Is it true that vegans do not get enough b12?!
Is it true that vegans do not get enough b12?
Does anyone know the answer?
Answers:
After stuffing a sock in to my mouth for 3 hours it's no good I just have to answer him.................
no, B12 can be absorbed from bananas pulses and nuts. I missed you foxie, babe. I loved to give you the thumbs down !!
Go on post a photo, make my millenium!!
No, its not true.
i wish they would bring back the thumbs down for questions. I've got a feeling we're going to need it over the next few weeks.
YellowJeff has the right answer. I've been on this diet for 27 years and am perfectly healthy. No supplements, no pills, never ill.
Far too much emphisis is put on having exactly the right RDA of this and that. Just eat a balanced vegan diet with a variety of fruit, veg, cereal and nuts and you'll be fine. Anything else is just meat-eaters scare mongering.
b12???????????????????????????...
Probably. Unless they take supplements. But then they couldn't be gelatin based. They don't get enough meat, I know that much.
Does anyone else get enough B12? You could take a supplement if you were worried.
After several years as a vegetarian (not vegan) I became unwell, I felt 'wooly', couldn't think straight and was tired and sometimes dizzy. My doctor immediately requested a blood test and it showed my B12 was low. It can be dangerous and can cause irreversible nerve damage. Some people can't absorb B12 from food. Vegans and some vegetarians don't get much from their diet. It can take several years to become depleted.
Many vegans are defficient of this essential vitamin, however most have learned to eat lots of veggiemite/marmite and get supplements.
Note to foxhunter: Please change your ways and don't spam this section anymore.
No, it's not true. Unless they forget to take their vitamin pills.
I know the answer - the answer is no - it's not true!
I'm a vegan and my B12 levels are perfectly normal, in fact I have a funny feeling I'm much healthier than you in body and mind especially since I take no pleasure in bating other YA users!
I was actually just recently talking about this with my doctor. He has been a vegetarian his whole life and he was telling me that B12 is the only thing you really have to worry about. He said that it is the only thing that you can just get from other foods. I have decided to get my tested. Better safe than sorry!
F
it's quite possible as B12 is found mostly in meat or animal-based products.
but vegans should be able to find a source of vitamin B12...
ive never heard of this before. i would think that most vegetables and grains conatin sufficient quatities of b-12 to prevent any deficiency.
If we have never had B12 then our bodies produce enough. Once we start eating foods with it in our bodies stop producing it. So I assume that once you stop eating it for a while the body will produce it itself.
B-12 that is able to be absorbed and used by the body is *only* found in animal foods, such as meat, raw milk, butter etc. Its absoluty not true that you can get usable B -12 from vegetable, and your body DOES NOT *make* B-12. It comes from food. But that doesnt mean that vegans are automatically deficient in B-12. It can take years for a deficiency to show up, as our body tends to store it. The best way for vegans to get bio-available B-12 is to take a high quality vitamin.
It's possible if they do not eat a balanced diet. I think pregnant vegans may sometimes need to take supplements as it is needed even more then.
I think that vitamin stuff is a load of shite. I mean, tally up how much of each vitamin you get every day sometime, and see it's pretty weak. Yet, we're still kickin, working, playing, not falling down with scurvy and such.
I'm a vegan, and probably had next to 0 b12 intake for ages, yet am perfectly healthy.
Just do your best to eat a variety of good stuff and yer golden!
that's a myth.
vitamin b-12 is easily obtainable in many vegetables.. fruits, grains, nuts and of course soy.
hey mr foxhunter, anyone can eat badly and miss out things the body neads. but there is not 1 vitamin or mineral that cannot be found in the plant kingdom.
hey, just imagine somebody still thinking that hunting fox was a evolved human act to take part in? is the earth still flat? why worry about us poor little vegans? please excuse my cheek...but are you concerned we won't have the energy to protest against what most people in the uk have voted as barbaric acts of medieval savagry? peace
Thanks for taking down your avatar of you and the carcass. I like you better as a shadowy figure lurking with your burning questions.
Even the Vegan ( http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nu... ) society says vegans need B12 supplements. It says on it's site:
"Very low B12 intakes can cause anaemia and nervous system damage.
The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements. Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms.
Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid anaemia and nervous system damage, but many do not get enough to minimise potential risk of heart disease or pregnancy complications.
To get the full benefit of a vegan diet, vegans should do one of the following:
eat fortified foods two or three times a day to get at least three micrograms (μg or mcg) of B12 a day or
take one B12 supplement daily providing at least 10 micrograms or
take a weekly B12 supplement providing at least 2000 micrograms.
If relying on fortified foods check the labels carefully to make sure you are getting enough B12. For example, if a fortified plant milk contains 1 microgram of B12 per serving then consuming three servings a day will provide adequate vitamin B12. Others may find the use of B12 supplements more convenient and economical.
The less frequently you obtain B12 the more B12 you need to take, as B12 is best absorbed in small amounts. The recommendations above take full account of this. There is no harm in exceeding the recommended amounts or combining more than one option.
...
B12 is an exceptional vitamin. It is required in smaller amounts than any other known vitamin. Ten micrograms of§ B12 spread over a day appears to supply as much as the body can use. In the absence of any apparent dietary supply, deficiency symptoms usually take five years or more to develop in adults, though some people experience problems within a year. A very small number of individuals with no obvious reliable source appear to avoid clinical deficiency symptoms for twenty years or more. B12 is the only vitamin that is not recognised as being reliably supplied from a varied wholefood, plant-based diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, together with exposure to sun. Many herbivorous mammals, including cattle and sheep, absorb B12 produced by bacteria in their own digestive system. B12 is found to some extent in soil and plants. These observations have led some vegans to suggest that B12 was an issue requiring no special attention, or even an elaborate hoax. Others have proposed specific foods, including spirulina, nori, tempeh, and barley grass, as suitable non-animal sources of B12. Such claims have not stood the test of time.
In over 60 years of vegan experimentation only B12 fortified foods and B12 supplements have proven themselves as reliable sources of B12, capable of supporting optimal health. It is very important that all vegans ensure they have an adequate intake of B12, from fortified foods or supplements. This will benefit our health and help to attract others to veganism through our example.
...
If for any reason you choose not to use fortified foods or supplements you should recognise that you are carrying out a dangerous experiment - one that many have tried before with consistently low levels of success. If you are an adult who is neither breast-feeding an infant, pregnant nor seeking to become pregnant, and wish to test a potential B12 source that has not already been shown to be inadequate, then this can be a reasonable course of action with appropriate precautions. For your own protection, you should arrange to have your B12 status checked annually. If homocysteine or MMA is even modestly elevated then you are endangering your health if you persist.
If you are breast feeding an infant, pregnant or seeking to become pregnant or are an adult contemplating carrying out such an experiment on a child, then don't take the risk. It is simply unjustifiable.
Claimed sources of B12 that have been shown through direct studies of vegans to be inadequate include human gut bacteria, spirulina, dried nori, barley grass and most other seaweeds. Several studies of raw food vegans have shown that raw food offers no special protection.
Reports that B12 has been measured in a food are not enough to qualify that food as a reliable B12 source. It is difficult to distinguish true B12 from analogues that can disrupt B12 metabolism. Even if true B12 is present in a food, it may be rendered ineffective if analogues are present in comparable amounts to the true B12. There is only one reliable test for a B12 source - does it consistently prevent and correct deficiency? Anyone proposing a particular food as a B12 source should be challenged to present such evidence."
It is worth noting that many foods are normally fortified in B12, like some cereals, but unless you know they are it isn't a reasonable assumption to make that you can get it all from there.
B12 is an essential vitamin and without it you will eventially die, albeit after maybe quite a long time. B12 cannot be got naturally in non-animal foods, and vegans need to take supplements or eat fortified foods.
These facts are not disputed by the vast weight of respectable scientists, and even the majority of vegans, as represented by the vegan society quoted above, recognise these facts.
I read once that an estimated 60% of all vegans mave some level of B12 deficiency, albeit usually unnoticable. Still, even small deficiencies can manifest themselves into life threatening problems over time.
no its not true. miso has loads of b12. do meateaters get enough b12. as most of the meat they eat is not naturally.
foxhunter_guy!
One 8 oz. serving of Soy milk contains 50 percent RDA of Vit. B12. No deficiency here.
Foxy, you're back! How we've missed you - not!
By the way, the number of vegans who suffer a B12 deficiency is so minuscule that it's still reported in the medical press. The source for this statement is a real, actual, printed book - Gerras, Charles. The Complete Book of Vitamins. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1977 - not one of your spurious "medical journals".
nah, you can find oodles of food fortified with it :] soymilk (silk) fruit drinks, ect. and there's always vitamins