Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, a division of the National Institutes of Health, is funding a study to investigate the anti-inflammatory properties and mechanism of spirulina.

Closer to home, at the Inn at Shelburne Farms, diners can eat spirulina in their pesto or butter. The latter turns an "awesome" shade of blue-green when the algae from Northern Spirulina is added to it, said chef de cuisine Weston Nicoll. He's folded spirulina into brioche dough and admires the look of the spirulina butter when it's spread on dark emmer bread.

"The fresh spirulina has a really delicate flavor, and we like the nutritional aspect," Nicoll said. "We have a lot of fun playing with it, I have to say."

click to enlarge sally pollak

Straining spirulina

Spirulina has been available for decades asonly operation in the Northeast that grows spirulina for human consumption. (A Rhode Island producer raises it for fish food.)

The founder of the employee-owned farm, Christopher Miller, 28, grew up in western Massachusetts and moved to Burlington to attend the University of Vermont. Then an environmental studies major, Miller discovered spirulina during his sophomore year in college when he spent a semester on a commune in southern India.

His plan was to work on a reforestation project, but Miller's interest shifted when he learned about spirulina. His teachers were from the Antenna Foundation, a Geneva-based organization whose projects include local and sustainable production of spirulina in developing nations. When members of Antenna arrived at the commune to teach about and build spirulina pools, Miller was hooked.

"I learned how to