Phycocyanin

Spirulina has been eaten continuously by two human civilisations, each of them documented.

The Aztecs harvested what they called tecuitlatl from the surface of Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico, before the Spanish conquest. Bernardino de Sahagún describes it in his Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (1521): the inhabitants dried it into blue-green cakes and made broths with it. The city of Tenochtitlan had an organised production.

The Kanembu, a people of the shores of Lake Chad in Africa, have eaten dihé — wild spirulina harvested by hand, sun-dried and made into a protein-rich condiment — for at least several centuries. Without interruption, to this day.

These two peoples had no contact. They independently discovered the same organism, for the same use. That is a strong signal.

Phycocyanin is a protein-pigment that gives spirulina its deep blue-turquoise colour. It belongs to the family of biliproteins — molecules whose tetrapyrrole structure resembles that of human haemoglobin, but whose central atom is magnesium instead of iron.

In other words: phycocyanin is to the cyanobacterium what haemoglobin is to human blood. A carrier of light rather than of oxygen. A primordial molecule, 3.5 billion years old, which learned to capture solar radiation to nourish the first life on Earth.

Isolated from fresh or low-temperature-dried spirulina, it makes up between 10 and 15% of the alga's dry weight. This concentration explains why it is extracted separately: to obtain an active dose, one would have to swallow several grams of whole spirulina.

Phycocyanin is at the heart of my Regenerative formula (ILA bar, Maison ilā retreat) and of the everyday Vanilla & Blue Spirulina bar. Paired with acacia honey (the register of ether / dawn / light), vanilla and a white-cacao base, it composes what I call the blue bar — the one we take on waking from a retreat, or after a long effort that has drawn deep on the system.

It pairs poorly with strong fermentations (miso, soy sauce) and dense bitter tastes (coffee, heavily roasted cacao). It needs a neutral or gentle context to express its identity.