Spirulina is a microscopic multi-cellular cyanobacterium, which is found naturally in lakes and rivers across Africa, Asia and South America. It is a very simple and ancient life form, which produces its own energy from sunlight through photosynthesis using the blue pigment phycocyanin, so spirulina is also sometimes referred to as “blue green algae”. However spirulina is not actually an algae, or a plant – it lies somewhere between the two, having first evolved some 3.6 billion years ago