Where do you all get your B12 from?

which raw foods are a good source?

It is like asking where do you get your water from. From its natural source.

There is no viable vegan source of vitamin B12 so your only options are to include some fortified foods such as some brands of nutritional yeast, fortified cereals etc. Supplements or injections.

Personally i cycle sublingual b12 every few months.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

thanks powerlifter, Ill look into those.

madinah.. can you elaborate? what natural sources?

I take a liquid supplement, it's water soluble so it's not going to hurt if I'm wrong about it. I don't think I am though, and I sure don't want to find out some day that I was wrong and have a terrible deficiency!

madinah Wrote:
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> It is like asking where do you get your water
> from. From its natural source.

What natural source do you speak of?

The only good viable source of vitamin B12 is meat and most around here follow raw vegan diets. You may get a little from dirty veggies, but most buy there produce from supermarkets/markets where its already been cleaned. Even so you most likely wouldn't get enough B12 to meet the bodies needs.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

Meat, eggs, dairy, bugs, bacteria in dirt. Nothing vegan though.
Sometimes following a vegan and or raw diet is about more than just what we are putting into our mouths, loving behaviour and how to best care for the earth and her other inhabitants comes into play. Veganism has elements of compassion and ethical choice that are undeniable.

I believe I read that wheatgrass juice is about the only usable source of vegetarian b12

eaglefly Wrote:
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> I believe I read that wheatgrass juice is about
> the only usable source of vegetarian b12

Wheatgrass is also thought to be superior to other vegetables in its content of Vitamin B12, a vital nutrient. Contrary to popular belief, B12 is not contained within wheat grass or any vegetable, rather it is a byproduct of the microorganisms living on plants.[14] If plants are washed prior to consumption the water soluble B12 will be removed making most plants unreliable sources of B12. - WIKIPEDIA

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

powerlifer Wrote:
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> madinah Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It is like asking where do you get your water
> > from. From its natural source.
>
> What natural source do you speak of?
>
> The only good viable source of vitamin B12 is meat
> and most around here follow raw vegan diets. You
> may get a little from dirty veggies, but most buy
> there produce from supermarkets/markets where its
> already been cleaned. Even so you most likely
> wouldn't get enough B12 to meet the bodies needs.
>
> [www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

You are right that is the only viable source but I was told in the past that this is a vegan forum and we should not talked about the only viable source. Actually the question should not even be asked so as not to force us to talk about the only viable source.

This has me thinking do we really NEED meat to meet ALL of our nutritional needs?
Are b12 supplements made from meat sources?

Vinny

There are people on this forum who have been without meat for 10 years or more and are very healthy on the other hand there is little evidence of no meat diet in the wild, the cow eat other things beside grass.

B12 is a bacteria. Other bacterias that are capable of synthesizing B12 are fermented to produce the B12 that comes in supplement form (Wikipedia).

I take a methylcobalamin supplement that is labeled "vegan".

madinah Wrote:
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> There are people on this forum who have been
> without meat for 10 years or more and are very
> healthy...

Unless I'm mistaken, a B12 deficiency can take many years to develop. I believe your body has a store of it that it can deplete if you are not taking any in? Either that or... your body develops it, but if you don't take any in for a long period of time, it could stop? I might be way off on this.

But if it's true, a seemingly healthy *LONG TIME* vegan can develop the deficiency way down the road.

I should have added "or non-vegan" in parenthesis.

Jargon, I think you were right when you said this: "Unless I'm mistaken, a B12 deficiency can take many years to develop. I believe your body has a store of it that it can deplete if you are not taking any in?"

Yeah your liver holds b12 stores which can last for years, this is why many vegans have no problems with vitamin B12 deficiency in the beginning and often in turn become to believe that they don't need B12.

[www.vegankindgom.co.uk]

2,000 mcgs Methyl cobalamin sublingual lozenge.

WanderRA Wrote:
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> What about Obama and the debt ceiling limit?

Glad you asked. It turns out that if the US loses its Triple AAA bond rating, it's not so bad after all!!!

Surely there are vegan populations in the world, naturally occuring where the people don't take a b12 supplement and they've been able to sustain good health for generations.

Why would we have trouble with the vegan diet and have to supplement?

Happy, so far as I'm aware, with all the vegans who have really wanted to believe that a B12 supplement (or B12 enriched food) is not necessary, and with the world-wide internet at the tips of all our fingers..., still, no one has found evidence of a vegan population in the world, naturally occurring where the people don't take a B12 supplement and have been able to sustain good health for generations.

Sometimes the facts just don't conform to our personal philosophies. It may be unfortunate, but apparently it may be part of life.

The fact is that of all primates, only some humans make the conscious choice of total veganism. In my opinion, that makes being vegan all the more special.

One alternative that other primates utilize is to eat our feces. So far, I haven't heard of any human choosing that option over taking a supplement.

We can choose to take a B12 supplement (or consume a B12 enriched food) rather than eat an animal or animal product. It's a conscious (and/or conscience) choice.

Well, I forgot. There's this:

"Human faeces can contain significant B12. A study has shown that a group of Iranian vegans obtained adequate B12 from unwashed vegetables which had been fertilised with human manure. Faecal contamination of vegetables and other plant foods can make a significant contribution to dietary needs, particularly in areas where hygiene standards may be low. This may be responsible for the lack of aneamia due to B12 deficiency in vegan communities in developing countries." [www.byhealth.com]

I've seen this several times, but there's never any reference for the Iranian study. And there's no information about where the other "vegan communities" are.

According to Jack Norris: "Herbert (26) reported a group of "vegan" Iranians growing plants in night soil (human manure). The vegetables were eaten without being carefully washed and the amount of B12 was enough to prevent deficiency. However, for this information, Herbert cites Halstead et al. (1959) (27), who do not mention these Iranians in their paper. Herbert possibly meant to cite a 1960 paper by Halstead et al. (28) which reported that some Iranian villagers with very little animal product intake (dairy once a week, meat once a month) had normal B12 levels. None had megaloblastic anemia. Their average B12 level was 411 pg/ml which was quite high considering their diet. The authors speculated this could be because their diets, which were very low in protein, allowed for B12-producing bacteria to ascend into the ileum where the B12 could be absorbed. They also speculated that because they lived among their farm animals and their living areas were littered with feces, they picked up enough B12 through contamination." [www.veganhealth.org]

In conclusion, there's no reference I'm aware of that confirms an Iranian all-vegan community has been tested and has sufficient B12.

We do know for sure there is a group of African Hebrews who have practiced veganism for several decades. They are opposed to supplements of any kind, including B12; but several of their babies have died, and were found to be severely B12 deficient.

haha, just eat some @#$%&, oh darn, that wouldn't be considered vegan.

just thought i'd put in a plug for dairy. there are raw cheeses available (at least in my area). i personally don't see the harm in eating dairy. i love cheese yogurt and milk. i used to live in vermont. there's something so peaceful about dairy cows. cows are attributed to love and joy in Egyptian mythology. partake of their sacred gifts and receive the love of God in my opinion. i know it causes mucosity and all, but really, i rarely get sick, mucous is a natural defense mechanism of the human body. of course, anything in excess...

don't be afraid of cheese

i can't believe they sensored p o o p

oops censored

rawalice, I know you meant well, but this is a vegan community. If you go back to the list of forums, you'll see that the title of this forum is "Living and Raw Foods Discussion (Vegan)". Under the title, you will see this: "This board is for the discussion of Vegan Living and Raw food related discussion."

Sometimes it's OK here to ask others why we don't eat dairy. It's never OK to "put in a plug for dairy". I'm a member, not the moderator, so if you disagree with any of the above, please ask the moderator. Thanks!

Sorry, but I thought you might like to know.

Second what Suncloud said. Vegan is vegan. Plenty of Weston Price/Paleo forums for those kind of things. Btw, cheese is one of the worst things you can put into your body. Much more saturated fat than beef or chicken. They also use aluminum in processing it. The antibiotic and growth hormone residues from the cows... you get the idea.

Kref

Yup, thanks Krefcenz.

And even if it comes from a cow in the backyard pasture, cow milk is for calves, not humans. Long time ago, I lived for a while in Vermont too and milked a cow every morning. Too sad when the calf was taken away from the Mom and cried for days (that's how we humans get the milk).

The cow owners were young and slim in those days, but still eat dairy stuff and now carry an extra 100 pounds or so.

the commercial dairy herd is an abomination - the poor cows have been bred to produce unbelievable amounts of milk. the sheer weight of their udders, the mastitis, the misery of those poor animals.

Take some time rawalice to see where your dairy comes from and what suffering is caused so that you can have your dairy - I can promise you there is no love or joy in the modern dairy herd!

'partake of their sacred gifts and receive the love of God in my opinion' - what gift - don't be so stupid. the cow is forcibly impregnated, every year for a few short years until she is so worn out she has to be shot. Her calf, which is often winched out of her, is removed at birth and if a male calf, shot - if female, goes into the same production line. A dairy cow's hips are displaced by the sheer volume in her udder forcing her to walk on the outside of her feet causing severe foot problems. That is the harm in eating dairy - I don't much care what it does to you but I really care what it does to the cows.

Do some research and don't post that rubbish on this vegan forum

Thank you flipperjan!

I think many of us appreciate the people here are who are passionate about being vegan!

Yes, one reason the calf has to be removed from the cow is that milking for humans requires the cow to hold so much extra milk that if the calf is allowed to drink milk from the tit, there's too much milk, and it harms or kills the calf.

When I lived in Vermont, we had to remove the calf from the cow even though we only fed two human families with the milk. It's pretty disgusting how greedy humans can be.

My husband worked on a ranch in Idaho in his teens, where the dairy cows were kept on pasture for as many months as possible. But when it came time to separate the calves, he says he'll never forget the cries of hundreds of cows and calves crying for days. And when the cows couldn't make a crying sound anymore, they still cried, with their mouths opening and their poor throats straining to make a sound.

And of course, that's nothing compared to the horrors associated with normal industrial commercial dairy production, as noted by flipperjan!

Mercy For Animals recently went undercover at E6 Cattle Co. in Hart, Texas, where calves are reared for use on dairy farms. Some of the atrocities recorded were:

-workers bludgeoning calves' skulls with pickaxes and hammers.
-beaten calves, still alive and conscious, thrown onto piles of dead animals.
-workers kicking downed calves in the head and standing on their necks and ribs.
-gruesome injuries and afflictions, including open sorres, swollen joints, and severed hooves.
-the budding horns of calves burned out of their skulls without painkillers.

"The owner of E6 Cattle required his employees to bash in the calves' heads with a claw hammer, condemning the calves to prolonged, horrific deaths. As Debra Teachout, DVM asserted, 'They feel every blow until they become unconscious.'" (The Island Vegetarian, July - September 2011)