Vitamin B12

[PlantsPlease]

Hi! I supplement with B12, specifically DEVA brand B12 supplements (or sometimes the multivitamin). DEVA's B12 sublingual tastes really good and taking a sublingual/chewable tablet helps absorption.

Please supplement with B12. B12 deficiency is a very real and awful problem. It can take a while to manifest and the symptoms are not already clear so it's possible for permanent damage to be done before it is properly diagnosed. Supplements might not be "natural", but then neither is using computers. And health is far more important that being "natural". If you want natural, you could eat your feces like some other species do, but I really don't recommend that.

There are a lot of myths about where you can get B12, but the only reliable source for enough B12 is supplements. Fortified foods are good, but generally not raw and they are less than reliable because batches can vary. Also, stuff like nutritional yeast is not always fortified with B12. Other sources of B12 are even less reliable and mostly contain analogs that were once thought to be usable B12 (hence much of the confusion). We now know that such analogs do raise B12 levels for the purposes of blood tests but do not clear up B12 deficiency. So, not only is it not usable B12, it can give you misleading results on blood tests AND it might also reduce use of B12 -- something to keep in mind if you do eat a lot of food with B12 analogs.

Please, please, please read up on this topic and encourage others to read this. It breaks my heart to see vegans, vegetarians and raw foodists needlessly suffering from B12 deficiency. It not only hurts them, which is certainly bad enough, it also leads to more people believing that plant-based diets are dangerous.

See: http://veganhealth.org/articles/vitaminb12

[Psychalone]

B12 is synthesized in the gut by bacteria. There is no need to supplement in diet if we life proper lifestyles. Instead of focusing on what foods HAVE B12, I think it would be worthwhile to consider what DEPLETES B12.

-Putrefactive Bacteria destroy friendly bacteria. Putrification occurs by eating the dead carcasses of animal and most animal proteins.
-Antibiotics
-Dr. West and Hillard showed that a high protein diet increases the requirment for B12
- SInce B12 is known for its effect of the nervous system, anything that overstimulates/damages the nervous system causes the need for B12 to increase. Smoking, television, excess fear/worry, electromagnetic stress, loud abrasive sounds, High tension situations, lack of exercise (HUGE ONE). THis is a big issue because the modern livestyle is that of overstimulation. Adding proper sleep, exercise and physical/mental/emotional relaxation is KEY. Meditate, do Yoga, Qigong, play relaxing music, etc Activate that parasympathetic system!

ANother big issue is absorbtion. If you have healthy gut flora and your lifestyle is in check then you may simply have issues with absorbtion. In this case proper colon cleansing or fasting will do the trick.

Lastly lets go to sources of B12. We know ACTIVE algae has B12, certain sea vegetation and soil based probiotics. Fermented foods therefore will have a good concentration of B12 as well.

Clinical and experimental animal studies have shown that pernicious anemia (b12 deficiency) can be treated successfully with chlorophyll, so load up on those greens/green smothies/green juices if you're worried about it.

Usually the biggest issues are bad absorbtion in the gut and overstimulated nervous system. Get those two sorted out and you should never have to worry about it.

Best of luck

[PlantsPlease]

Hi Psychalone,

Please, please, please read the page that I linked to above. Many of those "B12 sources" turned out after further testing to be sources of B12 analogues. Many books on this topic are using old information that has since been disproved. Please don't repeat these myths.

Also, not all bacteria produce B12. Fermented foods are not reliable because most bacteria do not produce B12. When there is actual B12 in fermented foods, it's a good sign that they were contaminated by feces at some point. And while we do have B12 producing bacteria in our digestive track, they are too far down the track for us to be able to absorb the B12.

Some people recycle B12 better than others in their systems, some people absorb it better, some people have bigger supplies of it from their animal eating days. For some, it can take many years for deficiency to develop (though for others, deficiency can develop much sooner). However, your stores will eventually deplete if you do not get enough in your diet. Please don't deplete your stores of B12 and become deficient. This is a very serious problem and it does happen.

[Psychalone]

Hi Psychalone,

Please, please, please read the page that I linked to above. Many of those "B12 sources" turned out after further testing to be sources of B12 analogues. Many books on this topic are using old information that has since been disproved. Please don't repeat these myths.

Also, not all bacteria produce B12. Fermented foods are not reliable because most bacteria do not produce B12. When there is actual B12 in fermented foods, it's a good sign that they were contaminated by feces at some point. And while we do have B12 producing bacteria in our digestive track, they are too far down the track for us to be able to absorb the B12.

Some people recycle B12 better than others in their systems, some people absorb it better, some people have bigger supplies of it from their animal eating days. For some, it can take many years for deficiency to develop (though for others, deficiency can develop much sooner). However, your stores will eventually deplete if you do not get enough in your diet. Please don't deplete your stores of B12 and become deficient. This is a very serious problem and it does happen.

Yes and some people live on one small vegetable meal a day known as "modified bigu" in chinese tradition. Others yet live on mostly sunlight or just breath alone...where's the b12 comin from? ;) Don't fall into the myth that we're as limited as the authoritarians would like you to believe. Plenty of vegetarian and vegan societies exist.

As for the analogous B12, I'm quite aware of the issue. When I first did raw vegan I was uneducated and failed miserably and ended up going raw paleo so i'm aware of most "anti-vegan" arguments. While it may be true that some B12 stuff doesn't work, Some has been proven to. Again most supplements that are tested for B12 activity are DEAD, most algae is rendered inactive through the processing methods people use, it's very hard to find active brands of algae, probiotics and enzymes are alittle easier.

Again you're failing to see the point that our high need for B12 is due to an improper lifestyle. As Dr Doug Graham says, "Lets judge by results, not theories". thegardendiet.com is the website of a raw vegan family. They've raised like 3-5 raw vegan kids...no B12 deficiency, no vitamin or mineral deficiency, no health issues. Now I wonder how that could be if they're not taking in B12. But lets look at their lifestyle. They get plenty of fresh air and sunshine, they're home-schooled, they're given many creative outlets like music and art etc, low stress environment. THATS why we suffer B12 issues, it's not that we don't make enough for a natural lifestyle, it's that we live UNNATURAL lifestyles so our needs are higher. Thats like eating a bunch saturated fats and cholesterol and saying "Oh we need blood pressure medication to survive and stay healthy", yeah if you keep up your unnatural diet and lifestyle you'll need blood pressure meds but if you live in accordance with nature you won't need jack.

To put some icing on this cake, there were clinical studies done by Dr. Zichgraf and Saunders where they were able to cure pernicious anemia with chlorophyll. They theorized that it's because it killed putrificative bacteria. So again, only when you've eliminated all of the factors that obstruct B12 synthesis and absorbtion can you make the dietary argument, and even then in order to prove we need it from diet you'd have to take people living natural lifestyles and clean diets and still find it. And how can you explain that there's no signifigant difernece in the percentage of meat eaters and vegans who suffer B12. If people who eat meat, eggs and milk on a near daily basis can get B12 deficiency then you can't possible say that we get it because it's not in out diet.

Now of course we don't all live natural low stress lives with clean air and sunshine and exercise, so in these cases, yes, supplementing with things like Raw Yogurt can help, but again to we can make enough on our own if we just clean ourselves up and live in accordance to nature, so why be dependent on a sub-par supplementation plan?

Your fear mongering is cute, but really it's not necessary, just let go, all your worrying is probably causing your need for B12 to increase ;) Nature takes care of her kin.

[Melon]

excess fear/worry, electromagnetic stress, loud abrasive sounds, High tension situations

Psychalone, I agree with everything you're saying but when I'm exposed to the above quoted and have a deficiency what do I do? I just got my B 12 test results back. Bad news....I was told to supplement! I never see doctors and never supplement since I'm against it too. I'm devastated and not sure what to do yet.
Has anyone here had a deficiency and managed to bring his/her levels back up to normal without synthetic supplements?
Do sprouts and kombucha really have human active B 12? Anyone has researched it? Thanks! : )