Where to get vitamin B12 when you are vegetarian or vegan?

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Vitamin B12 is essential for the proper functioning of our body. Since our body is not able to produce it, we must provide it through food. Currently, animal products are the only source of vitamin B12. This is found in meat, as microorganisms present in the digestive tract of herbivores synthesize the vitamin which is then absorbed.

As with other B vitamins, there is no danger in consuming too much, as it is naturally eliminated by the body if this is the case. It is also found in cheese, which is a food made from milk by fermentation, i.e. the action of microorganisms.

It is not only milk that is fermented. What about fermented plant products? Well, that’s unknown. Since plants do not contain vitamin B12, no one detects its presence. Additionally, this vitamin is quite complicated to measure, as there are many forms that are not all active for humans.

Let’s eat injera

We work together with Ethiopia. In this country, most people eat injera every day. It is a fermented pancake made from teff (a very small grain). Teff is ground into flour, water is added to get a slightly liquid paste like pancake batter. After three or four days of fermentation, the injera is cooked in a large plate, like a buckwheat pancake.

There is no data on the amount of vitamin B12 in injera. We still saw: after all, injera is a fermented food and fermentation can allow the production of vitamin B12. Bingo! Injera was very rich in vitamin B12, so much so that in some cases it covered the daily nutritional intake. Once this discovery was made, we still had to understand why this teff cake contained vitamin B12.

We then looked to see if the microorganisms that ferment the injera were able to produce the vitamin. The answer is yes. Bacteria with cute names like Propionibacterium friedenreichii

Or Lactobacillus corriniformis They are known for their synthesis abilities. The first bacteria, usually found in cheese or soil, can also be found directly in teff flour. In Ethiopia, there are no combine harvesters: after harvest, the grain is separated from the straw with which it is threshed on the ground. We believe this is the stage where bacteria are introduced to the flour.

So if we went back to these ancient methods of threshing grains in France, which were eaten after fermentation, vegetarians could stop taking food supplements to meet their needs. Hard idea to imagine.

Cheese aftertaste

All is not lost, there is another way. If we add the bacteria ourselves while preparing the fermented plant, it will be possible to obtain a plant food rich in vitamin B12.

Researchers conducted this experiment and made sourdough bread from these bacteria. The results are very encouraging, as they calculated that two slices of bread would be enough to meet a person’s daily vitamin B12 needs. On the other hand, because the bread had a cheese aftertaste Propionibacterium friedenreichii

There are bacteria found in Gruyère cheese.

Everything is not perfect yet. Some development is still needed to be able to find fermented plant foods naturally rich in vitamin B12 on the market, but the prospects are promising.

Christel Humblot is Director of Research at the Research Institute for Development (IRD).

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.