In 2007, when I started a Facebook group called Spirulina Love, the internet’s knowledge of spirulina was a thin layer of supplement advertising over a thinner layer of pioneer research. There was almost nothing in English aimed at someone who wanted a calm, useful answer to a basic question.
I started the group because I was that someone. I’d been using spirulina for a year, had read everything I could find, and still had questions that my own search kept failing on. I figured if I had them, others did too. So I made a place.
Nineteen years later, that group has grown into the largest organic spirulina community on the web. 14,000+. Quiet rules: no spam, no miracle claims, no brand wars. Most days a question gets answered within an hour by someone who has been using or growing spirulina for ten years longer than the person asking.
What we kept seeing
What I learned from 19 years of moderating that group is that the same questions come back, week after week, in slightly different shapes:
- How much should I take?
- Is it safe in pregnancy?
- Why does my brand smell different from theirs?
- Is a Certificate of Analysis worth reading?
- Does spirulina interact with [my medication]?
- Is the “blue spirulina” my niece sells the same thing?
Each one of these has a real answer — sometimes a calm yes, sometimes a careful no, sometimes a “please ask your doctor.” In a Facebook group, every answer scrolls away. The same question gets asked three months later, and everyone who knew has to answer again.
That’s why this site exists.
What this site is for
Spirulina Guru is the editorial home of that community. The group is the human side — messy, vibrant, full of pictures of cultures and worried mothers and excited new growers. The site is the calm reference: answer it once, properly, and link back to it every time the question recurs.
We are not a brand. We don’t take payment from spirulina manufacturers in exchange for editorial coverage. The site is reader-supported through affiliate links to retailers we’d recommend anyway, and through a forthcoming paid tier of the newsletter. Both are clearly disclosed; neither shapes what gets written.
What we don’t do
We don’t make medical claims. We don’t say spirulina is a cure for anything. We don’t use the word “detox.” When the evidence is mixed or sparse, we say so. When we don’t know something, we say that too.
We’re also not the loudest voice in the spirulina conversation. There are louder voices, and some of them sell more product. We’re aiming for a smaller, more durable thing: the place a thoughtful person ends up when they want to actually understand what they’re putting in their morning smoothie.
What you can do, today
If you’ve read this far, three small asks:
- Subscribe to the weekly digest. One short email. Curated science, recipes, and brand intel. Unsubscribe in a click.
- If you’re on Facebook, join the community. Ask anything. Read anything. Disagree thoughtfully. The group is the real social substrate of this site.
- When something on this site is wrong, write to me at hello@spirulina.guru. I read every email. Replies sometimes take a few days; they always come.
— Yunus