For vegans--if you do not supplement how do you get vitamin B12?

[andrew112]

For vegans: if you do not use some kind of supplement, how do you get vitamin B12?

[funchy]

I haven't gotten to vegan yet, though I'd like to. As a vegetarian I supplement anyway. With as processed, mass-produced, manipulated, and stale as modern food is, I feel it's hard for even a meat-eater to get all the recommended vitamins.

I did sites like nutritiondata and I realized that what we consider a "balanced" diet seems to always be missing something. I encourage you to check it out.
Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com

[liamona]

Originally Posted by funchy

With as processed, mass-produced, manipulated, and stale as modern food is, I feel it's hard for even a meat-eater to get all the recommended vitamins.

*sigh* I know. I've recently realized that I do feel better if I take certain supplements.

[ginkgo]

This has been discussed extensively. The bottom line is many vegans and meat eaters have deficiencies of B-12. Eating meat causes a greater need for it since meat is bad for health. So people should try to have a healthy lifestyle so their body can assimilate vitamin B-12 that they do consume. My mother could not assimilate it so she got needle shots of it. Also people should take a sublingual B-12 supplement.

Unlike other supplememts, B-12 is grown by bacteria to make the supplement. Also it is the cheapest vitamin. For people who hate numbers, run for the hills now and stay there. Many take a 500 mg vitamin C pill daily. A single 500 mg vitamin B-12 pill is enough to last you 100 years. It is cheap since you only need about 1 milligram of it every 6 months. You need 6/1000 of a mg daily (RDA).

Be advised that most tablets of anything, including herbs, pass through you without ever being digested-- that is why so many end up in the human waste. Sublingual means that it dissolves in your mouth and is not swallowed. Today we do not get enough B-12 due to bad health and not being able to assimilate it and also our food is too clean. Bacteria grows it.

[Andrew Michaels]

This might help: Vitamin B12 Deficiency And Diet: Can You Eat Your Way To Adequacy?

[Dan.Linehan]

I drink soy milk.

[RRR]

Rick Pope.

[SaySay]

I supplement, just like everybody should - vegans and omnis and everyone in between.

[Herbivore]

Do we agree that B-12 comes from bacteria?

Bacteria in the intestines make it. Why aren't people believing this fact? Doesn't ALL meat contain B12? Even the herbivores? They don't supplement. Bacteria in the intestines make it.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Herbivore

Do we agree that B-12 comes from bacteria?

Bacteria in the intestines make it. Why aren't people believing this fact? Doesn't ALL meat contain B12? Even the herbivores? They don't supplement. Bacteria in the intestines make it.

True, but it has also been proven that these particular bacteria are located in the large intestine, while B12 is absorbed in the small intestine. Unless your food travels upwards (...ew) the B12 leaves your body undigested. This is why rabbits eat their poop, for example. Herbivores with the same ill-designed intestine track eat soiled plants to get their B12.

To answer the original question: I do supplement, but I also eat a variety of enriched products like milks and breakfast cereals.

[liamona]

Originally Posted by aelle

True, but it has also been proven that these particular bacteria are located in the large intestine, while B12 is absorbed in the small intestine. Unless your food travels upwards (...ew) the B12 leaves your body undigested. This is why rabbits eat their poop, for example. Herbivores with the same ill-designed intestine track eat soiled plants to get their B12.

Ew is right! But this is one of the best explanations about B12 in the intestine I've ever read (unfortunately—lol).

[SaySay]

Originally Posted by Herbivore

Do we agree that B-12 comes from bacteria?

Bacteria in the intestines make it. Why aren't people believing this fact? Doesn't ALL meat contain B12? Even the herbivores? They don't supplement. Bacteria in the intestines make it.

But they also eat grass. Try living off grass, and see how you do.

I'm vegan, but I don't think we need insist our bodies make B12, when it's quite clear they don't (see explanation of bacteria gut location vs absorption gut location, which is totally accurate). It does not do the vegan cause any good to be unhealthy, or to propagate myth.

No one is getting everything they need from their diet. It doesn't mean veganism is inherently wrong, it just means optimum health is not something we have evolved to naturally achieve. Lucky we have technology, eh?!

Humans =/= ruminants. Out guts are just different, dude.

[funchy]

I was bored, so I looked up b12 in common meats. Let me preface it by saying that my meat-eating friends don't eat liver. They eat things like chicken, turkey, and other "healthy" meats. Grilled chicken sandwiches or white-meat chicken on pasta seem popular.

I google it and found on wiki:
"One-half chicken breast provides some .3 µg per serving or 6.0% of one's daily value (DV)"

So a meat eater would need to eat SEVENTEEN a day to get 100% of the
recommended amount of vitamin B12. Who eats 17 servings of chicken every day?

For meat-eaters who prefer meats such as chicken, where do you get your B12? Or rather, why don't meat eaters ever seem to worry about b12, but everyone worries about where vegans/vegetarians get b12?

[liamona]

Originally Posted by funchy

I was bored, so I looked up b12 in common meats. Let me preface it by saying that my meat-eating friends don't eat liver. They eat things like chicken, turkey, and other "healthy" meats. Grilled chicken sandwiches or white-meat chicken on pasta seem popular.

I google it and found on wiki:
"One-half chicken breast provides some .3 µg per serving or 6.0% of one's daily value (DV)"

So a meat eater would need to eat SEVENTEEN a day to get 100% of the
recommended amount of vitamin B12. Who eats 17 servings of chicken every day?

For meat-eaters who prefer meats such as chicken, where do you get your B12? Or rather, why don't meat eaters ever seem to worry about b12, but everyone worries about where vegans/vegetarians get b12?

You bring up a very good point, especially the hypocrisy of meat eaters to criticize veg*n diet's B12-lessness!

However, their eating habits (especially embracing lean chicken and turkey) stems from idiotic health "experts" who urge them to give up beef and liver (because it contains "dangerous" amounts of vitamin A).

Meat eaters, to be optimally healthy, need to start eating more organs and raw meats, and seafood like clams and mussels (which are other good sources of B12).

Muscle meats do have nutrients, but the organs are the most nutrient-dense parts of animals. Not only that, but it's really wasteful to only eat the muscle portion of an animal.

I understand that it's hard to eat "weird" things like that if you grew up on the SAD, but you can hide ground liver in ground meats. I also like to grate frozen livers and take them like pills with a large swallow of water.
According to the World's Healthiest Foods site, 4 oz. of calf liver provides a whopping 689% of the daily required value for B12, so you wouldn't need to eat very much to get a good dose.

BTW, I came across a good article on B12 on the Linus Pauling Institute's site.

[andrew112]

Originally Posted by SaySay

It doesn't mean veganism is inherently wrong, it just means optimum health is not something we have evolved to naturally achieve.

Really? I am currently eating a diet that contains EVERY nutrient except for vitamin B12 and vitamin D, but I get vitamin D from the sun anyway, and I also take two supplements that have vitamin B12 and vitamin D and a lot of other nutrients. However, I have been very interested by the topic of sungazing lately and I think I will give that a try as soon as the climate gets warm enough in the mornings during sunrise.

[andrew112]

Originally Posted by liamona

According to the World's Healthiest Foods site, 4 oz. of calf liver provides a whopping 689% of the daily required value for B12, so you wouldn't need to eat very much to get a good dose.

I have read that mollusks of mixed species contain over 400% in 1 ounce. I think I might start eating .25-.5 oz of mollusks a day, even though I would rather just not eat meat at all. I am also starting to wonder whether I really do need any vitamin B12 at all.

[SaySay]

Originally Posted by andrew112

Really? I am currently eating a diet that contains EVERY nutrient except for vitamin B12 and vitamin D, but I get vitamin D from the sun anyway, and I also take two supplements that have vitamin B12 and vitamin D and a lot of other nutrients. However, I have been very interested by the topic of sungazing lately and I think I will give that a try as soon as the climate gets warm enough in the mornings during sunrise.

I'm sure your diet *contains* it (as does mine), but can you get it every day? What I mean is, are you getting 100% recommended daily value of every vitamin and mineral, every day? If you are, please tell me your secret, because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that and stay under 4,000 calories (and eat a 'practical' diet, ie not 3 bites each of 300 different foods)

That's all I meant. Not that any diet is necessarily deficient in any nutrient, but that ALL diets are deficient in delivering as much of the nutrients as we need on a daily basis!

[andrew112]

Originally Posted by SaySay

I'm sure your diet *contains* it (as does mine), but can you get it every day? What I mean is, are you getting 100% recommended daily value of every vitamin and mineral, every day? If you are, please tell me your secret, because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that and stay under 4,000 calories (and eat a 'practical' diet, ie not 3 bites each of 300 different foods)

That's all I meant. Not that any diet is necessarily deficient in any nutrient, but that ALL diets are deficient in delivering as much of the nutrients as we need on a daily basis!

I am getting atleast 100% of every vitamin and mineral every single day. My diet consists of mostly green vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds, whole grains, and the only beverage I ever drink is water--unless I decide to make 100% natural orange juice out of a couple of oranges in a blender, or if I decide to blend a couple oranges along with some green vegetables to make a "green drink" w/oranges.

[SaySay]

Originally Posted by andrew112

I am getting atleast 100% of every vitamin and mineral every single day. My diet consists of mostly green vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds, whole grains, and the only beverage I ever drink is water--unless I decide to make 100% natural orange juice out of a couple of oranges in a blender, or if I decide to blend a couple oranges along with some green vegetables to make a "green drink" w/oranges.

What do you eat in one day? Can you give me a precise list please?

[Andrew Brunelle]

Again, this goes back to the fundamental problem with veganism. It is not the perfect diet that many market it as. Meat isn't bad for you in its natural state, but the meat you find at the grocery store is certainly not very good for you. Those are basically poisoned animals in plastic wrap. But if you were to go out and hunt for a wild animal and eat that, you would be surprised at the nutrition that is contained in a healthy animal. But there are so few of those left that we make meat the bad guy.

Supplementation is way more unnatural than eating a piece of meat. It is a pill made by people in a laboratory. How do you even know your body can absorb it if it's in such an unnatural form? Who knows if it's really doing anything?

Our requirements for B12 are pretty low, so if you ate a piece of meat once a week or even once a month, you would most likely be all right. I'm talking about a healthy piece of meat, though. Supplements are not the answer if you are trying to get healthier. In some cases, it is shown that supplements can make you less healthy.

But this is, of course, just my opinion and the opinions of many doctors. You're entitled to your way of life, and you ultimately decide what to put in your body.

[jasonb]

ask a gorilla or elephant or giraffe how they get their b12

[liamona]

Originally Posted by jasonb

ask a gorilla or elephant or giraffe how they get their b12

Sorry, they refuse to let me know their secrets—which is why I'm stuck with you guys.

[andrew112]

Originally Posted by SaySay

What do you eat in one day? Can you give me a precise list please?

My normal everyday diet consists of:

purified water
spinach
red tomatoes
baby zucchini squash
snap green beans
sugar snap peas
broccoli
sweet green bell peppers
garlic
california oranges
red kidney beans
small white beans
ground flaxseed
brown rice
bananas
oat bran

I also take two different supplements for the vitamin B12 and vitamin D, which both contain lots of other vitamins and minerals as well.

[KazeCraven]

I know this is an old topic, but I just had to bring it up:

How do you even know what 100% is? What does 100%DV mean? Is that what you need to avoid dying? Is that optimal for a 120lb woman? A 70yr old man? 100% DV assumes that there is an ideal amount of nutrient that applies to most people in most situations. So I wouldn't put to much credibility on eating something like Total which has the "100%" of a whole bunch of different vitamins. Not saying that anyone is eating chemically-laden wheat flakes, but I wouldn't put much credibility to the DV requirements.