B12 in Traditional Plant Foods is Higher Than You Think


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The science on B12 in plants surprised me so much that I was forced to make a video out of it! Let’s look at nori, kombucha, lesser …

48 replies
  1. Mic the Vegan
    Mic the Vegan says:

    DO NOT USE THIS INFORMATION TO STOP SUPPLEMENTING! I was hesitant to share this information because it could lead some on-the-fence supplementers to stop supplementing in favor of more risky foods. DON'T PLZ!!

    Also, one small mistake I made was conflating date palm sap with date syrup. Palm sap is used to make palm wine which is a B12 good contender since palm wine was traditionally consumed very widely across Africa as well as Asia and the Pacific Islands. Due to it's ubiquity I would consider this food worth investigating by taking more samples and doing a Methylmalonic Acid human study. Basic info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_wine

    Reply
  2. Andrew's Taint
    Andrew's Taint says:

    sigh. I have tried to point this out for years. You know who I have to fight the most about it? Vegans! The studies make some fundamental flaws when they conclude "there is no reliable source of B12 for vegans." First, nearly every plant food tested in most of these studies contains B12. But their conclusion is that we cannot consume enough of plant food X to rely on it's b12. Oh right, Mr. Smart Science Person, because to get B12 vegans would only eat mushrooms, or only eat baby spinach, or only eat X. Um, no. We eat spinach and kale and peaches and pineapple and mushrooms and kombucha and tempeh, and grapes, etc, etc. Collectively all of which have more than enough B12. We don't have to have a SINGLE source to "rely" on. Because we have EVERY source! Nature has been doing this billions of years. You really buy that in the last 100 years we magically discovered that we have to buy a synthetic vitamin for survival if we don't torture animals? BS!

    Reply
  3. readymade7777
    readymade7777 says:

    Make sure to listen to Rogan talking to Oliver Stone today. About 1:15 in, Oliver Stone mentions seeing Game Changers and not eating meat and then Joe tears into him with misinformation

    Reply
  4. The Vigilant Stewards
    The Vigilant Stewards says:

    We are living in Kenya right now and so funny you mentioned palm wine… that stuff is nice, if we were drinkers I'm sure we would frequent that but it's only good on the coast. This was a super cool video. I want to try fermenting beans now

    Reply
  5. DHIS
    DHIS says:

    In Romania there's a fermented liquid called borș (not to be confused with the Ukrainian borscht, it's different though the etymology is similar), which is normally used to make sour soup (ciorbă) but it's also consumed as a drink. It consists of water, wheat bran or barley bran, hominy and huște (the resulting mix of ingredients from previous fermentation), also thyme and lovage. The resulting liquid after fermentation is packed with a lot of vitamins and is traditionally very popular as a natural remedy in cases of fatigue, loss of appetite and weakness, or is simply added in various Romanian dishes as an ingredient. More recently it began to be commercialised as a health food and one brand claims it contains 29,15 μg of B12 per 500 ml (more than eleven times the recommended dose). I believe this should be researched more, but it is kind of common knowledge among Romanians that borș is a good remedy for anemia. Additional nutritional information that this band claims: per 500ml – Vitamin D 10,5μg (210%), Magnesium 146,5mg (39%), B6 0,31mg (22%), B3 3,165mg (20%), also B5 and calcium in signifiant amounts.

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  6. Laura Doku
    Laura Doku says:

    I live in Ghana and I use Dawadawa as a spice. It ads a great meaty flawour. B12 suplements are kinda tricky to find and very expensive. If more studies were done on b12 in our local fermented foods (I wonder if kenkey, banku and millet porridge would have b12) that would really relieve me. At this point I can't recommend vegan diet to be consumed in Ghana as its just too big of a risk to run into b12 deficiency.

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  7. Muhammad Nabi Amin
    Muhammad Nabi Amin says:

    Hey Mic, Thank you for your insightful content. I have been following you for a long time. I just had a quick question. Where do herbivores like Cows and all other giants get their B12 from?

    Reply
  8. Kay Allen
    Kay Allen says:

    Fake or Real B12 – it does matter. Bio-Availability. No one eats 3 ounces of meat when they eat meat, 4 ounces is the minimum per person per meal.

    Reply
  9. Kieran Styx
    Kieran Styx says:

    I think the arguments for vegan foods not having B12 has always been silly. Like, it was and is today prolifically found in water, which we know we were drinking. And we were even getting it through this route with primitive sanitation like boiling and beer brewing. It's only very recently that B12 in our water supply has been removed due to chlorination and filtration.

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  10. Agata Antosik
    Agata Antosik says:

    I am Polish and it makes me happy every time you cite a Polish study. Somehow, I never thought that so many significant studies could come out from here on nutrition 😮

    Reply
  11. Katherine Ivy
    Katherine Ivy says:

    Finally. Some of these studies about B12 in plant foods have been out there for decades, yet even vegans have been saying that there is no B12 in plant foods and then were shocked when recently Ryan of Happy Healthy Vegan talked with the company that measured active B12 in their duckweed supplement. We shouldn’t ignore a scientific reality just because we’re afraid that some people will misunderstand and stop supplementing.

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  12. Gregarious Antithesis
    Gregarious Antithesis says:

    Hey Mic why dont you or Gregor do videos showing your impressive plant based physique?

    I take zero B-12 supplmentation i eat a foundation of meat, fish and eggs with low glycemic vegetables.

    Test Name:
    VIT B12(NTX)
    Result: 618
    Units: pg/mL
    Reference Range: (180-914)
    Interpretation: Effective 4-25-09:
    Indeterminate range: 145-179 pg/mL
    Deficient range: < 145 pg/mL
    Performing Location: FORT WORTH VA CLINIC

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  13. Daniel Reynolds
    Daniel Reynolds says:

    Doesnt look like mic understands that you cant compare industrial fermentation with nonregulated fermentation.

    He also hasnt looked at the families of strains of microbes that produce b12, and their occurrence in wild ferments

    Reply
  14. Daniel Reynolds
    Daniel Reynolds says:

    B12 in tea, b12, in some plantain plants… B12 can be absorbed in water cress and appears to be a nitrogen fixing microbe thing..

    Ive been talking about all of this for years, and mic tried to insult me about it. Hes a shill.

    Reply
  15. BENJAMIN SMITH
    BENJAMIN SMITH says:

    None of this matters. Why? Because as a vegan you naturally start to produce less stomach acid. because the body doesn't need as much to ferment plants. Guess what? The only way to cleave b12 from its carrier protein in stomach is high levels of acidity and high volume of stomach acid. Oops… How I didn't ruin his cherrypicked video. People are suffering on this diet and need to understand truths.

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  16. CleanMachineOnline
    CleanMachineOnline says:

    Great video Michael! We will be re-launching Pure Lemna Greens powder (aka duckweeed)in a few months. It will provide 100% DV of bioactive B-12 in a single scoop. Also 10g of protein, Omega 3, rich in polyphenols, chlorophyll and fiber and vitamins and minerals all naturally occurring in the single ingredient – Lemna.

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  17. Extropian Transhuman
    Extropian Transhuman says:

    can we really believe those kombucha labels? The kombucha industry really was scammy towards the FDA when they said their food is a health one just to get into a better market – when it's alcohol – and at times over 0.5%! Even under 0.5% is way too much – no amount of alcohol is healthy. They want you addiced to buy their unhealthy marketing gimmicks.

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  18. Extropian Transhuman
    Extropian Transhuman says:

    I remember cough grass now – they grew lawns with that until they realized it's not that good for lawns – taking up too much water and not being resilient enough. So they hybridized it to create franken grasses for lawns that're really hard to uproot and destroy the soil and are extremely invasive and intense. Couch grass was back in the day – like the 90s. Glad to see it's edible – I ate it as a kid by munching on it – until my parents told me to stop. I feel I was in the right – and this video proved it to me! I was getting my nutritional value – ok?

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  19. Extropian Transhuman
    Extropian Transhuman says:

    Even though I'm part polish – I barely remember if at all pickled parsley juice. I guess I'd got to go back to the polish cookbooks I have – which I knew were invaluable. When I ask why I read these cookbooks – well now we know why! I would love to open up a vegan polish restaurant and serve it – I bet a vegan polish restaurant would be delightful! It would be crazy is pickled parsley juice becomes a new trend due to this video – I'd love to see it in stores. I like picked food.

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  20. Extropian Transhuman
    Extropian Transhuman says:

    the polish are extremely ahead in terms of plant-based agriculture. They developed drip irrigation systems for israel. I'm not surprised about their advances in fermentation. I'm half polish – so I know the importance of plant-based food for that side of my family. It was my grandparents on that side that got me in a vegan direction – they had the best tomatoes – people would come from other states to pick. Their lettuce rows were impeccable – they knew so much about farming! I learned a lot to go towards vertical farming from the principles they outlined!

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  21. Extropian Transhuman
    Extropian Transhuman says:

    this video couldn't've come at a better time. I was creating a b12 in foods database – and already used the previous video to help out – so I'm really glad we got a whole video on it. I learned so much. I'm adding this video to the database list – which is on my personal website on the 'articles' page.

    Reply
  22. Deanna Lee
    Deanna Lee says:

    I think most health conscious folks will agree that the Ulta processed foods that we are offered in our grocery stores are nutrient deficient. We as a species need to get back to making food at home and teaching our young exactly how to do it for their health. Our modern world has made life easy and simple as well as potentially deadly.

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  23. AkumaxTamashii
    AkumaxTamashii says:

    Did he say duck weed? That’s the aquarium plant that grows like crazy you can’t get rid of once it happens upon your tank….Right? You can just go to a random aquarium scored in the store, grab three leaves of duck weed, and have a whole aquarium full of it in a month.? I think I’m going to have to revisit the duck weed

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