This article is written in partnership with Karen® Phytoplankton. They aim to help end worldwide human suffering caused by poor nutrition by providing solutions and education for living a healthier life. ~ ed.
You ever had the feeling where your body wants more and you don’t know what of?
That’s been me almost my whole life.
I’ve always felt like there was something missing from my nutrition. There are times, for example, when I crave never-ending flows of salsa or ketchup (perhaps I need more lycopene). Others, I drink milk like it’s water.
A few weeks ago, I was introduced to Karen®, a super eco and sustainable phytoplankton company named after the founder’s mother, Karen Hunter. Karen was a Canadian nurse who passed away too early in life due to poor nutrition. That definitely piqued my interest.
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I mean, what does the SpongeBob Squarepants villain have to do with our bodies, nutrition, and health?
More than 32,000 Americans died of nutrient deficiencies in 2020—most of them seniors (2).
Beyond that, micronutrient deficiencies like iron, vitamin A, zinc, iodine, and folate, affect about 2 billion people worldwide, contributing to infections, severe illness, and death.
Needless to say, nutrient deficiency should be a legit concern when it comes to our health and wellness.
What we’re dealing with when we talk about with phytoplankton is the planet’s greatest, most powerful multivitamin. It carries the motherlode of nutrients that our bodies need to survive and thrive.
Those Omega-3 oils that come from fish and are so good for us, for example? Yeah; fish get it through phytoplankton consumption. Actually, phytoplankton has more omega-3 per weight than fish oil (3).
And, want a fun fact? Phytoplankton don’t smell and taste like fish. Fish smell and taste like phytoplankton—their main diet. I found that out firsthand.
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Down the hatch & up with nutrition
As soon as I snapped my Karen® Optimum Tablets blister pack open, I was taken back to fishing in Tennessee with my mom’s ex-husband. His tackle box would always be stocked with the good stuff, including synthetic salmon eggs stored in a little glass jar.
I loved the smell of opening that jar. And if you know what I’m talking about, you know that’s a really weird thing to say because to most, that smell is awful. Gag-worthy, even.
But to me, that phytoplankton tablet smelled like heaven. One whiff and my mouth would salivate.
As per the effect of starting a daily dose of phytoplankton? Well, here’s what I’ve got for ya: for starters, I’m pretty much a once-a-day fast food consumer. Yep, I’m a junk food junkie.
For three weeks sandwiching Thanksgiving, I visited my family in a small town that doesn’t have easily accessible fast-food, and what they do have aren’t my favorite haunts. Usually, I’m not going to lie, I find myself wanting fast food while I’m there several days a week.
Taking a phytoplankton tablet regularly during my visit, I only craved junk food once during those three weeks. That’s a huge deal.
That might be because marine phytoplankton are known to help maintain healthy blood glucose levels (4). With healthier foods in my hands and phytoplankton to help reduce spikes that make me crave sugar, there was seemingly better regulation in my system.
With that tiny shift to my daily routine, I could see big impacts.
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One example where size really matters
Think about this for a minute: whale sharks, the largest fish in the world, grow big and strong filter feeding on about 45 pounds of plankton a day (which includes both small animals that float along in the ocean currents [zooplankton], and the tiny plant molecules Karen® phytoplankton grows).
In fact, research shows that phytoplankton are the Earth’s most powerful nutrient despite that they’re only the size of a red blood cell.
That’s pretty impressive and should illustrate the power of small things when taken in certain quantities.
Actually, the tiny size of phytoplankton is kinda its “superpower.” It allows for Karen® Phytoplankton’s nutrients to be absorbed deeper into your body and help:
>> Improve your natural detox system,
>> Support your heart,
>> Reduce your rate of aging
>> Give your mental clarity and focus a boost, and
>> Loads of other helpful things.
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Actually, the tiny size of phytoplankton is kinda its “superpower.” It allows for Karen® Phytoplankton’s nutrients to be absorbed deeper into your body and help:
>> Improve your natural detox system,
>> Support your heart,
>> Reduce your rate of aging
>> Give your mental clarity and focus a boost, and
>> Loads of other helpful things.
Phytoplankton also contain a host of the things that our bodies need to thrive. Those Omega-3 oils that come from fish and are so good for us, for example? Yeah; fish get it through phytoplankton consumption. Actually, phytoplankton has more omega-3 per weight than fish oil (3).
Phytoplankton is also safer to take than fish oil, is not harvested from the ocean, and actually helps the environment because the only byproduct of its production is pure oxygen.
But it doesn’t smell like pure oxygen when you prep to pop a phytoplanketon into your mouth, and I found that out firsthand.
Fun fact: Phytoplankton don’t smell and taste like fish. Fish smell and taste like phytoplankton. Join me as I sing: it’s the cirrrrrcle of life.
Opening my phytoplankton smelled like that, and it struck me that perhaps this was what my body had been needing all these 30 years.
I’ve smiled every day since, as I open them. I could almost crunch the tablet between my teeth like a chewable vitamin—it’s that much of a physical want. But that’s just a strange personal aside. And, in fact, the tablets are made for folks whose palettes are far less fish-forward and might prefer them to Karen® Powder.
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As per the effect of starting a daily dose of phytoplankton? Well, here’s what I’ve got for ya: I’m pretty much a once-a-day fast food consumer. Yep, I’m a junk food junkie.
For three weeks sandwiching Thanksgiving, I visited my family in a small town that doesn’t have easily accessible fast-food, and what they do have aren’t my favorite haunts. Usually, I’m not going to lie, I find myself wanting fast food while I’m there several days a week.
Taking a phytoplankton tablet regularly during my visit, I only craved junk food once during those three weeks. That’s a huge deal.
That might be because marine phytoplankton are known to help maintain healthy blood glucose levels (4). With healthier foods in my hands and phytoplankton to help reduce spikes that make me crave sugar, there was perhaps better regulation in my system.
Why you need to start Karen® for yourself…with phytoplankton
If you are missing essential nutrients, your body will begin to operate below its optimal levels. Think cravings, inflammation, lack of mental clarity and the likes. When you receive the nutrition that is missing using phytoplankton, your health can improve in so many ways:
1. Your skin just might glow (5)
It’s the phosphorescence. No; I kid. Bioflavonoids contribute to healthy skin by building up in our skin cells and removing impurities. Riboflavin reduces the free radicals that attack our skin cells and cause our skin to look aged.
2. You’ll be less hangry
Chromium and phenylalanine help reduce your cravings for sweet things (4) so you can be nicer to your sweet thang when hunger hits more gradually.
3. Your heart will pump up the love
SOD (Super Oxide Dismutase), amino acids, and omega 3 fatty acids support a healthy cardiovascular system (6).
4. You’ll might-ify your immune system (7)
Phytoplankton is greener than Popeye’s spinach, and it’ll leave your immune system’s metaphorical bicep flexin’ just like him with its beta-carotene, bioflavonoids, and vitamin E.
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5. Your joints will be greased
Move over Tin-Man. Phytoplankton can help you lube your joints. Manganese can help improve joint mobility, while omega 6 fatty acids and pantothenic acid help to maintain joint health.
6. You’ll gain regenerative powers
No, not on the scale of Star Wars’ Kylo Ren. Just on a cellular level. Micro nutrients and electrolytes strengthen cell membranes and improve cell regeneration (8).
Fun fact: the composition of human plasma, or fluid surrounding cell membranes are very similar to the sea water, so our plasma serves as a happy place for phytoplankton to work its magic.
7. Your brain will thank you
Omega long chains, Omega 3 fatty acids, EPA, DHA, nucleic acids, phenylalanine, proline, and magnesium promote brain tissue health, which can improve mental clarity, and boost memory and mood (9).
8. You’ll help your eyes
You won’t be able to use the excuse that you’re having eye problems and just can’t see goin’ into work, because beta-carotene protects the cornea of the eye and can also greatly improve visual function.
9. You’ll be taking in trace minerals
Most Americans have a trace mineral deficiency of some sort (10). An over-reliance on land-based food sources that don’t contain enough micronutrients often contributes to the situation (11). Phytoplankton offers trace minerals in a more efficient and (thanks to its size) more bioavailable form you can absorb more deeply into your body (12).
10. You’ll give yourself a li’l daily detox
SOD is a hugely effective heavy metal detox catalyst. When we consume it, our blood plasma, similar to that of ocean water, is benefitted by phytoplankton’s oxygenation and detoxification process.
But I already have a multi-vitamin, you say.
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And that’s fine—standard, even. A 2019 survey on dietary supplements found that the use of supplementation in the US has reached an all-time high with a majority of citizens taking dietary supplements (13).
There’s just one problem with that: between overfishing for Omega-3s, polluting for Vitamin C, and irresponsible agricultural practices involved in the harvesting and processing of almost every multivitamin ingredient, the way that we’re taking in our nutrients is not always safe for our bodies, or kind to Mother Earth.
Help yourself, help the planet.
Karen® phytoplankton is grown with highly ethical practices that are sustainable and eco-friendly.
Let’s get nerdy for a moment. Because if you’re like me, you’re maybe a little worried about there not being enough phytoplankton out there to fuel both our bodies and the bodies of all the gorgeous and important sea creatures out there.
Karen® first harvests water from the Atlantic Ocean and filters it to get rid of contaminants like microplastics. The process does not collect fish or other living organisms, only the ocean water, which contains phytoplankton in its uppermost layers.
After filtering, water is sent to a lab where a single cell of certain, lab verified strains of phytoplankton are harvested and placed within petri dishes.
Gaditae™, your “typical” phytoplankton, is the one Karen® offers in its Optimum tablets as a way to help you get loads of nutrients, and the one that provides a host of broad health benefits.
TetraSOD®, a more “specialized” strain of phytoplankton, is the anti-aging sidekick to Karen® phytoplankton. SOD is the first shield against oxidative stress (aka aging). The TetraSOD® found in Karen® Ageless® is the most concentrated SOD source out there and is the most efficient way to activate our antioxidant response pathway to reduce the speed of our aging.
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Other Strains are selected to help support Gatitae™ and TetraSOD®, and still more are excluded due to known adverse health effects.
Each single harvested phytoplankton cell is then placed inside a large tank the size of a football field. There, the environment needed for phytoplankton to replicate can be controlled. All that’s needed is sunlight and CO2 to encourage growth.
Within weeks, that phytoplankton has duplicated to the extent that it thickly coats the tanks in what looks like green ketchup—phytoplankton ready to fuel our health. That’s scraped away from the tank in prep to be frozen into Karen®’s capsules.
At that point, water from the tank is released into the ocean, filtered free of microplastics and other impurities, but laced with a bit of that extra, healthy phytoplakton that’ll continue to replicate out there in the wild and safely feed the fishies.
The only byproduct of the whole process is pure oxygen. And with the sun being free energy and CO2 being taken from the atmosphere to pump into the tank and tubes, you’re left with a super clean process that actually nurtures the ocean and nourishes our bodies. It’s a rare happy medium as the climate crisis blazes on.
Look, it’s only getting rougher out there both in terms of what we put in our bodies, and the earth-harming processes we use to get nutrients into them. We could all afford to be a lot more gentle on ourselves and the Earth.
It’s high tide (pun intended) you gave the planet & your body your best. Start with Karen®—it’s only a dollar a day >>
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Resources
- https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/phyto.html
- https://platform.who.int/mortality/themes/theme-details/topics/topic-details/MDB/nutritional-deficiencies
- https://us.thekarenproject.com/learn/benefits/phytoplankton-introduction/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5192457/
- https://us.thekarenproject.com/learn/benefits/about-lotion/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2386859/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33887828/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8566026/
- http://www.umaclife.com/pdfs/Alpha-3-phytoplankton.pdf
- https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/micronutrient-inadequacies/overview
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9367456/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22809181/
- https://ecogreenlove.com/2020/06/13/dietary-supplements/
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