B-12 and Protein for Vegetarians

When people become a vegetarian, the talk is almost always centered around protein. People ask: How are you going to get your protein? Let's not forget that meat is also the source of vitamins, minerals, essential oils and all sorts of good things and not just protein, but I digress.

Most foods have some amino acids in them, which the body combines to form "complete protein." Most non-meat items fall short of containing complete protein, though. As a result, a vegetarian has to eat certain foods in combination to get it.

The formula is:

2 parts grain + 1 part legume (beans, nuts, soy, etc) = complete protein

It is interesting how many traditional foods follow this model rather well--beans & rice, peanut butter between 2 slices of bread, oatmeal & walnuts, hummus & pita bread, tofu & rice. The grains should be whole grains to get the best impact.

In the past, it was considered essential to eat the grains and legumes during the same meal. Recently, the rules about protein have relaxed considerably. For example, you can have grains for breakfast and beans for lunch. As long as they are eaten within the same day, there should not be a problem forming complete protein out of it.

Furthermore, it has been discovered that virtually all foods have some amount of complete protein in them. The reason they are not classified as such is because they do not have enough quantity of certain amino acids. For example, you can get all your protein needs even from something as nutritionally deficient as white bread, you just have to eat an awful lot of it--more than you could ever eat in a day. But there bottom line is that protein is everywhere.

The end result is that as long as you eat a balanced diet, no vegetarian is going to have a problem getting enough good quality protein. Just make sure you regularly get whole grains, some beans and nuts, and a lot of variety of everything else, you'll be fine. The problem only comes in for those who eat nothing but french fries or white bread.

However, there is still a real danger to western vegetarian diets. It is Vitamin B-12. B-12 is only available in animal foods. It is formed as the by-product of bacterial activity in an animal's body, often in the colon. The human body makes all the B-12 it would ever need, but it is formed in your lower intestine and your body cannot re-absorb any nutrition there. Meat eaters have an abundance of B-12, and your body can store it for long periods (a testament to the fact that our ancestors probably went long periods without meat).

The fact that your body stores B-12 means that you don't notice a deficiency for quite some time. Many people initially feel ecstatic when they become a vegetarian. The feel all sorts of health benefits as their body does not have to struggle with digesting meat, not to mention all of the unhealthy fats, hormones and chemicals found in factory-raised meats. However, there is a time bomb ticking. It can be months or even years before a B-12 deficiency starts to show, because your body can use and re-use what it has.

Truth is, most vegetarians are running a B-12 deficiency, and nearly all vegans.

B-12 is a funny vitamin. You don't need much of it. But when it is lacking, it can cause all sorts of catastrophic nerve damage and other problems. Even worse, once you run a deficiency, it can be hard to rebound without significantly changing one's diet back to meat or seeking medical treatment.

There have been some studies of vegan groups in India (the article is about a third of the way down the linked page) where the population did not show any signs of a B-12 deficiency. However, as time went on, they found that they fertilized their crops with human feces (rich in B-12) and that their storehouses of rice and beans were infested with insects. Insect excrement, insect bodies and eggs were mixed into their daily fare of rice & beans, providing all the B-12 they needed. They may also have gotten a share from drinking water that was partially contaminated with fecal waste. As you can see, the conditions for getting B-12 in this culture would not work in America.

There are options for vegetarians and vegans, though. There are B-12 supplements. There are excellent B-12 shots, which are often important for someone who is running a serious deficiency to get them back on track. I have even seen B-12 patches. Some foods are fortified with B-12, but the vitamin is very unstable when exposed to sunlight. Fortified nutritional yeast is a common dietary supplement for vegetarians. However, if it sits in bulk bins at the grocery store, the B-12 content may have been drastically reduced or eliminated just from exposure to sun. (Keep in mind that not all nutritional yeast is fortified with B-12, so check the label.)

Even worse, eggs are typically considered a great source of B-12 for vegans, except for the fact that it is in a form that is difficult for for humans to access. You may not be getting the B-12 from eggs that the label says. For most vegetarians, milk is then the only natural source of B-12, and it usually do not contain enough to give you your recommended daily allowance. There is some B-12 in plant foods, but humans are not thought to be able to access it.

I used to argue that B-12 is the smoking gun that shows that humans never had a vegan ancestry. Our bodies are evolved to take in B-12 from animal sources. However, we may have gotten enough environmental exposure to compensate, such as the villages in India mentioned above. There are some mostly-vegetarian communities of hunters & gatherers and farmers in the world, but virtually none that are purely vegan. (I have often wondered how much nutrition our ancestors got simply from environmental sources--bare feet walking in the dirt, swimming in rivers and ponds, hands touching wood, grass and dirt all the time.)

The #1 priority for all vegetarian and vegans should be to find stable and reliable sources of Vitamin B-12. I would recommend getting it from a couple of different sources. Some people do not absorb the vitamin from supplements very well, but may take it in from other sources. If you are a partial-vegetarian who only eats meat occasionally, it might not hurt to target meats that are high in B-12. This would include beef and seafood. Poultry is typically low in B-12.

Protein and B-12 are not the only issues in vegetarianism. Some people do not process Vitamin-A properly from plant sources. Adequate Vitamin D intake can also be a problem. People who can trace their ancestry to northern cultures such as Scandinavian, Irish, Inuit, etc., (where meat would surely have been a large portion of the diet) are also theorized to have lost the ability to convert some plant sources into proper nutrition (see this link, the same one cited above and go about a third down the page). For other issues and a counter-point of vegetarianism in general, see here. If you tried to be a vegetarian and are struggling, there may be some real obstacles for you based on your ancestry, lifestyle or other health issues.