Shouldnt we be eating meat to obtain our B12 vitamin?
Low vitamin B12 levels don’t just occur in older people, say researchers at the USDA Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. And contrary to current wisdom, meat, poultry, and seafood may not be good sources of the vitamin. Katherine Tucker and colleagues measured blood levels and food or supplement sources of vitamin B12 in roughly 3,000 men and women (aged 26 to 83) whose health has been tracked since 1971 as part of the Framingham Offspring Study. A surprising 39% of the participants had blood levels below 350 pg/ml, the level at which neurological signs of vitamin B12 deficiency or high homocysteine levels sometimes occur. And younger people were just as likely tohave low levels as older people. What’s more, people who got their B12 from supplements, fortified breakfast cereals, or dairy products were less likely to be deficient than those who got more of their B12 from meat, poultry, or fish. Some B12 may be lost in cooking, or the way th
