How healthy is that blue latte?
Image from DailyMail.co.uk
Earlier this month, a Melbourne café started selling a “Latte” made with live Blue Algae. The ingredients to these colourful lattes which bear a resemblance to a cup of Egg Shell paint from Bunnings are coconut milk, lemon, ginger, rice malt and E3 Live Blue Majik, also known as -Blue Algae.
When looking at a brightly saturated photo of the latte - I thought to myself, “Isn’t Blue Algae poisonous?” A memory from my childhood floats back. I'm playing at the park when my mother shouts, “Be careful around the lake, it has Blue Algae!” To my seven-year-old self , this meant I would likely become a mutant ninja turtle if i dared to touch the water. So, my question is - if my mother told me it was poisonous, why are they putting it in coffee?
The Melbourne café, Matcha Mylkbar is the creator of this beautifully aesthetic beverage, additionally boating the health benefits of the drink to their customers. If the colour of the drink, or the fact that it’s vegan doesn’t convince you that this place is about as hipster as it comes, the way they spell ‘milk bar’ as ‘Mylkbar’ should. But is the drink all it lives up to be? Let’s look a little more into the ingredients.
Things such as lemon and ginger have been used for years and are acclaimed to help with issues such as nausea and immune system boosting. Coconut milk is another one of those lactose-free substitutes which is vegan-friendly. The milk is high in fibre, iron and minerals such as Vitamin C, E, B6 and B12. However, the milk is also very high in saturated fat, with 50.7g of it in a serving size on 240g.
Enough to pack on the pounds if you drink this stuff regularly.
Rice Malt is a sweetener derived from brown rice, which of course means it’s vegan. But Rice Malt is just Maltose, so unfortunately by the time it breaks down in your stomach, it’s glucose, and it’s not that dense in nutrients, meaning the benefits aren’t too great.
So, now we have that sorted, let’s talk about the main talent here, the Blue Algae. The Blue Algae is being sold as ‘Blue Majik’ on an Australian website called E3 Live. The website describes the Algae as “100% Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA), an edible freshwater plant. AFA is at the very foundation of the entire food chain.” This lead me to look into Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA) to find out exactly what it is. It turns out; AFA is a species of cyanobacteria, the brother of the ‘Blue-Green Algae.’ - (which is the dangerous stuff that filled all your adventures to the park with fear that you would walk out with two extra legs).
A quick look at Blue-Green Algae and you’ll see that it’s on the Australian Government Department of Environment website as an “algae-like bacteria which inhabits freshwater, coastal and marine waters” and is a “risk to livestock, wildlife and human health.” However, we must remember that the main ingredient in the drink, Blue Algae is only the brother of the algae that ruined your childhood. Which means no, the drink is not poisonous, although the health factors don’t seem to be lifesaving.
Basically, you might want to rethink whether you want to pay $8 for a Blue Algae Latte that doesn’t actually contain any coffee.
