What are the best green-light (whole food plant-based) sources of vitamin B12 to meet the optimal dosage?
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The reason you have to take most B12-fortified foods three times a day is because it takes your B12 receptors at least about 4 hours to unload their cargo and be ready for the next tiny dose. At huge doses, like in the supplements and Leafside you actually end up largely bypassing the receptor system so you can do once a day (and for big enough supplemental doses once a week), but for the tiny amounts found in most fortified foods, like the nutritional yeast, and breakfast cereals, and plant-based meats and milks you have to get that 190% in three separate servings throughout the day.
I mentioned a few nutritional yeast brands in the video. Here are a few more with their serving sizes for B12 content:
Lotus (Australia & New Zealand): 1 tsp 3x/day
Marigold Engevita (UK): 2 tsp 3x/day
Anthony’s Premium (Canada): 1 tsp 3x/day
Hoosier Hill Farm (Canada): 1 tsp 3x/day
This is the 3rd in a 5-video series on B12. Stay tuned for:
• The Optimal Vitamin B12 Dosage for Kids, Pregnancy, and Seniors (
• The Best Type of Vitamin B12: Cyanocobalamin or Methylcobalamin? (
If you missed the first two, check out The Symptoms of Vitamin B21 Deficiency ( and The Optimal Vitamin B12 Dosage for Adults (
You can find all of these videos in a digital download here ( along with two additional videos that will be coming out in a few months. And my new recommendations are on my Optimum Nutrition ( page.
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Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM
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