Although soph is right in one regard, about soil bacteria generating B12...
I personally do no agree with supplementation of ... a 'healthier diet'
with synthetic, concentrated, unnatural pills of vitamins or minerals.
B12 - Cobalamin is one of the essential B Vitamins.
Mammals and Plants alike require this to successfully grow.
In humans, it plays a critical part in most development; eyes, skin, hair, red blood cells,
CNS, sperm and immune system. Offers bodily resistance to Cancers and toxins like Cyanide.
Cyanide exists in many Organic compounds, same with Arsenic. Although certain conditions cause the release of these toxins. One of those is by burning. Pretty much any Organic matter that burns releases Arsenic. Smokers retain a higher concentration via exposure than non-smokers (non-second-hand smokers).
Keep that in mind for a moment.
So what is B12?
The element Cobalt is ironically and most often first exposed to people (in their awareness) as the Cobalt Blue, used in victorian pottery. Images of farmhouses, hued with an iconic blue, kept behind the glaze of the plate.
Cobalt only needs to exist in small traces of a paddock, to culture with soil bacteria. And to provide ruminant grazing animals, with sufficent amounts of B12 (cobalamin in the body) for them to survive; as true with legumes. These crops will fail without enough traces of Cobalt. The root nodules on Legumes especially, harbour specialized bacteria, this is one place Cobalt is converted into Cobalamin.
When plants exist, they do not only 'take from the soil', more over, as with the Universal Law of Physics. "Information is never destroyed, only converted." Plants reconstitute the soil, altering the chemistry. They are in fact labratories... where elements are concentrated and via Photosynthesis (energy conversion), plant science and such... they get recompounded and enfuzed with the experience of having been within a plant.
Over time, plants and animals have been exposed to a great variety of base elements and their more complex structures. These plants to exist, have co-existed with these elements. Today we now say "need"... the presence of these, likely once highly toxic and inhibitory elements. Through coping, adaptation and co-existence... these elements have been changed as they have changed, the complex structures of bacteria and organic matter.
Plants and Animals have not only 'used' cobalt, they have changed and become what they are, via exposure to it over time. To remove this, is to remove a building black from an earlier part of development of a skyscraper.
The misnomer of B12 only being present in meat.... is a simple one to debunk. Esp as a Vegan who sees OTHER Animals, more humbly. If Meat is just as Animal as we are? Where do these Ruminant Grazing Animals we eat get their B12 from? (if not the herbacious diet they have)
Well, having multiple stomachs allows some added benefits. A Calf for example is exposed to Cobalt and consumes this via plant and dirt matter entering it's facehole. These creatures, within their own bodies then are capable of Synthesizing this elemental mineral. Into the Vitamin, Cobalamin/B12. {There are some studies suggesting to a much lesser extend, humans are capable of this.}
Just as plants alter and make more complex, stable structures of nutrients from elements. Animals do the same, this is why we eat them; they do all of the chewing and collecting for us. Their bodies, turning this harshness it co-exists, via the seeking of comfort and the will to survive, into a more friendly compound. Thus these elements become conditioned by their experience in Animals and when Humans come to assimilate this "meat", it contains these elements that have been conditioned to an Animal system.
Barley plants are often reduced into a Sugary-Syrup by Humans through external preperation methods. Call it pre-metabolism.
This is known as Malt:
http://www.unleashed.org.au/community/forum/topic.php?t=7565
http://www.unleashed.org.au/community/forum/topic.php?t=3621
B12 "Supplements"
There are several ways to derive complex compounds, Science has its' own tricks and shortcuts. Just like people have with their macro-lifestyle.
Much of the theory behind the Industry of the Apothecaries, is left wanting of greater Science. For example, Dolomite was once offered to people as a 'Supplement' to a healthy diet. You know..... aslo used in Concrete.
It seems crazy now, but we have barely learnt a thing.
The body is more Apt to utilize and safely be exposed and experience, Organic compounds. Instead when we hear "you are deficient in Iron, Calcium.et cetera". What is offered... Chalk and a Metal Bar. Yum!
You also hear things like "Eating Tomatoes with Avocardo or fatty-Oils/Olive Oil, increases the absorption of Lycopene, tenfold".... does it? Or does it provide the body with the potential, to be able to utilize more of the good in one things, via having more of another, to convert and experience these element in a positive (less starved and lacking) way. Thus less is found in the Human by-product of waste, because the body was well equipt.
Sure B12 might benefit from the exposure to Iron in the same system... but if you look at the list of ingredients needed to make a Strawberry ~ it is 3-pages long of complex chemical compounds.
If you don't understand why throwing a piece of Chalk down your gullet, every day doesn't necesserily mean you won't suffer Osteoporosis, you should probably take a quiet moment to stop the belittlement of life (for the sake of venerating humans for there meagre acceptances, in sight of vastly complex discoveries... whittled from a boundless truth, to a rule of a lie), take a breath and just think about it for a while.
Calcium Carbonate in raw form, is not Organic, simply because it has not been buffered by life. Sure millions of years ago, it could be plankton ghosts... but as Creatures who forget their Ancientness, simply because of how new they feel they are becoming. Humans are better to experience Calcium, that has gone through an Organic Process. Like existing in a Plant. Before we survive the experience of this external matter passing through the Walking Trees we are (in this analogy).
The Chemistry of the Human body, relates to the Chemistry of Plants as we co-exist.
The Human body in whole, prefers exposure to Alkaline things (remember Alkaline becomes Acid at some point on the scale and that is due to comparative difference on a scale of extremities).
Probably due to the Acidic concetration of the human body, just like the bacteria that constitutes it and helps to keep our constitution strong (or is our constitution); we use acid to digest and acid is a by-product of mere ambulation (walking/moving).
When the Human body pulls itself from an critical Acid State, commonly occuring with the consumption of Junk/Take-Away food... it pulls the Calcium from our bones, to re-Alkalize the body as a whole. Some parts of the body of course require a greater Acidic state to function for our whole being.
If you look at plant science with the eyes of a Chemist, you may find yourself throwing an Iron Bar at a fruit tree to 'fix what ails it'.... but this is not the path of Well Being.
When a plant has a high concentration of something like Iron... well my saying is that "A Deficiency, can often be a most pronounced show of an Excess". With higher concentrations of Iron, plants cannot get their comfortible balance of Magnesium, Manganese, other 'Metal' elements and so on.
Companies are seeking a profit before they are seeking a revelation (*cough* a truth), they simply want to keep existing and surviving the seemingly unforgiving world. If they are told by Science the body needs Iron... they will find Iron... the cheapest way they can as long as it is labelled with the same name where they find it. As if the 'Where' and 'How' is not important at all.
The |"B12 (cough cough)" commonly concetrated into Pills, is often Cyano-Cobalamin. The prefix of this compound being that of Cyanide.
If you ever get random headaches or migranes and your doctor looks at you like "and? you just need to suffer this, I don't know, have you been taking your Pain Killers?". You are well aware how helpeless the support system leaves you, if you subscribe to one aspect of it, this does not mean the other aspects are in your favor. As they are all in competition with the truth.
Osmosis is the tendency for concentrations to be diluted and pass through cell membranes to equilibriate both sides, the Organism and the Solution. Also perhaps for Organisms to seek purity, although they may retain greater 'Toxic' concentrations of by-products.
Think of this when you think of the fact. When a Smoker takes Cyano-Cobalamin (Just plain Ol' B12 if you read the label the way you 'should'.); already having a high concentration of Cyanide in their bodies. Having been exposed to this as a smoker, it has seeped deep into the reaches of their coping mechanisms and buffer of comfort. (Spread out, so one area does not suffer the Toxcysity alone and cause a Mutated Growth of Cells.)
They are less likely to suffer the instantaneous headache of Cyanide entering the body, as their bodies are already conditioned by their long standing exposure and experience to this. Just as less of the Cyano- prefix compounded with Cobalamin (laced) is likely to transfer into the surrounding cells of the Smoker's Body before it passes through within water (that has Osmotically equilibrated to carry out impurities. Concentrated in the places/organs the water is to pass through, to greater remove them from the body at large) n' refuse.
Quickly___ 2000micrograms of Cobalamin is stupid anyway. Like a ruminant grazing animal that gets exposed to Cobalt over a large area in varying, but always in tiny traces over each day. It is not retained by the body for use, simply because it gets used. But the human digestive system cannot (such an inexplicable shame) assimilate much from 2000micro-grams sitting like a log in our stomachs. Rather the body likes to use about 8 micro-grams of this at a given time. "The Absorption Rate, rapidly drops, the higher the dosage". Ugh... 8 Micro-grams is apparently around 95% absoption. 2000micro-grams happens to be a percentile (co-incidence¿) that leaves the amount absorbed, being around 8. But the human body has become a bunch of Organs strung together... each individual and specialized to do their perceived task, nothing more.
So we all treat ourselves like we have a malapsorptive condition, that only truly exists in a few people. Those that cannot assimilate nearly enough nutrients from what is in their stomach, for them to keep surviving (yes and we treat the 'patient', not the profound-diet offered to them by a rapidly forgetful civilisation, of its' heritage beyond "war times"). Sure your blood test might show you are no longer deficient in Iron, when you get it injected directly into your blood in high concentrations.... or B12..... but Why are you low in these things, when your Stomach functions perfectly well. Is it because "your body needs this specific level of Iron to be Healthy" that you aren't Happy... or is it because you are poisoning yourself, when your body is in a state of lacking many other more humble and complex, life experiences¿
Think I will just simply conclude, there are cheaper places to find 'essential elements',
but are they worth it? Just so we can go about a polluting and often unrewarding life.
Forlorn of Well Being, wonderment and the environment that promotes thought development, more than a toxic retention of knowledges without the wisdom to successfully process these most potent and often impure things of thoughts.
Also, if you are 'licking the plate clean'... your body is probably "telling you something".
That is... if you know how to convert an observation of habit into a problem that needs resolution (not solving or treatment ugh with all their negative connotations via negligence and force of the outside eye, having no empathy/compassion/sympathy).
Thus you are inhibiting (unable to act in a relaxed way/hindering a process) your nature, like pulling a face when tasting a bitter thing. By thinking Why? But it is worth it
