Comment by jphillips | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jphillips | Hacker News Reader

Let me be the first to post the obligatory vegan response to this.

Yes most every vegan knows about B12 supplementation. People who don't know the vegan viewpoint might view this article as critical to us.

Vitamin B12 is the new Vitamin D. In yesteryears, Vitamin D deficiencies were a huge public health concern. Companies, especially milk companies, began fortifying their product with vitamin D and marketing that fact because consumers responded well to "give milk to your kids or they'll get rickets". Now D deficiency is rare. If you read ingredients labels often (and shop at health food stores) like most vegans, you'll have noticed that many, many products are now fortified with B12 and other B vitamins. Even many energy drinks! This article seems pretty misleading by saying vegans "must consume supplements or fortified breakfast cereals to get adequate amounts [of B12]." They seem to be saying "Vegans who don't take supplements or don't eat some esoteric cereal for breakfast every day will become demented." Why mention only "breakfast cereals"? Why not any of the growing number of foods fortified with B12? I guess no article on NYT would be complete without some spin.

I'm glad this was posted in the NYT because B12 deficiency in everyone's diet is a big concern. We as consumers should be aware of which companies are deciding to fortify their products and support those by buying their products. Hopefully this can go the way of Vitamin D.

Yes most every vegan knows about B12 supplementation. People who don't know the vegan viewpoint might view this article as critical to us.

Keep in mind most people are not vegans. The majority of their audience may not be aware that vegans would require B12 supplementation. Given the article's subject, mentioning this as an aside fits the context very well. I read that as simply informational more so than critical.

>They seem to be saying "Vegans who don't take supplements or don't eat some esoteric cereal for breakfast every day will become demented."

Esoteric!? Corn Flakes, All-Bran or Raisin Bran are about as far from esoteric as you can get. All three cereals show up near the top of the list of B12 sources in the USDA Nutrient Database PDF linked elsewhere in this thread and all three have been around since my great-grandparent's generation or longer. I'm not sure how long the vitamin fortification has been going on, but it too is very widespread.

Your comment celebrates our grain based ag-industrial complex a bit too much. I know that a lot of health problems were eased by throwing vitamin and mineral supplements into packaged foods but today, it is this over-processed food that is making us sick and the solution isn't just routing another pipe into the vat at the frozen lasagne factory.

Also, "go the way of vitamin D" isn't a good outcome. There is a lot of room between "oh my god my kid has rickets" and getting "enough" vitamin D. We who dwell indoors in the north need way more vitamin D supplements than what we might get in enriched foods. And if we avoid those processed foods, I guess we need even more D (even if it comes from the same ag-industrial complex, I suppose).

Lack of sufficient B12 also causes one to erroneously believe that they are being slighted by the mass media.

Sneak, if you think the media, especially the NYT, does their job well and reports without bias, you're sheltered and ignorant.

It's also surprisingly bad that you go around defending the media and calling others "erroneous" who call the authenticity of the reporting into question. Agribusiness is one of the largest lobby groups in America. Do you know how lobbyists get their agenda across? One of their most successful ways is to pay journalists. This is simple PR expenditure for them. And it works. And people like you defend them.

And you seem to making some jab at me lacking B12 as if my veganism threatens you. I see this all the time with people who are insecure in their own opinions.

Vitamin D deficiency is rare? http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-vitamind-heartd...

> Analyzing data on more than 10,000 patients, University of Kansas researchers found that 70 percent were deficient in vitamin D and they were at significantly higher risk for a variety of heart diseases.

Right, D deficiency is actually quite common, particularly among certain ethnic/racial groups.

B12 deficiency is almost unheard of outside fairly uncommon genetic disorders or areas of extreme famine (or persons with extremely compromised diets like alcoholics, Bulimia nervosa, Anorexia nervosa, etc.) and until the last few decades people simply didn't live long enough to start to have B12 deficiencies caused by age.

The body requires so little B12, and the source of it is so readily available, and you don't even need to eat foods rich in it every day, that even in absolutely undeveloped countries, people are able to readily find sources of B12.

As omnivores we evolved in a way that we can't synthesize B12 internally so we must eat food sources that contain it.

Thanks to the miracles of modern food science even people who purposefully avoid the one source of B12 we evolved over millions of years to eat can find foods artificially enriched with it (take that all natural diet!)

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