What about vitamin B12?
How do vegans get it?
B12 is an essential vitamin all too often used as a 'magic bullet' by non-vegans trying to argue that a plant-based diet is unhealthy (despite mountains of evidence to the contrary) or that eating vegan is somehow 'unnatural'. The problem with this claim comes when we consider where B12 really comes from because despite the popular belief that it comes from animals, that actually isn't the case.
B12 is a byproduct of bacteria and is found primarily in untreated water sources, soil or in general dirty places.
For the majority of human history this meant people (just like most animals) could easily get their essential dosage through the dirt on their food or from the water they drank (which wasn't the treated and sanitised water we're blessed with today).
The modern world however has become a highly sanitised place, something we benefit from greatly through improved health and longevity compared to humans of the past. An unfortunate drawback of this cleanliness though is that our natural methods of obtaining B12 have been lost and it's become much more difficult to obtain. It can indeed be gained by eating animal products, but before those anti-vegans celebrate their magic bullet they should know that thanks to the unnatural diets we feed most farm animals today, they are now fed B12 supplements, too. So just like going directly to plants for your nutrition instead of filtering it through an animal, you can also take a B12 supplement instead of filtering that through an animal too.
Many vegan staples such as non-dairy milks or nutritional yeast (a powdery cheese-like substance common in a vegan pantry) also contain B12 so if these are a regular part of your diet your B12 is covered anyway.
Some people like to point to the taking of a supplement as some kind of proof that they shouldn't go vegan which is strange when you consider that in the United States alone a population of mostly non-vegans spend a staggering twenty-eight billion dollars on dietary supplement and vitamins each year. It's strange then that using the very same 'supplements' argument as proof that a daily diet of animal products is unnatural or unhealthy suddenly promotes a different response.
B12 is a byproduct of bacteria and is found primarily in untreated water sources, soil or in general dirty places.
For the majority of human history this meant people (just like most animals) could easily get their essential dosage through the dirt on their food or from the water they drank (which wasn't the treated and sanitised water we're blessed with today).
The modern world however has become a highly sanitised place, something we benefit from greatly through improved health and longevity compared to humans of the past. An unfortunate drawback of this cleanliness though is that our natural methods of obtaining B12 have been lost and it's become much more difficult to obtain. It can indeed be gained by eating animal products, but before those anti-vegans celebrate their magic bullet they should know that thanks to the unnatural diets we feed most farm animals today, they are now fed B12 supplements, too. So just like going directly to plants for your nutrition instead of filtering it through an animal, you can also take a B12 supplement instead of filtering that through an animal too.
Many vegan staples such as non-dairy milks or nutritional yeast (a powdery cheese-like substance common in a vegan pantry) also contain B12 so if these are a regular part of your diet your B12 is covered anyway.
Some people like to point to the taking of a supplement as some kind of proof that they shouldn't go vegan which is strange when you consider that in the United States alone a population of mostly non-vegans spend a staggering twenty-eight billion dollars on dietary supplement and vitamins each year. It's strange then that using the very same 'supplements' argument as proof that a daily diet of animal products is unnatural or unhealthy suddenly promotes a different response.
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B12 supplements used in raising livestock |
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So whether you simply eat fortified foods or just choose to take the occasional supplement, the point of the matter is that both are a cheap and easy way to avoid causing suffering to animals. Indeed if someone was given the choice of stabbing a defenceless animal to death every week or just popping a supplement instead most would probably choose the latter. But because we pay someone else to do the killing for us, it's easy to attack the taking of a supplement or the consumption of fortified foods whilst happily pushing aside our
silent contribution to the violent deaths of billions of animals we'd hate to participate in ourselves.
A final benefit of choosing cruelty-free sources of B12 is that they're also the healthier option. Dr John McDougall's thoughts from a newsletter he penned on the topic draws attention to the incredible rarity of serious B12 deficiency but the incredible commonality of a wealth of dietary related diseases linked to the consumption of animal products.
"You could choose to eat lots of B12-rich animal foods and avoid the one-in-a-million chance of
developing a reversible anemia or even less common, damage to your nervous system. However,
this decision puts you at a one-in-two chance of dying prematurely from a heart attack or stroke,
a one-in-seven chance of breast cancer or a one-in-six chance of prostate cancer. The same thinking
results in obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, constipation, indigestion, and arthritis. All these conditions
caused by a B12-sufficient diet are found in the people you live and work with daily. How many
vegans have you met with B12 deficiency anemia or nervous system damage? I bet not one!
Furthermore, you have never even heard of such a problem unless you have read the
attention-seeking headlines of newspapers or medical journals."
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Nutritionfacts.org The safest source of B12 |
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"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
