market for algae supplements, spirulina, chlorella, blue-green algae, is built on claims that are not supported by laboratory evidence of actual absorption rates, and the industry continues to market these products as nutritional powerhouses when the fecal matter analysis consistently shows otherwise.

Aajonus specifically addressed the case of algae supplements promoted by or associated with Viktoras Kulvinskas, a prominent figure in the vegan raw food movement. Kulvinskas had written an article called "Don't Dine Without Enzymes" that influenced the questioner. Aajonus's response noted that Kulvinskas and vegans generally are "frightfully enzyme deficient because of protein deficiencies", meaning their enthusiasm for algae supplements reflects their dietary desperation for nutrients they cannot get from their vegan diet, not evidence that the algae is actually providing those nutrients. Aajonus tried the product and experienced what appeared to be a THC detox or hallucinogenic episode, which he attributed to the body's inability to properly handle algae, not to a genuine detoxification benefit.

As noted in the sourcing section, Aajonus analyzed at least one commercial algae supplement and found that it was produced by dissolving algae-dense produce in kerosene in metal vessels to extract the algae fraction. This is presented as an example of the gap between the marketing of "natural" algae supplements and the industrial reality of how they are manufactured.

The consistent theme in Aajonus's critique of algae supplement marketing is that the energy boost people feel is misattributed. People take spirulina or blue-green algae, feel a rush of energy, and conclude the product is working. Aajonus identified this as an adrenaline response to toxicity, the body detecting industrial poisons, heavy metals, or the physiological stress of attempting to process an indigestible substance, and responding with an emergency adrenaline dump. The person feels high. They feel this is the vitamins working. "When it is poisoning them. And causing an adrenaline rush."

Aajonus's critique of algae supplements fits within his broader critique of all mineral supplementation. He stated: "Any other supplement is rock. You digest rock. Do you digest rock? I don't think I digest much of anything. Plants digest rock. Animals eat plants. We eat animals." This principle, that humans exist at the top of a biological chain that begins with minerals being eaten by plants and algae, then by animals eating plants, and then by humans eating animals, means that every attempt to shortcut the chain by eating rock-derived or algae-derived minerals directly is a violation of biological design and produces a result that is either useless (the minerals pass through undigested) or harmful (the body experiences them as toxic foreign substances).

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