The Everything Non-Dairy Thread

silva said:
Why do you think the B12 they supplement foods with is any different than the B12 you supplement as sublinguals? It's actually better to take on an empty stomach
nutritionfacts.org

Vitamin B12 Deficiency: Symptoms & Treatment | NutritionFacts.org

The optimal vitamin B12 dosage, and the B12 best sources to avoid and treat deficiency. Learn about the latest peer-reviewed research.
nutritionfacts.org nutritionfacts.org
Click to expand...

I do not even have sublinguals. As said earlier I had supplements and they ran out and it would be a few days before I would get more. As I did. I do not see why skipping several days between each is alright. I think then, if I miss any days especially, I should have some food with that vitamin. I have settled with it being in rice milk or soy milk that I now get, just having it with coffee every other night when I wake up, as I alternate with a green tea the other times, and just occasionally with oatmeal, and when the warmer part of the year comes and I stop having oatmeal I will then start with the raisin bran that I found that is also fortified with that vitamin. It sure can be in food, it is in what others eat that get it, just as grazing animals get it. I might get it as they do if I was getting vegetables right from good soil and heating up with little rinsing first.
 
Maybe I would have such vegetables growing in contact with the soil where there are the vitamin B12 producing bacteria, and just rinse them lightly before using in meals, and have the vitamin adequately then. It would be possible that way if I ever come to land where I might be growing my food, just as I would like to do. But where I live and how I have it this is not possible.
 
I did a little googling and I could not find a very definitive reference.
However it is my understanding that, yes you can get B12 from unwashed vegetables. but it's not a good idea not to wash your food.

Carnivores get b12 from the meat of herbivores.
Herbivores have bacteria in their guts that produce B12. and although the site of B12 absobrion is pretty far down - they have complicated GI tracts that allow for B12 absorption.
Primates also have bacteria in their colon that produce B12 but the site of absorbing is before that so they can't absorb b12 that way,
Rabbits are sort of the exception. They are vegetarian, and their digestive system is pretty straight forward . They get their b12 by eating their poop.
Some primates do that too. plus most primates are not purely vegetarian. And in the wild they don't wash their veggies first.

Anyway the best source of B12 for vegans is supplementation.
 
  • Agree
  • Informative
Reactions: Tom L., Emma JC, KLS52 and 1 other person
I don't mean pulling it from the ground and eating it, or even pulling it from the ground, rinsing it off, and eating it. But if we grow our food that we want and need where there is good soil, we can take it, and rinse off the vegetables and then cook it. The vitamin B12 will not be destroyed with that but any harmful bacteria and such microorganisms will be destroyed, or deactivated, with that. Getting vitamin B12 from the bacteria themselves that make it should be good for us, not worse. It would be in the design for us, as I see it.
 
FredVegrox said:
I don't mean pulling it from the ground and eating it, or even pulling it from the ground, rinsing it off, and eating it. But if we grow our food that we want and need where there is good soil, we can take it, and rinse off the vegetables and then cook it. The vitamin B12 will not be destroyed with that but any harmful bacteria and such microorganisms will be destroyed, or deactivated, with that. Getting vitamin B12 from the bacteria themselves that make it should be good for us, not worse. It would be in the design for us, as I see it.
Click to expand...
Ii think we are on different wavelengths or something.
As far as I know Herbivores get their B12 from their bacteria in their gut.
our gut bacteria in our large intestine also produces B12. but the site for absorption is in the small intestine. and our food passes by it too early in the digestive process.

Probably bacteria in the soil produces B12 and possibly we could get enough b12 from eating dirty vegetables. that is probably what happened early on. However even chimps in the wild are seen washing their vegetables. There is a famous study with chimps who made trips to the shore to collect veggies and wash them. but I'm not even sure that is important. primitive man and apes were not vegan. apes eat insects and even small animals.


Really it shouldn't be a big deal to just add a small supplement to our diet. That's not even a "just vegan" thing. many Carnists are B12 deficient and should also supplement.
 
Relatively small amounts of a B-12 supplement each day or so (either in fortified foods or as tablets- or even a fragment of a tablet, as I do) isn't expensive, and won't do us any harm. So I don't see any reason to not supplement. But I always take my supplements as part of a meal. My Calcium supplement instructions specifically recommend this, but I can't remember what it says on my B-12 tablet instructions. (Not to self: check that when you get home).
 
I do take supplements for vitamin B12. I did not do it right away when starting off with eating from vegan choices. But I was soon aware that I should supplement for it. Now I use soy milk or rice milk that is fortified with that vitamin, I use it in coffee I have on occasion, I alternate it with having green tea which would be the next day, and it just has agave nectar and ginger with it but none of those milks. I did just have fortified rice milk in oatmeal today. And with the warming weather I have raisin bran that is fortified with that vitamin which I will be having occasionally too. I am not likely to be getting deficient in it.

I do not speak for eating dirty vegetables. Yes, some might be on a different wavelength. I mean that if I was growing all my food, which sounds good to do, to me, I would rinse them off. That is as much as the apes that were mentioned would manage to do with washing them. Then I would cook the vegetables, as I do now for having the meals I do. Harmful bacteria that can be present do not survive the cooking process. But cooking does not destroy vitamin B12, which may be still present though dirt particles were rinsed away. That does sound sensible to me, especially if I am going to be independent from what I might get when I would be growing everything for what I need. Do any here really know the future fully? It might not all remain as it is. You do not know. So it is better to think of other circumstances ahead, and not remain so fully dependent.
 
Last edited:
Because there is wisdom I see in doing things to be prepared in ways that are possible to us, and being more independent which really would involve growing all the things we would use is an important way for that, to pursue, I think for planning for this, and speak for that. I would want ways to make milk from nuts and grains, too, to continue with what I still use now, with what is closest I can manage, for that. Though I cannot pursuade all who I speak to of these things to not use animals in this, I know that is not needed and would have more sustainability not using animals. I think of leaving all animals to live in their natural environments.
 
I see that as I want to grow the food plants for anything I want, and I do want to grow a whole lot, I can grow everything for what I need. If there is ever collapse, which is now so possible, this will be important. And all these nuts useful for making milk to use can be grown, along with such useful grain.
 
  • Friendly
Reactions: Lou and Emma JC
I do other things enough, that occupy me. But this will not be the way for being prepared to continue no matter what is coming to the civilization, I would really grow things gladly when I can manage to be where I could do so. There would be real sustainability in this world if people generally were doing this and living simply with this, not with dependence on transportation for things. Making nut milks would be manageable with this, and that will make great difference for the desire to continue with this way for sustainability.
 
  • Friendly
Reactions: 1956 and Emma JC
I looked up information on frequency for taking supplemented vitamin B12, seeing the comment of having it less than daily did not sound right. I should have it, being an older man and vegan. I found this on that.

Cyanocobalamin tablets that you get on prescription come in strengths of 50 micrograms (mcg) and 1,000 micrograms.

Cyanocobalamin vitamin B12 supplements that you can buy come as tablets, capsules, mouth sprays and drops. These come in different strengths from 10 micrograms to 1,000 micrograms. Microgram is sometimes written with the symbol μ followed by the letter g (μg).

The amount of cyanocobalamin you need depends on the level of vitamin B12 in your blood and why your levels are low. Your doctor or pharmacist will advise you on what dose to take.

For adults with diet-related vitamin B12 deficiency, the usual dose is 50 micrograms to 150 micrograms, taken once a day.

For adults with vitamin B12 deficiency not caused by your diet, the usual dose is one to two 1,000 microgram tablets, taken once or twice a day. This is usually if you cannot have vitamin B12 injections.

If you're taking supplements that you've bought, follow the dosage instructions that come with them.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Tom L.
Seeing it is such an issue, surely more plant-based milks should be fortified with vitamin B12. I mean there are those with preferable tastes. It is rather limiting to meaningful choice to have just either rice or soy milk for the vitamin B12 they are fortified with. I do believe in having food with the vitamin in it, at this point, rather than just depending on the supplement tablets for it. Maybe more choices can come about when there is more awareness for this.
 
FredVegrox said:
Seeing it is such an issue, surely more plant-based milks should be fortified with vitamin B12. I mean there are those with preferable tastes. It is rather limiting to meaningful choice to have just either rice or soy milk for the vitamin B12 they are fortified with. I do believe in having food with the vitamin in it, at this point, rather than just depending on the supplement tablets for it. Maybe more choices can come about when there is more awareness for this.
Click to expand...
I just don't understand why you see supplements as different from supplemented food.
I remember when I first went vegan thinking I'd get it from nooch and non dairy milk, then I slowly stopped using the fortified milk without thinking about the B12, as well as changing to non fortified nooch. It's so simple cheap and reliable to take a sublingual, whether every day, or once a week. If it isn't the cyanocobalimin form you can't even know the true amount as others degrade easily
 
  • Like
Reactions: PTree15, Emma JC and Lou
silva said:
I just don't understand why you see supplements as different from supplemented food.
I remember when I first went vegan thinking I'd get it from nooch and non dairy milk, then I slowly stopped using the fortified milk without thinking about the B12, as well as changing to non fortified nooch. It's so simple cheap and reliable to take a sublingual, whether every day, or once a week. If it isn't the cyanocobalimin form you can't even know the true amount as others degrade easily
Click to expand...

Anyone else other than vegans are getting some vitamin B12 with food they eat. I am older, and maybe more in need of the vitamin, and especially, with times earlier when I might have been too deprived of it. It would not be bad to have a little extra, I use the supplement but have gone long in-between with forgetting it, and it is just almost every other day I get a little fortified milk, rice milk just now but it will be soy milk again, that is just added to the coffee, that I have four times a week, the other days I have a green tea for each day, and don't add milk to that. And, I am currently out of cereal. I will get more, but this time I want to find a vegan certified cereal that I would prefer to get now. The raisin bran I used had sugar in it, without the certification we do not know where that comes from.
 
Internet is instrumental in my going vegan. I am older but still moving around better than ever, even while I have concerning issues. More of my life was time before I had access to anything online, and there was no information I ran across about being vegan. I did find printed information that having meat was not healthier for us than it what we would have with a variety of good vegetables and fruits. So I stopped having meat, that was about nineteen years ago. Sometime after that I was going online when I made trips to the library and made use of public access to that which I found. I mostly searched things that interested me, I wrote lists for what I would search. But I got busy with other things, and had a lot on a list I never got to. I started using email, and then joined a couple of groups possible with email. Those are not around anymore. One was a vegetarian faith based group. And I would try to catch up, but did not do very well, with it busy with messages through the group, and my having limited time online when I did go to the library. Eventually someone there knowing the reasons for choosing veganism shared lists with numbers showing the difference with use of land, water, and resources, and the issues in the dairy and egg industries, and I learned animals kept in any of the industries get slaughtered. There was yet more to learn about these things. Without knowing yet if I would be as healthy still I saw I was not choosing well with staying vegetarian as I would being vegan. So I worked on being vegan that I would be, though there were issues to overcome, and I did not know yet what of all things were vegan or were not vegan, yet. Just more recently than when I was starting with being vegan did I find Forks Over Knives, and eat this healthy way with whole foods. I mean to say with all this that I never had barriers up against this way, so it is I do not understand all the people I find now when the topics for veganism comes up do have the barriers. I would share the information, including this healthy way, and nothing of that has effect on so many of them. And I was doing this when older. At least soon enough after I started being vegan I found good items to get, like almond milk, which was there at the general store I went to, and especially hummus, that I didn't know about before. I learned ways to have meals I enjoyed having without animal products and then without much of the foods having processed stuff in them. Ways I might have vitamin B12 is what I work on now, and while I wanted vitamin D2 I only find vitamin D3, at this store I buy everything at, and would yet want to find what is not from animals.
 
  • Friendly
  • Like
Reactions: PTree15, 1956 and Emma JC
I have looked and looked. All the vitamin D, and a large selection, at this store, is all vitamin D3. I looked online for vegan D3, to know if I can select a brand without it being derived from animals. The brands I found are not at my store. I just have the sun to count on for production of the vitamin I need, from my own body. I am at a latitude where it is possible through the year. I just want that choice still to be sure to have enough.
 
FredVegrox said:
I have looked and looked. All the vitamin D, and a large selection, at this store, is all vitamin D3. I looked online for vegan D3, to know if I can select a brand without it being derived from animals. The brands I found are not at my store. I just have the sun to count on for production of the vitamin I need, from my own body. I am at a latitude where it is possible through the year. I just want that choice still to be sure to have enough.
Click to expand...
I too live in California. and I get outside quite a bit.
I read somewhere that all you need was your hands and your face to be in the sun for an hour a day. But I don't think I get that most days.
So I had a blood test and I was deficient.
My Doctor prescribed D3. 2000 iu.
But I have been buying ones with the word vegan on the label. I think all the major drugstores have at least one vegan version. or just go online. There are lots of pill shops that do mail order.
I like DEVA but they are not always cheapest.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: PTree15
Has anyone that was deficient, or just known to be low, had success with plant based D3?
When I tested deficient I was having real bone pain and got it up with regular lanolin D3, and continued up until a couple months back when I got vegan D3 at 5000 IU a day. I'm getting the same pains in my feet and ankles again. I should get tested in late June
 
  • Friendly
Reactions: PTree15

Similar threads

S
Vegan yet sometimes I slip
Replies
16
Views
755
Support
Ruthie
R
chamomile
Indirectly paying for non vegan stuff at the event
Replies
6
Views
276
Support
chamomile
chamomile
Lou
  • Locked
News The Good News For Animals Thread
Replies
2
Views
2K
General
shyvas
shyvas
L
The Myth of Lab Grown Meat
Replies
16
Views
5K
Health & Body
Lou
Lou
W
Comparing goat-to Cow dairy production
Replies
8
Views
3K
Animals
william_
W
Top Bottom