Vitamin B12 Facts Every Vegan & Vegetarian Must Know

This nutrition bite details the crucial role vitamin B12 plays in your health, and how to ensure you obtain enough on a vegan or vegetarian (plant-based or plant-centered) diet. 

Vitamin B12 is one of our body’s 13 “essential” vitamins, meaning we cannot produce enough of it on our own, and thus need help from food and high-quality supplements. 

Why do you need B12, and where does it come from? 

These excerpts from our Nutrition Mastery Course sum it up well:

What Vitamin B12 Does And Why We Need It

B12 is an essential vitamin needed in DNA synthesis. It’s critical in maturing red blood cells in your bone marrow. And it helps nerve fibers form and function in your brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves.

A deficiency in vitamin B12 can lead to irreversible consequences including “deep depression, paranoia and delusions, memory loss, incontinence, loss of taste and smell, and more.” [2]

Where Vitamin B12 Comes From

B12 comes from microorganisms: mostly bacteria that live in soil, water, and the digestive tracts of animals.

In centuries past, people could get B12 by drinking from streams or working in gardens and then eating without washing their hands. Since we no longer do these things, “natural” plant-based sources of B12 have dropped out of modern life.

Though we could go back to consuming B12 from unfiltered water and soil, doing so puts us at risk for contracting diseases like cholera (No thank you!). 

This is why it is a requirement for vegans to get their vitamin B12 from one or both of these 2 sources: fortified foods and high-quality supplements. 

Here Are Our Top 5 Vegan Sources Of B12

1. Fortified non-dairy milk (ex. Rice, oat, and almond milks)

2. Some meat substitutes (read the nutritional info to know for sure)

3. Fortified breakfast cereals.

4. Fortified nutritional yeast. (Nutritional yeast/flakes NOT instant or active yeast for baking)

5. High-quality supplements. We recommend “micelle liposomal” B12 for best absorption and full benefits.

You may think B12 deficiency is uncommon, but Whole Health Chicago reports, “it’s one of the most underdiagnosed conditions I see in my clinic.” [1] 

Worse,  Harvard University suggests up to 41 million Americans could be deficient in Vitamin B12… [2]

But most don’t even know it. (If you are concerned, check out the  quiz below.)