Verified
“Organic spirulina.”
USDA Organic and CCOF seals on the panel.
Nutricost Organic Spirulina 500 mg Tablets, 240 Count Review
SAC StudioBest Budget TabletCONSIDER
How the score breaks downHide breakdown
SAC Product Score™ — how it breaks down
- Dose vs Clinical Range25%7.4
- Purity & Contaminant Control25%8.2
- Label Transparency20%7.6
- Certifications & Sourcing15%8.6
- Value15%8.8
The budget organic tablet, if you are willing to take six
✓ Buy if…
- You want the cheapest organic tablet available
- You want zero excipients
✗ Skip if…
- You want the trial dose in one or two tablets
- You want any mineral or pigment disclosure
Read the full analysis
✓ Also buy if…
- You do not mind six small tablets a day
✗ Also skip if…
- You want a named growing region or a printed testing claim
Nutricost's organic spirulina is a 240-tablet bottle of 500 mg tablets, one tablet per printed serving, 'Other ingredients: None', with USDA Organic and CCOF certified-organic seals. At around $13 that is about five cents a tablet. The trade-off is the same as with every 500 mg tablet: the studied 3 g dose is six of them, so the bottle is forty days, not 240.
How we built the SAC Product Score™ — 8/10
Dose vs Clinical Range25%7.4/10
A 500 mg tablet is one-sixth of the studied 3 g dose; the printed serving is one tablet.
Purity & Contaminant Control25%8.2/10
Organic certification by USDA and CCOF limits pesticide inputs, but no testing statement or growing region is printed.
Label Transparency20%7.6/10
The panel declares 500 mg organic spirulina and nothing else; no protein, iron or phycocyanin.
Certifications & Sourcing15%8.6/10
USDA Organic and CCOF Certified Organic seals on the panel.
Value15%8.8/10
About $0.05 per tablet, roughly $0.32 for a 3 g dose; the cheapest organic tablet route.
The product at a glance
- Form
- Tablet, 500 mg each
- Serving
- 1 tablet (500 mg)
- Count
- 240 tablets (240 servings)
- Disclosed per serving
- 500 mg organic spirulina
- Other ingredients
- None
- Seals
- USDA Organic, CCOF Certified Organic
- Cost per dose
- ~$0.05 per tablet
Marketing claims vs. reality
Verified
“500 mg per serving, 240 servings.”
One 500 mg tablet per serving, 240 tablets, as printed.
Not verified
“Non-GMO, gluten free.”
These appear in the listing but not as seals on the panel we read; organic certification implies non-GMO inputs, but no gluten-free certification is printed.
What our test actually found
01Cheap and clean, but small
A single-ingredient organic tablet for a nickel is a good thing. The 500 mg size is the problem: the trials that showed effects used 2-3 g a day, so a realistic serving is six tablets and the bottle is a forty-day supply.
02The panel is the barest on the list
No protein, no iron, no phycocyanin, no farm, no testing statement. The two organic seals are doing all the work.
Pros & cons, no sugar-coating
Pros
- About $0.05 per tablet
- USDA and CCOF organic
- No excipients
Cons
- Six tablets to reach the studied dose
- No disclosure beyond the spirulina amount
- No testing claim or origin on the pack
The bottom of the list on merit, not on quality
Nothing is wrong with Nutricost's tablet; it is organic, clean and cheap. It ranks last because a 500 mg serving is far from the studied dose and the panel discloses the least of any product here. As a budget organic tablet it does its job.
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If this doesn’t fit — try these
Nutrex Hawaii Pure Hawaiian Spirulina
8.8/10Hawaiian-pond spirulina that hits the full 3 g trial dose in one six-tablet serving, declares its iron and protein, and carries the longest seal list on the list.
See it on the list →Earthrise California Spirulina
8.6/10The only product here that prints its c-phycocyanin content, 165 mg per 3 g serving, from a single California farm; you pay for that transparency with the highest cost per dose on the list.
See it on the list →Anthony's California Spirulina Powder
8.5/10A California-grown powder with a full food-style Nutrition Facts panel, 3 g per teaspoon, batch-tested gluten-free, at about a quarter per dose.
See it on the list →Sources & further reading
- Cingi C, et al. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2008;265(10):1219-23.Cingi C, Conk-Dalay M, Cakli H, Bal C · 2008 · European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology · PMID 18343939
The effects of spirulina on allergic rhinitis
In a six-month double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 2 g of spirulina a day significantly reduced allergic-rhinitis symptoms including nasal discharge, sneezing, congestion and itching versus placebo.
- Karkos PD, et al. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2011;2011:531053.Karkos PD, Leong SC, Karkos CD, Sivaji N, Assimakopoulos DA · 2011 · Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine · PMID 18955364
Spirulina in clinical practice: evidence-based human applications
A review of human studies concluded spirulina has the most consistent evidence for lipid-lowering and allergic-rhinitis symptom relief, with immune-marker effects that are promising but drawn from small trials.