Spirulina is so jam-packed with nutrients that our jars would be bursting at the lids if we didn’t give them such a tight seal. This primordial blue-green algae was the most nutrient-rich food on our planet long before the dawn of humanity, and retains that claim to fame to this day. You might say it has long reigned supreme in the realm of superfoods—roughly 3.5 billion years before “superfoods” became a thing.

Spirulina owes its seemingly endless list of health benefits to its chemical composition, which includes protein, amino acids, minerals, iron, essential fatty acids, vitamins, and, well, nearly every other nutrient essential to life. Because it would be impossible to sum up spirulina’s astonishing array of nutrients in a concise way, we wanted to highlight just one of the powerful elements of its composition for you today: pigments.

The primary pigments found in spirulina—chlorophyll, phycocyanin and beta-carotene—not only give our algae its radiant green hue, they also play significant roles in imparting improved human body functions.

As you may recall from science class, chlorophyll is vital in the photosynthetic process, which enables plants to absorb energy from light—but its power to vitalize and invigorate doesn’t stop with plants. Chlorophyll, along with its pigmentary partners phycocyanin and beta-carotene, contains vitamins, antioxidants and therapeutic properties that stimulate your immune system and energize your body. Beyond the food product and nutrition value, these light-harvesting pigments have nutraceutical properties as well and have been widely used for their anti-inflammatory, antiviral, neuroprotective and hepatoprotective capabilities.

So pick up some of the good stuff. Live a little. Color outside the lines.