Vegan for Life - Jack Norris [17]
VITAMIN B12 CONTENT OF FORTIFIED VEGAN FOODS
Food Vitamin B12 Content (µg)
Nutritional yeast, Vegetarian Support Formula, 1 tablespoon 4.0
Veggie “meat” analogues, fortified 1.0–3.0
(varies by brand)
Soymilk, fortified, 1 cup 1.2–2.9
(varies by brand)
Protein bar, fortified 1.0–2.0
(varies by brand)
Marmite yeast extract, 1 teaspoon 0.9
VITAMIN B12 FACTS
• The vitamin B12 in supplements comes from bacterial cultures never from animal products.
• B12 pills should be chewed or allowed to dissolve under the tongue.
• Seaweed (e.g., algae, nori, spirulina), brewer’s yeast, tempeh, or “living” vitamin supplements that use plants as a source of B12 don’t contain any vitamin B12 or have only inactive analogues.
• Neither rainwater nor organically grown, unwashed vegetables are a reliable source of vitamin B12.
• If you rely on fortified food sources of vitamin B12, it is best to have at least two fortified food sources on hand in case a particular batch of a food contains vitamin B12 that is somehow damaged. Do not rely solely on one type of fortified food.
• About 2 percent of older people can’t absorb B12. This disease is called pernicious anemia. Being vegan has nothing to do with this condition, but if you are supplementing regularly with vitamin B12 and still suspect that you have symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency, such as extreme fatigue or neurological problems, then by all means get your B12 levels tested. Pernicious anemia is treated with vitamin B12 injections.
IS A VEGAN DIET NATURAL?
It wouldn’t be right to ignore the four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, so let’s ask the obvious question: Since vitamin B12 is not found in plant foods and vegans must take supplements, doesn’t that make a vegan diet unnatural?
Many vegans have bent over backwards to convince themselves and others that humans evolved as vegans and that supplemental vitamin B12 is only needed because we have moved so far away from our natural environment. But there is a tremendous amount of evidence that humans evolved eating some animal products. While B12 is not needed in large amounts, it may take more than can be picked up from unwashed produce to sustain optimal levels. That’s especially true during pregnancy and lactation, when a woman needs to consume enough B12 for her own needs and to pass on to her baby.
In fact, adding small amounts of animal products to the diet has been shown not to cure B12 deficiency. At least one study showed that some lacto-ovo vegetarians may have vitamin B12 status that is similar to that of vegans when neither group supplemented.11 If consuming small amounts of animal foods doesn’t improve vitamin B12 status, then it is unlikely that inadvertently ingesting B12 from unwashed produce would be enough to sustain vegans through the life cycle in a pre-vitamin-supplement culture.
Paleontology student Robert Mason, who writes the PaleoVeganology website, says this about the evolution of human diets: “This touches on the issue of how vegans should handle the caveman argument. Many of us are tempted to strain credulity and torture the evidence to ‘prove’ humans are ‘naturally’ vegan. This is a trap, and one into which carnists (especially paleo-dieters) would love us to fall; the evidence isn’t on our side. There’s no doubt that hominids ate meat.... The argument for veganism has always been primarily ethical, and ought to remain that way. It’s based on a concern for the future, not an obsession about the past.” 12
And Tom Billings, who writes the Beyond Veg website, says, “Further, if the motivation for your diet is moral and/or spiritual, then you will want the basis of your diet to be honest as well as compassionate. In that case, ditching the false myths of naturalness presents no problems; indeed, ditching false myths means that you are ditching a burden.”13
We agree that it just doesn’t matter whether a vegan diet is our historical way of eating or not. The fact is, it makes sense now to choose a vegan diet. And