Centuries before, the Kanembu people around Lake Chad on the southern fringe of the Sahara and the peoples of the Aztec civilization in Mexico were eating microalgae. During the 1970s the Japanese developed techniques for removing the cellulose walls of Chlorella to make it easier to process and digest. Chlorella had long been a useful tool of plant physiologists and Melvyn Calvin used it in the 1940s to elucidate the basic biochemical pathway of photosynthesis. More recently, large amounts of another micro-organism have come on to the market. These are cyanobacteria, which are popularly known, even to many botanists, as blue-green algae.
Cyanobacteria contain the chlorophyll a photosynthetic pigment, as do the algae.
They are most famous for their massive population explosions or 'blooms' under regimes of high nutrients and warm temperatures. The toxity of some species and the production of bad summer smells has given them a poor press. Now they are being hailed in some quarters as wonder foods with evidence that they may alleviate symptoms of AIDS, Alzheimer's Disease and ME or 'Yuppie Flu'. They apparently help the body to build up its immune system and to shed toxins. The Russians have even reported some success with detoxification of victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.