I Have Just Gone Raw and My Dr. Friend Says if I Don’t Take Supplements or Eat Poop I Will Become B-12 Deficient

On Jun 8, 2006, at 11:12 AM, jahfree wrote:

hi rhio,

i have just gone raw a month and a half ago and my dr. friend says if i don't take supplements or eat poop i will become B12 deficient. can you give me any insight into this dilemma. why if a raw food diet is so healthy and natural would it lack such an essential elelment?

thanks very much for any help

jahfree, raw food dude

Dear Jahfree,

I am not a practitioner of any kind so please accept the following only as an exchange of information and ideas.

The raw food diet does not lack B-12. In the US 10% of the population is vegetarian, but 40% of the population is B-12 deficient. By simple deduction that would mean that roughly 30% (or more – the other 10% we can't know for sure) of meat eaters are B-12 deficient.

There are several things that deplete B-12 in our modern society and one of them is the nitrous oxide emissions created from catalytic converters in cars and which are increasing in our atmosphere. Also industrial pollution depletes B-12. (Look on my website under articles for Vit B-12 for an article on the nitrous oxide)

If you have weak intrinsic factor, (a secretion of the stomach), you may not be able to metabolize B-12 properly. If you have insufficient friendly bacteria in the intestines your own body cannot produce B-12. (B-12 is produced by bacteria.) Some writers say we cannot absorb our own internally produced B-12, but I disagree with them. In addition, use of antibiotics kills the intestinal bacteria. Antibiotics are not only used in medicine today, but in the feed of animals, fish, etc., so use of these products would mean you are ingesting antibiotics which are killing your intestinal flora.

There are many things you could do to boost your B-12 intake and just being on a raw food diet will eventually bring all your body systems to their optimum operating levels. Of course, you could take supplements as your dr. friend suggests. Or you could monitor your B-12 levels on a yearly basis to make sure you are not going too low. You could include some fermented foods in your diet. You could grow some of your own vegetables in an organically tended garden providing the soil with rock dust, and composted manure as well as vegetable garbage. (The vegetable garbage can be composted or more simply, dig a shallow ditch, put in the vegetable garbage and cover it with soil and let the worms and bacteria do the work of composting for you). It has been found that vegetables grown where composted manure is added to the soil regularly, contain more B-12 than conventionally grown vegetables.

So, it's not that the raw food diet lacks anything – it's that the air we are breathing is contributing to a universal depletion of B-12 in humans.

Hope this helps explain the situation.

With blessings and peace,


June 8, 2006

thanks rhio,

i truly appreciate your reply and i will consider your suggestions carefully.



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