B12 and the AHDB
Vegans don’t get natural B12, which is why we should eat meat, dairy and eggs… well, that’s according to the animal farming levy group the AHDB, who in their new 2022 We Eat Balanced campaign, said: “Did you know that beef, pork, lamb and dairy are natural sources of vitamin B12, an essential vitamin not naturally present in a vegan diet?”
So, should we not be vegan because of vitamin B12?
B12 is a vitamin that is produced by microbes such as bacteria. Humans can produce B12 in our gut, but this B12 doesn’t get absorbed by our bodies, it is instead excreted meaning it doesn’t help us meet our daily B12 needs.
We could absorb it after it’s excreted, but that would mean practising coprophagy (yes, that is what that means and no, please don’t google it), but a more appealing alternative is just to seek out an external source.
So enter the animal farming industry to save the day, right? Let’s dig into the details.
In theory, the animals we farm could get or produce B12 naturally if they lived in an environment with soil that either contained the right microbes or was contaminated with faeces. However, the vast majority of them are confined in factory farms where there is no soil, meaning that in practice, most of the animals we farm for food are supplemented with - wait for it - unnatural B12 supplements.
However, there is a caveat to this, and that’s ruminants like cattle and sheep who are raised on pastures. Unlike us, these animals can produce and absorb B12 without an external dietary source using bacteria in their digestive tract.
That being said, they do need a mineral called cobalt to do so, and the only way they can get that is from their diet. In theory, cobalt is found in soils, but in practice, this isn’t necessarily a given as cobalt deficient soils have become a problem.
In fact, according to a Scottish government-funded advisory group, over 15 per cent of Scottish soils are at moderate risk of cobalt deficiency and over 62 per cent are at a high risk, and to quote them, “Most farms use intraruminal boluses (which in English means supplements for ruminant animals) containing cobalt or drenches. Vitamin B12 injections are also available.”
In other words, both intensively raised animals and outdoor raised animals are for the most part unnaturally supplemented to get B12.
For most of us, whether we are getting B12 from a supplement or animal products, it will be just as unnatural. The only difference is whether that supplement is filtered through an animal or not.
Not to mention that B12 deficiency is far from being a vegan-only problem, as studies have shown that up to 40 per cent of people in Western countries have low or marginal B12 status, regardless of their dietary choices.
This means that the AHDB’s recommendations to get natural B12 are not even practical for most people, not to mention that there’s actually a far bigger flaw to what they’re saying.
If you think about it, by saying that B12 can be only found naturally in animal products, they are basically saying: “this is the good way to get B12 because it’s natural, while the vegan way to get B12 is bad because it’s unnatural.” In other words, they are making the assumption that natural things are good, and unnatural things are bad.
This of course is an irrational assumption that we don’t even hold consistently. For example, anthrax, earthquakes and wiping our bottoms with leaves are all natural, but we consider them bad, while the antibiotics we use to treat anthrax, seismographs we use to detect earthquakes and toilet paper are comparatively unnatural, yet we consider them good.
In other words, we consider things to be good or bad not based on how natural they are, but on how they cause or reduce suffering.
The relevant question then is not “how do we get B12 naturally?”, but “does this way of getting B12 cause or reduce suffering?”
And in this case, we have a choice between getting it from foods that involve exploiting, and killing animals in a system that is one of the major drivers of the climate crisis, or getting it from a supplement with no direct victims.
As it turns out, we don’t need to kill animals to be healthy and thrive. A point the AHDB even admit themselves on their website where they state:
“If you’re cutting out meat, fish, dairy and eggs you can get vitamin B12 from fortified foods and supplements.”
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