Sources
B12 is an essential nutrient required for the health of the nervous system, as well as the production of red blood cells, which help to carry oxygen in the blood.
B12 is exclusively made by bacteria in nature. Plant-eating animals absorb B12 from bacteria in their gastrointestinal tracts. Humans, however, do not seem to have this function. Therefore, humans can either receive B12 directly from the plant source, or from the plant-eating animal.
There are a couple of plants that do contain an active form of B12, such as specific types of mushrooms or types of algae. One can also find B12 in fortified foods such as marmite, non-dairy milks, nutritional yeast and some breakfast cereals.
It is vital to check the Nutritional Information on food packaging to ensure you are receiving the active form of vitamin B12, called cobalamin or cyanocobalamin. Most common supplementation multivitamins also contain B12.
Deficiency?
Some people believe that vegans can be deficient in B12 due to their decision not to eat animals. This can be the case for vegans, but also for omnivores too. Regardless of their food beliefs and choices, if an individual is not following a healthy and balanced diet, s/he can be deficient in B12.
For instance, if vegans or omnivores ate a diet of mainly French fries and spaghetti, both would be lacking in B12. The argument aimed specifically at vegans therefore does not hold.
Historically, B12 was easily obtained through eating root vegetables which still harboured the remnants of soil. However, in today’s society, most supermarket vegetables have been rigorously washed and then sanitised to reach FDA (US), or FSA (UK), standards. It is therefore no longer viable to obtain your RDI (recommend daily intake) of B12 this way.
Why is it Better in Plants?
In order to understand why B12 is better coming from a plant source, we need to look at the negatives of B12 in animal sources.
When consuming B12 from an animal source, the human body is also trying to process the animal protein that ultimately cannot be separated. These animal proteins are exceptionally good at cell growth, be that ‘good’ cells or ‘bad’ cells such as cancer cells or other diseased cells.
Therefore, in order to obtain B12 in a safe and reliable manner, we must look elsewhere to obtain the nutrient.
Quick facts:
- We must obtain it directly or indirectly from bacteria.
- Animal foods contain high amounts of vitamin B12 because they accumulate this bacterial product in their intestinal tracts.
- In the past, vitamin B12 was more reliably present in plant foods, grown in organic soil, as lots of microorganisms produce the B12 and it can get into the plant.
- With modern hygienic practices, most plant foods are no longer reliable sources of this bacterial.
- B12 is better obtained in plants as it doesn’t carry all of the nasty extras that animal proteins contain.
About The Author: Alexandra Chapman, Certified in Plant Based Nutrition from Cornell University. Alexandra joined the Plantli team in 2020.
