Vitamin B12 Food Sources

Vitamin B12 is an essential vitamin that is water-soluble and can be taken in pill form, sublingual, and via injections. However, you can also eat foods that are naturally high in B12 and it can boost your levels. Therefore, by knowing the foods that are highest in B12, you can be sure to incorporate these into your diet, which it the most natural way to get your vitamin B12 into your bloodstream.

The food that is highest in B12 is beef liver, but not everyone enjoys eating this so many take it in tablet form, which can be helpful over taking B12 pills. Other foods that are high in B12 include:

• Sardines
• Eggs
• Mussels
• Duck
• Lamb
• Turkey
• Pork
• Milk
• Cheese
• Fatty fish
• Salmon
• Tuna
• Cod liver oil
• Fortified breakfast cereals
• Mushrooms

As you can see from the list, the most abundant supply of B12 is in animal proteins, which for those that are not vegetarians is not possible to include many of the food sources into their diet. Vegetarians and especially vegans often suffer from low-levels of B12 and therefore, many have to supplement with B12. Low-levels of this important nutrient can lead to anemia, fatigue, and a number of other unpleasant side effects.

Vegetarians do eat cheese and eggs and can therefore, gain benefits from increasing these two food products to boost B12 levels and to ensure their body has enough. Vegans typically eat tofu as their source of getting enough protein in their diets and many makers of tofu have begun to fortify it with B12, which is good news for vegans because they can consume the product and get B12 at the same time.

If you make it a point to include B12 rich foods into your diet, it is often enough to keep you from becoming deficient in this very important vitamin. Some people even when they eat many foods with B12 still have difficulty absorbing the vitamin due to other illnesses that may be occurring in the body. When this happens, doctors typically give their patients regular B12 injections, which go directly into the bloodstream and very effective for those unable to absorb the nutrient properly.

Because low levels of B12 can result in anemia, fatigue, depression, headaches, numbness in the extremities, and balance problems, to name a few, it is vital to make sure you are getting adequate amounts of the vitamin. Interestingly, people that suffer from a B12 deficiency do not always display the same symptoms, for instance, for one person they may present with depression and anemia while another person presents with weight loss and gastrointestinal upsets.

Finally, it is always a good idea to have your vitamin B12 levels checked when you have your annual exam by your physician because it is something that can be quickly determined and fixed. The results of getting enough B12 when someone has been low are amazing in that they often go from very fatigued to have super energy and even weight loss because the body is happy to see the nutrient it had been lacking and is better able to function.