Would you like some algae with that?
Elliot Roth in his lab.
“I didn’t have very much money, like any recent graduate, and I was looking for a way to eat and keep healthy,” says Elliot Roth, 24, a 2015 graduate of VCU’s bioengineering program. Intrigued by the idea of growing his own protein, he began looking for information and stumbled on research NASA had conducted on an extremely nutritious fresh food perfect for astronauts in space—spirulina algae.
Spirulina is easy to grow—requiring just water, light and salt—and can replenish its harvest daily. According to Roth, the algae is nutrient dense, and contains 10 times more iron than spinach and three times more protein than beef.
The Annandale native first farmed the blue-green algae in his garage laboratory in Richmond. Visitors “thought it was really strange,” he says, but when they tasted the harvested spirulina they were surprised. Instead of a grassy or earthy flavor, spirulina, when fresh, is tasteless and has a buttery texture, says Roth.
Now, Roth creates and sells the superfood through Reston-based Spira, which he co-founded with two other VCU graduates, Peter Lee and Surian Singh in March 2016. The company sells start-up kits for $110 that contain live spirulina and all the tools needed to begin growing it at home.
“Spirulina is in a lot of food already and people just don’t know it—ice cream and smoothies, cookies, baking powder and pretty soon all blue M&Ms,” says Roth, Spiro’s CEO.
Roth sees the big picture too: He has consulted with the World Food Programme on using spirulina as a sustainable food source to help stem malnutrition in developing countries.
“My vision for this is that people can get access to nutrition anywhere effortlessly and they will be able to either grow their own using our devices, or find our protein as an ingredient in food products all over the place.” LiveSpira.com
