Sunchlorella | Chlorella Library Number5

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Chlorella is now regarded as a synonym for health food. However, do you really know about chlorella? Here in "Chlorella Library" provides you basic knowledge and related information about chlorella in detail.

There are 3 aspects in food. The 1st function is life-support function in nutrition. This is a basic nutritional function in the form of eating in order to sustain life. In post war days, most of Japanese people ate food to survive. Anyone knows that taking the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrate and fat), vitamins, and minerals in a balanced manner is necessary.

The 2nd function is in food preference. We eat it because it's delicious. Recently, this tendency has been increasing in Japan. It seems like that Japanese people has become to eat for fun not for living. If we prioritize the taste and seek after it, the nutritional balance will be collapsed. If we keep on such an unbalanced diet, it will cause obesity or life-style related diseases. Even if the body moves while young, it will come back to haunt later.

Today the 3rd function is attracting attention. This is body function adjustability by activities of functional components. It had turned out that there are various functions in general foods that we normally take. The functionality (medicinal benefits) of food in the natural world has been utilized experientially while not solved theoretically up to now. However, with the explosion of public interest in the 3rd function, the daily diet has also been changed.

Taking rice-a staple food of the Japanese people for example, they had expected just "feeling of fullness" from it until very recently. However, their desire turned into "daintiness" in recent years, and some high quality brand rice gained popularity. Also, the function of rice was clarified that there are preventative effects of decreased blood pressure or of arteriosclerosis in gamma-amino acid (commonly called GABA) in embryos or surface layer of polished rice. The demand of rice with such functionality like sprout brown rice or sprout rice has increased. Against the backdrop of the desire for the functionality of food, health food including chlorella became broadly acceptable for consumers.

The difference between a natural nutrients and a supplements

Generally, health food is broadly classified into two kinds. One is wholefood derived from natural life forms and expected comprehensive health effects including chlorella, royal jelly, and agaricus. Another is specific nutrient called supplements extracted and refined chemically to compensate for lack of nutrients such as vitamin drops or calcium pills. These two are treated almost the same. However, while natural nutrients are used without change, and comprehensive health effects are expected in the former, the single active ingredient is artificially extracted to compensate the shortage in the latter. It is more like medicine in a way.

Here is an example. It is known that there is a preventative effect to cancer in green and yellow vegetables. Then, only beta-carotene which efficacy is broadly recognized was extracted, and a research (random comparative test) on lung-cancer preventative effect targeted for smokers was performed on a large scale in the United States, Finland, and so on. Surprisingly, the total death rate and prevalence of lung cancer is higher in the group taking beta-carotene. What we learned form this is that the preventative effect on cancers of green and yellow vegetables does not directly derived from one single ingredient such as beta-carotene or vitamin C, but from multiple nutrients or various components (non-nutrients) contained in green and yellow vegetables. Lopsided nutrition collapse the whole balance, and weaken the power to maintain good health people hold after all.