Vitamin B-12 - how do you get enough?

[Rowan]

So far most of my B-12 comes from cooked vegan foods (enriched soy milk, nutritional yeast) and vitamins.

I want to get my B-12 from foods, but I can't seem to get enough trying to be raw (though I could easily cooked).

Where and how do you get adequate Vitamin B-12 daily?

[Velvet]

You can't really get it from plant foods anymore due to soil depletion.
You might want to read this:
http://treeoflife.nu/whyb12

[shannsu]

I use bee pollen, myself. But I also use raw organic, unfiltered honey (instead of agave, because it's local). There is bee pollen in there as well as propolis and other nutrients not found in the regular stuff.

[wyjoz]

B12 is produced in or should be produced in our gut. that's it......... due to improper foods/eating/living conditions the gut is not in proper order and B12 production is not done.

now there is information that supplements might be causing more harm than help us.............

[Velvet]

Gabriel Cousens says this:
"There is one exception to this lack of vegetarian B-12 active food, which is that we do produce B-12 from bacteria in our large intestine, but since this B-12 is produced in the area below where B-12 is reabsorbed, it is really not available for absorption."

Of course, there are people who don't supplement and are very healthy, like the Boutenko, Doug Graham etc. so I'm sure there is something we don't know. Deficiencies cause such bad symptoms though, that I choose to supplement. If others can be good without supplementations, more power to them!

Though the Boutenkos said they don't wash their produce, and to them this is why they don't need B12. Not washing = swallowing some bugs which are a good source of B12. David Wolfe does that too. I'd do it if it didn't gross me out

Chimpanzees eat termites in their raw vegan diet as they are one of the best sources of B12 too.

[wyjoz]

ah Velvet............ I'm so glad you posted what I wanted to...........I did not want it to be 'me' that said this. Not washing 'ORGANIC' porduce ........... I'm trying not to get 'grosed' out doing it................... like when you get organic pear or apple etc slice it in 4ths and blend in the smoothie with the stem, the seeds, core, and the 'little' dent opposite end of the stem !!!!!!!!!!! yup!!

no no no I would not blend a slug I see crawling his merrily way on my greens from the back yard............can't do that...........but if there is one that is hidden somewhere and I have not seen it...........wrooooooom wrooooooooooom away !

and We need B12 in trace amounts.............and NATURE in it's wonderfully intelligent design provides us with trace amounts.............if we need other vitamins/minerals in mega doses NATURE provides us with mega doses......

Fearfully and Wonderfully made................

Ha! I'm feeling the "fearfully" made part right now - have written about my current just diagnosed B-12 deficiency in "Malaise du Jour."

Actually I suspected B-12 deficiency in me and so had got some baby chicks in hopes of having some healthy eggs for my liver problem (needs extra protein that I did not seem to be getting from green smoothies) but some screwball reported me to the city and made me get rid of them even though other people on our block have flocks in their backyards. So I had to re-home them before they started laying. Meanwhile I harvested their poo for my intended garden and hoped that the B12 from there would absorb into my skin. Obviously that didn't happen.

I have read that chicken manure tea is great for your garden but in my research I found out that chicken manure tea is an old hillbilly recipe for ailments! I mean they actually made a tea for consumption out of chicken poo! OMG!

[ani]

this is all most interesting...we eat some nutritional yeast and molasses...but is that enough? i am worried about my kids now...i wash the produce that i buy because i think about the hands and floors it may have touched along the way, but a lot of stuff from the garden we just eat (most) (pull up the carrot and eat it...) but that is only part of the year...

supplements...i reeeeally try to avoid them - thinking "natural" i wonder how much b12 would survive composting - if you compost humanure properly, you can use it on your garden and then if you didn't wash your veggies you would kind of be eating...

[Velvet]

Mmm I wonder if the worm tea from my worm composter would put B12 in the soil?

Jozzie, yes I totally agree, we only need it in trace amounts, 12 mcg if I'm not mistaken which is tiny. But what I'm afraid of is that farmers are relying so much on fertilizers and pesticides that the B12 amounts are even lower than what we need. Nature provided with enough, and then we destroyed it. If I could get an analysis of the soil my food grows in, I would feel much better. In the meanwhile, I supplement a bit and hope it won't hurt me too much...

[wyjoz]

Velvet? remember we need some 'organisms' and then then we make B12 in the gut..................the gut has to make it. that is the whole process.

do you have 12 Steps To Raw? Victoria has a chapter on this!!! Interesting..........

remember the story of Ketchup???? there are so many fruit flies that are allowed by government in the processing of it.....!!!!........???? yum yum yum................ and other fruit sauces, fruit drinks, V8 so it's not so much the V8 but a little fruit flies that makes it ''healthy'????

so do we???? when Vita Mixing and a few fruit flies get in with the fruits just wrooooooooom them in or do we make sure that not a one gets in?????

I'm tempted to slice fruits.........leave them in the blender then come in and cover with my leafy greens and wrooooom my smoothie???? still thinking this process, still slightly grosed out, still thinking if people actually eat 'pigs' (pork) the unclean animals that people should not eat at least fruit flies eat only fruits........?? how can an unclean pig not gross us out but a fruit fly does ? No???? People all over the world are not as concearned about this issue as Americans are.......... and maybe this is a good factor to keep in mind........they are not as 'lacking' in B12 as we are????

eat a worm/fly or two and a little dirt??? why don't we???

[Rowan]

Well, this sure sounds like a reason that NO ONE can be 100% raw vegan (or maybe even vegan for that matter)!

Maybe I just need to allow for a little meat now and again. I can't quite seem to figure out how to get enough nutritional yeast or enriched soy milk in my diet (trying to be 100% raw) to make up the difference. And while I keep reading that honey has B-12 in it, I cannot find any nutritional source that says it does ... and when I add it to my online tracker, even if I enter 2 cups of it, there's zero B-12 (hence my search for other nutrition information).

And I'm not going to eat the bugs! Even as I type this I have my kale soaking in a big bowl of water to help, well, drown the bugs and wash them off ... we return the water & bugs to the garden though. But I don't want to eat them!

That said, I do have a green superfood that has enough - but at $60 a bottle, I don't exactly want to use it every day.

For years I have been using the bulk nutritional yeast at my local health food store. The staff tells me that it has B12 added but I no longer believe them. I am buying Red Star nutritional yeast from now on.

I have to tell you all, they gave me that shot 2 days ago. Today it has kicked in. I have been able to accomplish more this morning (despite visiting here) than I normally accomplish in a whole day!

[Rowan]

Maybe I need one of those!

I've been so proud of myself finally working out how to be vegan, and I think I've got it in most areas, but my B-12 has been incredibly low, sometimes nonexistent.

And I'm TIRED, all the time I'm tired, I can't get anything done. I get up, I putz on various message boards, I get food, I shower, I go to bed, I give the cats their foods and meds, and that's my day! I just can't seem to want to move.

Oh, by the way, Rowan, I do not think that eating SAD foods or meats or whatever necessarily improves your chances. In my case I do have much damage to my body. The CT scan says diverticular damage (without inflammation) so I take that to mean that I cured it with raw and aloe vera. But no-one is able to tell me if that damage is causing my malnutrition issues. I also have liver damage from rhabdomyolosis from their cholesterol Rx and once again, the allopaths can give me no answers and I have not had the funds to go elsewhere. The liver stores your B12 among other things. So if you have these type of damages there is more to worry about but I think that if you get that Red Star yeast you should be OK. Plus maybe a supplement. Some people are doing well with supplements, including Dr Gabriel Cousens, so the fact that I did not means little.

[Velvet]

Originally Posted by Rowan

Well, this sure sounds like a reason that NO ONE can be 100% raw vegan (or maybe even vegan for that matter)!

I didn't say raw vegan isn't the best diet or is unnatural, I just said that it's tough to do it with the current state of the soil without B12, HOWEVER, it is still possible to do it if you know how your food is grown. As far as I know, the Boutenkos and Storm, Jinjee and the kids don't supplement at all, and by now their reserves of B12 should have been depleted if they were not getting it somehow. If I were to be forced to choose between bugs and meat though, I'd take the bugs, as they have no nervous system and can't feel what we call pain.

Regarding nutritional yeast, B12 is sensitive to light so if it's in those transparent bins, I'm sure much of it is gone.

Yea I know Jozzie... It's just one area where I'm a bit "chicken" I really trust what Dr Cousens says, and he doesn't benefit from telling people to take B12. Plus, I don't trust I eat well enough year round to go without the B12. Some day, when I can eat the way I want 100%, I might dump the pills in the garbage can