If you are concerned about vitamin B12 on a raw vegan diet, then this short article and attached video interview with Don Bennett is definitely for you!
We interviewed Don Bennett at the Woodstock Fruit Festival 2012. Don Bennett is a long term raw foodist himself, a health coach and educator.
Vitamin B12 is a hotly debated topic among vegans and especially those who eat only a raw food diet.
It used to be believed that a deficiency in B12 was something that only happened to people who refrained from eating meat and animal products (vegans) but this has proven not to be the case as some meat eaters have even been shown to be deficient in vitamin B12 from studies that have been carried out.
Where should we get it from, why are some people deficient and not others are questions that are frequently ask by many health seekers in their quest to understand and often improve their body’s vitamin B12 status.
In this interview, Don Bennett covers the subject of B12 with specific regards to people following a raw vegan diet and discusses the following point
- How poor quality diets make people vitamin B12 deficient.
- Why raw vegans should get tested for vitamin B12 deficiency and the very real dangers of permanent health damage if they do not.
- How best to test for Vitamin B12 deficiency.
- ‘Cuts to the chase’ regarding exactly what form of supplementation is best and touches on forms that he feels are best avoided.
To watch the video, simply click on the link below.
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thats one hell of a tshirt! :O
..great interview 🙂
Can you please give the name of the kind of B-12 test type, and the name of the type of the under the tongue sublingual B-12 he recommends, and maybe a place online to get it?
Hearing these new terms it’s hard to guess how they are spelled correctly! Thanks.
I am currently doing B-12 injections and dislike doing the injections so I procrastinate doing them and therefore am not getting enough in me.
-The type of B12 Don recommends is called Methylcobalamin.
-Taken in a sublingual form – which means under the toungue.
-This can be either a tablet or liquid form. This is so it goes directly into the bloodstream and does not have to go via the digestive system, which can be an issue for some people in terms of absorption.
-Jarrow is a good brand for B12 Methylcobalamin – just search on google!
-The uMMA test is the one he recommends people use for testing their B12.
Hope this helps!
Ginger prevents us from making B12????? 🙁
Thanks, Don, Yulia.
In studies done on other primates, the only way that the researchers were able induce a B12 deficiency in the animals was by giving them antibiotics, which supports the idea that we are supposed to get B12 from our own gut bacteria.
I do have a question: At the beginning of the video, Don said that B12 shouldn’t be called a vitamin. Why?
can I undo my “didn´t like” ? I pressed the wrong button … sorry, I like it …
No problem. Hi, yes I think you can undo it by just clicking on it again.
what is the dosage i shoud suplement in sublingual form ? thanks
Firstly I would always recommend that you get tested to see if you actually need B12 supplementation. Any dosage would depend on various factors including much you may be deficient/advice from your MD. We have a blog article about B12 on our website, which is very informative.
Great video! Thanks for posting.
There’s only Cyanocobalamin avaliable in my country. What are the cons of this form of B12? Should I be worried while getting Cyanocob. instead of Methylcob.?
Methylcobalamin is the most easily usable form of B12 for your body. Cyanocobalamin does contain some cyanide, albeit an extremely small amount. If you really need to take it then it should not be an issue though of course it would be wise to consult with your doctor first. Personally I have taken it in the past when my B12 levels were very low but not now because they are fine and I feel better as well. Can you order Methyl-B12 online and get it shipped to where you live perhaps?
I’m confused on this topic… I read that the only reason B12 isn’t available in the ground is because we’re polluted the lands so much that it doesn’t produce enough in plants anymore. I’m not really convinced of this answer, if we were meant to eat only plants then B12 would be easily found in plants. Why can’t we figure out a way of producing sufficient amount of B12 in plants in this day in age? It’s not natural to take a pharmaceutical drug and I don’t want to support that industry.
Things like spices are irritants and garlic is anti bacterial. This is not what you want when we have friendly gut bacteria which we need to be truly healthy. See our website blog article about Garlic! Because we wash everything nowadays any B12 that would have been stuck to the plants and perhaps our hands as we picked and ate them unwashed is no longer avaliable for us to absorb. See our blog article on B12 avaliable on our website!
this doesn’t make sense to me… Dr Gregar says in his 2009 lecture ( “latest in nutrition”) that garlic is one of the most powerful anti cancer foods. So you think that people didn’t wash things in the past? come on now… Not even the dumbest of cavemen would eat a veg or fruit full of dirt, that’s just gross.
Destroying cancer cells in a petri dish in a laboratory with garlic for example is all well and good, but when you then use garlic on a complex organism, such as the human body it only has negative health effects. See our article about garlic on our website blog about this. What always needs to happen is to remove the root cause of the disease in the 1st instance and then support the body through healthy living back to full health. There is no one food that can heal, only the body itself.
I think we can rest assured that our ancient ancestors would not have had any great phobias around the cleanliness of their food, not least the fact that microbes were not even known about back then. From our own personal experience when we eat fruit or greens directly picked from nature we simply brush off any large particles of dirt and then eat the food and dont worry about removing every single particle of dirt. This to us seems a perfectly natural and resonable thing to do.
Have you seen the video I’m referring to? No of course, but the idea is that you use different kinds of foods to assist you body’s immune system in recovering.
It’s not about phobias, it’s about common sense and taste. When I was a kid and would go out to the garden I’d grab a carrot and at least dust off the dirt or wash it prior to eating–that was just my instinct because dirt obviously tastes bad. And there’s no way that small amount of dirt would contain enough B12 to satisfy our daily 2.4 mcg needs.
This is very helpful information, thanks to you both!!
I went to the doctor and he told me to get a vitamin B12 test, I asked about the uMMA test recommended here but he told me is not available where we live. Should I trust the vitamin B12 test?
If you live in America you can search online and order a test kit you can use at home for the uMMA test. The serum – blood test for B12 only measures the amount of B12 in your blood. People do use it but it does not show you if your body has an adequate amount of B12 which it is actively utilizing and this is why many people supplement B12 just to make sure.
Thanks for answering me! 🙂
Love his shirt!
Don is another fruitarian who looks WAY older than he actually is. These fruit diets are bad. Eat a variety of plant-based foods including some healthy fats like nuts, seeds, and avocados and not just all or mostly fruit.
I’m Don, the guy in the video, and I’ve just written an in-depth article on B12. It’s on my website, called “Everything You Ever Needed to Know about B12”.And as far as looking way older than I actually am 🙂 when I’m asked how old I am, and I say “guess”, no one to date has ever guessed that I’m older than I actually am (almost 60). And you can’t go by how people look on camera; some are not as photogenic as others.
Thanks Don…you shed some more light on the B12 issue, and bring up some points, that i was not aware of..(with spices, coffee, alcohol…etc)…This video sums up very nice the issue around B12… i will check out your article too, since i am with some B12 deficiency myself (i used to drink coffee each day, and always add quite a lot spice in my food… and now this got me thinking). Be strong and healthy always… Thanks.
hux
He said avoid needles (5:00). I wonder if that applies to acupuncture. I’ve been doing that for my knee. I had a torn meniscus and surgery. It’s been swollen for years (I question if the surgery did any good). Now finally, the swelling seems to be going away after only two acupuncture sessions.
What about chorella for vitamin b12 deficiency? I’m vegan and take 20
tablets everyday.
Ginger and garlic prevent humans from making B12? That sounds interesting
but could you please tell me from where you are getting this information?