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Safest source of B12

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    "Safest Source of B12"
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    What’s the best way to get vitamin B12?
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    Well, B12 is not made by plants;
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    not made by animals either.
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    It’s made by certain bacteria,
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    some of which line the guts of animals,
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    of which people eat and drink.
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    But that’s not the best source,
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    because of the baggage
    that comes along with it.
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    Just like we can’t get the iron in
    beef without the saturated fat,
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    the protein in pork without lard,
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    the calcium in dairy without hormones;
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    we can’t get the B12 in animals without
    also consuming stuff we don’t want—
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    like cholesterol.
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    For example, to get 47
    micrograms of B12 from eggs,
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    because the absorption is so low,
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    we’d have to literally eat hundreds
    of scrambled eggs a day.
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    200 to 400 eggs a day!
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    Do you know how much
    cholesterol that would be?
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    If you got all your B12
    from scrambled eggs,
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    you’d consume 69,000
    milligrams of cholesterol—
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    practically your entire
    year’s worth every day.
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    So, yes, chickens harbor bacteria;
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    the bacteria make B12;
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    some of that B12
    makes it into the chicken,
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    and then into the egg—
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    but so does the cholesterol.
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    There has to be a better way!
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    Why don’t the bacteria
    in our colon make B12?
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    They do, actually.
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    It’s just too far downstream
    to be absorbed.
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    In one of the less appetizing but
    more brilliant experiments in the field,
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    a Dr. Callender delineated that human
    colon bacteria make large amounts of B12.
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    Although the B12 is not
    absorbed through the colon,
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    it is active.
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    How do we know?
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    She found some vegan
    volunteers with B12 deficiency,
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    collected their stools for 24 hours,
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    and then, you guessed it,
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    bon appetit!
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    And it worked!
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    They were cured.
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    Those are some hardcore vegans.
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    There has to be a better way!
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    And thankfully, there is:
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    fortified foods and supplements.
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    Not only the safest, but
    also the most effective.
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    In the U.S. Framingham Offspring Study,
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    one in six meat-eaters between
    ages 26 to 83 were B12-deficient.
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    The folks with the highest B12 levels
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    weren’t the ones eating
    the most animal products,
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    but the ones taking supplements,
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    and eating the most
    fortified breakfast cereal.
Title:
Safest source of B12
Description:
more » « less
Video Language:
English
Duration:
02:19

English subtitles

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