What food is a vegan's source of vitamin B12?!
Answers: You can buy "nutritional yeast" which is very high in B vitamins. It's delicious, almost a cheesy taste, and you can put it on nearly anything- stir fries, pasta dishes, as a toast topping, over rice and tamari, anything!! I use it on almost everything because I lack in B vitamins.
Tofu
One of the easiest ways to cook tofu and infuse it with flavor is to:
- Cut it into cubes
- Place them in a single layer in a wok.
- Poor enough soysauce in to come about half way up the tofu.
(at this point you may also like to add herbs, Rosemary, Thyme, etc)
- Cover and let cook until soy sauce is bubbling.
The tofu will begin to absorb the soy sauce and swell a bit. Turn them over at least once during this process. After turning them over once, you can add chopped veggies to the tofu can continue to cook with the lid still on. It's important to keep the lid. Otherwise it will dry up and scorch.
Cook until you are satisfied with the texture of the tofu and veggies. The time that you cook the food is not too important. These are veggies and tofu afterall. You can eat them raw... which may even be best as far as nutritional values are concerned.
I eat a lot of potatos, carrots, miso, seaweed, and small amounts of ginger in my food.
Just take vitamins
Nutritional yeast is my main source of B-12. I use it in a lot of dishes for flavor. It tastes good and if you get the VEGETARIAN SUPPORT FORMULA from Red Star you get a lot of B-12 (any old brewer's yeast does not have high amounts fo B-12 so get the good stuff).
B-12 is present in meat because animals eat grains infected with a bacteria that provides the B-12. If we ate dirty food we'd get B-12 in our flesh, too, just like animals do. But we wash our food really well now and so it's hard to get B-12 from eating just fresh fruits and veggies. Supplementing with nutritional yeast is a tasty and easy way to get that important supplement!
B12 is literally meant to be in almost everything we eat.
Nutrient deficient and chemically sprayed soil is to blame if it isnt.
Also, the absorbtion and uptake of b12 is very complex, which makes it prone to other factors sometimes causing deficiencies.
theres quite a few sources out there, the problem is knowing if that food type has been grown in the right conditions for it to actually contain it.
Some foods that are fermented also are specifically grown in conditions to make sure b12 is there.
before looking for sources of it i recommend reading up on it, its very interesting anyway.
It cannot be made by animals or plants, yet it is essential for animal survival. the entirety of the animal kingdom on the planet is built upon this layer of bacteria. yet we still sterilize our crops with pesticides, sterilize our homes with chemicals, and sterilize our bodies with anti-biotics. its a wonder there is still animals on the planet at all :/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12
http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/plant
When i look for a source of this vital vitamin, i look for something that specifically has the bacterial strain as an ingredient on the pack. it doesnt assure that there was cobalt on the growing medium, but i try to vary where i get it from to ensure i at least get some real stuff and not all analogues.
So far ive seen bacterial strains listed as ingredients on the packets of Yeasts, miso, and tempeh. though its anyones guess if its the good stuff or not.
thats just where i live though, you may have to hunt down a source for yourself.
Good Luck : )
Fortified foods such as soya milk and breakfast cereals are the best source. It can also be obtained from eating marmite (yeast extract) which is great on toast or as a flavouring when cooking. If you are concerned that you are not getting enough B12 then take a supplement.
See the link below for good advice and information on B12
Nutritional yeast, fortified cereals or soy milk, organically homegrown plant foods.
Nutritional Yeast Flakes
YUMM!!!
I don't know how to flavor gravy, popcorn, or scrambled tofu without them!!
yeast extract such as marmite in the uk or vegemite in australia.
Dulse or Dilisk seaweed from the shores of Ireland
A fortified breakfast cereal such as Kashi