There's a lot of controversy going on due to opposing views of this particular vitamin between meat-eaters and the vegan and raw foodist communities, an argument that asks the question: are plant sources adequate sources of Vitamin B12, an especially very important vitamin for pregnant women in particular and women in general?
First of all, let's study the benefits of this vitamin before tackling the above question.
Vitamin B12, also known as Cobalamin, is a water-soluble member of the B-complex vitamin family, and scientific and medical research shows that of all the vitamins, it is only the only one that contains essential minerals, which clearly explains why it is so important during pregnancy. It was the last true vitamin discovered (discovered in 1948).
Vitamin B12 is essential for: healthy metabolism of nerve tissue, maintaining iron levels in the blood, helps improve memory and concentration, regulating the formation of red blood cells (by aiding folic acid), is necessary for the maintenance of the nervous system; aids in cell formation and cellular longevity, is required to utilize fats, carbohydrates, and proteins; and maintains fertility.
Vitamin B12 has also been reported to reduce the risk of caner, lessening the severity of allergies, protecting against allergens and toxic elements, and in addition, boosting energy levels.
Because of its "energy boosting" properties, Vitamin B12 injections are given to cast members on the set of television shows and feature length movies. However, and very unfortunately, actors and actresses are being injected with synthetic sources of Vitamin B12, which basically means these people are being injected with a man-made chemical drug.
If is a fact that Vitamin B12 was once considered to be a "wonder drug" and was given by injection to rejuvenate people. It does make sense why on movie sets it would be given to actors and actresses. After all, the average movie set's daily average time for filming is 12-16 hours and certainly one could become lethargic during a 12-16 hour shooting (filming) session.
Deficiencies of this invaluable nutrient can lead to brain damage as well as neurological disorders. Deficiencies of Vitamin B12 usually result from malabsorption, which is most common in the elderly and individuals with digestive disorders.
Symptoms of Vitamin B12 deficiency include pernicious anemia, menstrual problems, mental deterioration, chronic fatigue, constipation, trembling, depression, dizziness, drowsiness, eye disorders, hallucinations, memory loss, and spinal cord degeneration.
Because Vitamin B12 helps to prevent pernicious anemia (common in menstruating females), maintains fertility, and prevents menstrual complaints, Vitamin B12 is a very important vitamin (nutrient) for girls and women and should be taken daily.
Okay, many advocates of meat consumption (allegedly for nutritional purposes), e.g. Sally Fallon (President of the Weston A. Price Foundation), Makeda Voletta (student of Weston A. Price ideology and philosophy), et al. insist that strict vegetarians (vegans) and raw foodists are in danger of developing a deficiency of this vitamin due to it being found mostly in animal tissue but only sparingly in plant sources.
However, their folly is this: Everything the human body needs for nutrition (including Vitamin B12), God via Nature put on the Earth. God would not require any of us to need a certain nutrient and then not make that nutrient available from a natural food source, and natural food source being a fruit and/or plant, as cooked animal flesh is NOT a natural food source.
We must remember that all of the nutrients found in the flesh of animals (animal tissue) that people eat (via programming) resulted from the animal itself consuming plants. After all, human meat-eaters are eating the flesh of herbivores, e.g. cows, sheep, etc., which by nature eat plants and grass. This is what herbivores naturally do - eat plants.
I purposely say meat-eaters are programmed because they are programmed to only eat the flesh of certain animals. I mean, if you are meat-eater, why only eat the meat of certain animals, e.g. cows (beef), pigs (pork), sheep (lamb, veal), buffalo, deer (venison), and chickens? Why not eat dogs, cats, rats, tigers, lions, etc.? It's because meat-eater are programmed as clearly and convincingly pointed out by author Melanie Joy in her book "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows."
Human meat-eaters are not eating the flesh of carnivores, e.g. tigers, lions, cheetahs, bobcats, hyenas, coyotes, etc. and understandably so because all of the nutrients meat-eating advocates advocate would not be found in the animals who do not consume plants and grass (carnivorous creatures, e.g. lion, tiger, bobcat, etc.), because again, these nutrients when found in the flesh of animals got there by way of the animal itself consuming plants and grass and the only animals that consume plants and grass by nature are herbivorous animals which are the animals (and sentient beings) that are enslaved, slaughtered, processed, packaged, purchased, and that end up on the plate of human beings (meat-eaters) that have unconsciously (or consciously) chosen to be walking cemeteries of dead vegetarian animals consumed under the pretenses of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, further predicated upon a profit-making protein myth.
Also, when you cook animal flesh (which the majority of human meat-eaters do) you change the molecular structure of the animal flesh and destroy and thus lose nutritional value.
We do not have to kill innocent animals to derive what our body's need for nutritional purposes. Why would God make us to need nutrients from animals when God didn't make our bodies to be able to digest, absorb, and assimilate animals (animal flesh)? It just doesn't add up! When things don't add up, it because they don't make sense.
No human meat-eater has the desire to go out to green pastures and chase a cow down and bite off into the cow's neck, killing it, and then continuously biting away at the animal's flesh to devour it. Human carnivores just don't do this. But real carnivores do! Just go study a lion or tiger.
Nature is sufficient in providing everything we humans need for nutritional purposes, including Vitamin B12.
Nature provides us with ORGANIC nutrition whereas in most cases man (via corporations) provides us with synthetic nutrition (for patent purposes predicated upon profit purposes) that the human body just cannot digest, absorb, and assimilate. So why consume man-made synthetic nutritional supplements?
If you consume man-made synthetic Vitamin B12 you will be told you need about 5-50 mcg of this vitamin, which constitutes a dosage and dosage is only given when you're dealing with a poison. Dosage helps prevent overdose (fatality, suicide). You can only overdose on poison, not food.
NOTE: mcg = microgram
Animals in the wild do not rely upon dosage of anything they eat and they certainly aren't concerned about nutritional requirements like man and woman are. Animals instinctively know that what they eat from Nature provides them with everything they need. Just watch them eat - they eat with no concern. They eat with ease.
A person does not have to consume Tamasic (dead, rotten, acidic) food/things such as animal liver and kidney, clams, eggs, fish, and dairy products to obtain Vitamin B12.
Nature is bounteous in providing necessary nutrition, including Vitamin B12, which can be found in many green plants, e.g. alfalfa, watercress, spinach and parsley; as well in great abundance in sea vegetation, e.g. spirulina, blue green algae, chlorella, Irish Moss, dulse, kelp, kombu, Iceland Moss, red marine algae, hiziki, wakame, and nori to name a few.
Seaweeds are the most nutritious foods you could consume as they contain everything we need to sustain life, e.g. minerals, trace elements, amino acids (protein), vitamins, B-vitamins, oxygen, chlorophyll, etc.
In fact, seaweeds are the best source of Vitamin B12 (100% organic) and provide far more of the nutrient than does animal flesh (which will provide 0% nutrition after it's cooked).
There are also herbs that provide organic sources of Vitamin B12 and they include: Alfalfa, Hops, Burdock Root, Chickweed, Dandelion Root, Catnip, Hawthorn Berries, Mullein Leaves, Red Clover Tops, Fenugreek Seeds, Dong Quai, and White Oak Bark.
In closing, Nature makes no mono-structured source of any nutrient. Everything Nature produces is balanced and wholistic. Nature does not isolate.
If you're taking a Vitamin B12 supplement, the ingredient list should list a FOOD source of the nutrient. There is no plant found in Nature called "Vitamin B12 plant."
Vitamin B12, like all other nutrients, comes from a plant; so the ingredient list of Vitamin B12 should list the names of some plants in which the supplement was derived from. If it doesn't, then, you've been had (bamboozled).
Dherbs.com products and compounds that provide organic Vitamin B12 include: Vitamin B12 Formula (100% plant-based),
Electric Greens Cell Food,
Iodine Phosphate, and
Thyroid Formula.
Thank you for reading!
This article is compliments of Dherbs.com and Djehuty Ma'at-Ra
Additional articles by Djehuty available @ HYPERLINK "http://www.dherbs.com/articles/" www.dherbs.com/articles/
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