Green foods green gold: unearthing the nutritional benefits of green foods. (frontiers of science).(Brief Article)

Four billion years ago, during the Early Archean era, the first blue-green algae -- also called cyanobacteria -- were alive and well. At a time when the earth's atmosphere was a mix of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, in those early oxygen-bereft seas, algae "were in Fat City with the world to themselves, breathing carbon dioxide and making oxygen as a waste product" through photosynthesis, according to About.com.

Although oxygen bubbled up into the atmosphere about 2 billion years ago, it wasn't until 1,700 million years ago that the atmosphere became clear and oxygen-rich. Sea-dwelling cyanobacteria get their name from the bluish pigment, phycocyanin, which they use to capture light during photosynthesis. They also contain chlorophyll, the same photosynthetic pigment that terrestrial plants use.

It should be pointed out that not all blue-green algae are blue; some are red or pink. In fact, African flamingos get their pink color from eating a diet super-rich in the pinkish blue-green algae, spirulina.

THE RESEARCH

Studies underscore green foods' well established, health-enhancing effects, including: elimination of toxins (such as heavy metals), boosting levels of good bacteria (such as Lactobacilli) and boosting immunity.

Algae. Research behind algal foods includes a 2001 study in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, in which test-tube simulated digestion' of spinach puree was used to look at absorption of beta-carotene and its relatives (carotenoids) and chlorophyll. The lead author, Ohio State University's M.G. Ferruzzi, says that this study is the first to demonstrate absorption of chlorophyll derivatives by human intestinal cells and "to support ...