This might be the trickiest vitamin for vegetarians
Vitamin B12 for depression, plant-food sources of vitamin B12, and my favorite homemade beef sausage recipe.
👉This week, we’re talking about: how getting enough vitamin B12 lowers risk for depression; ground beef as a fantastic source of vitamin B12 (it has 90% DV per 3-ounces cooked!); how to get enough vitamin B12 on a vegetarian or vegan diet; tips for adapting Nutrivore to your preferred diet and identifying foods to fill nutrient gaps; and I’m sharing a simple and delicious recipe for homemade Italian Fennel Beef Sausage.
Key Takeaways
✅Low intake of vitamin B12 is a risk factor for depression, although more science is needed to know how effective it is once depression is diagnosed.
✅Red meat is famous for its iron content, but it’s actually a way better food source of vitamin B12. (And one vegan food is an even better source!)
✅Nutrivore can be implemented as a diet modifier if you already have a preferred way of eating. Tips to do so are below!
✅For paid subscribers, your companion downloads this week are: Nutrients for Anxiety and Depression and Italian Fennel Beef Sausage. Check your inbox; they’ll be arriving in a separate email (or if you use the Substack app, they’ll be in their own post).
Vitamin B12 for Depression
🧬Vitamin B12 serves as a cofactor for two enzymes: methionine synthase (which requires B12 in the form of methylcobalamin), and L-methylmalonyl-coenzyme A mutase (which requires B12 in the form of 5-deoxyadenosylcobalamin). As a methionine synthase cofactor, vitamin B12 helps create the amino acid methionine from homocysteine; methionine is then used to synthesize an important methyl group donor called S-adenosylmethoinine (SAM), which is needed for methylation reactions involving DNA, RNA, proteins, and more. When methionine synthase isn’t functioning sufficiently, it can lead to excess homocysteine accumulation (potentially increasing cardiovascular disease risk), as well as aberrant DNA and protein methylation (leading to altered gene expression and chromatin structure, characteristic of cancer cells).
Vitamin B12 has a compelling relationship with depression. Across studies, a disproportionate number of patients suffering from depression have been shown to have low levels of vitamin B12—possibly due to vitamin B12 deficiency inhibiting the methylation reactions orchestrated by S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), in turn affecting depression-linked neurotransmitters. Some observational research has even linked low levels of vitamin B12 with greater risk of depression during pregnancy, even after controlling for potential confounders.
As with most of the studies of B vitamins, they too-often supplement with a combination of B vitamins, and not simply vitamin B12. So, more research is needed to understand the effects of vitamin B12 supplementation specifically on depressive symptoms after diagnosis.
Want to know the top 25 best food sources of this vitamin B12? Learn them here.
Get 90% DV Vitamin B12 with Ground Beef
Ground beef is not only one of most commonly consumed and readily available cuts of beef in North America, but it offers 90% of the DV of vitamin B12 in a 3-4 oz serving (that is, a serving about the size of the open palm of your hand, or one small hamburger patty!). Ground beef is chock-full of other amazing nutrients, including offering 41% DV zinc, 29% DV selenium, 29% DV vitamin B3, and 20% DV vitamin B6 per serving.
Not only is this meat incredibly versatile, but it can hold up to just about any flavor profile from strong aromatic spice blends, to a simple salt and pepper seasoning. There are many different “mixes” of ground beef available, especially if you get yours directly from a butcher. Everything ranging from 97% lean meat/3% fat, to 70% lean meat/30% fat. The fat helps to keep the ground meat moist and offers that juicy finish on any grilled or baked ground beef meal. If the ground beef label does not specify which blend is inside, you can always ask your butcher behind the counter which blend of meat you are purchasing.
And, if you’re worried about the health effects of red meat, I covered in a recent edition of this newsletter! Read it here.
Ground beef is the 455th most nutrient-dense food! Learn the Top 500 Nutrivore Foods here.
Italian Fennel Beef Sausage
🥗 These delicious sausage patties are seasoned with a unique and aromatic blend of fennel seed, star anise, and paprika, leaving you with a distinct Asian-inspired, protein-filled dish. Not only is the ground beef filled with zinc, selenium, vitamin B12, B3 and B6, but the crispy skillet-grilled crust is such a great texture. Serve these alongside a hearty potato dish and a fresh garden salad for a well-rounded and nutritious supper!
Add this recipe to your meal plan this week with Real Plans, the official Nutrivore meal planning app!
Nutrivore Mindset Corner
🧠Nutrivore is best thought of as a diet modifier—a way to improve nutrient intake regardless of how you choose to eat. Whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, Mediterranean, paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, navigating allergies or ARFID, or simply trying to feed your family on a budget, the principles of Nutrivore can help you identify opportunities to increase nutrient density without abandoning the foods, traditions, or eating patterns that work for you.
Yes, you get to adapt Nutrivore to your chosen diet, no diet in particular, or implement it as an anti-diet, it’s up to you. How do you apply Nutrivore as a diet modifier? It takes understanding what types of foods supply what types of nutrients (which is the goal behind my book, website, digital resources, and this newsletter) and comparing that to your eating patterns. This will help you figure out the best foods to add that align with your preferred diet to fill nutrient gaps.
If you need help identifying foods to fill nutrient gaps due to a food or food group you don’t eat, I do have some tools for you. You can use the appendix in the paperback edition of my book Nutrivore, my Top 25 Foods for Every Nutrient e-book, or the Nutrivore.com website to find alternative foods that alight with your diet that will provide the same nutrients as each week’s habit focus. And don’t forget that you can also tap a registered dietitian or licensed nutritionist for even more personalization or more technical support like identifying when a supplement may be an appropriate strategy for you.
There is no single “Nutrivore diet” because there is no single right way to eat. There are many paths to nutrient sufficiency, and Nutrivore helps you find the one that works for you.
Learn everything you need to know about the Nutrivore philosophy in my book, Nutrivore: Eat Any Food, Get Every Nutrient, and Transform Your Health!
Helpful Tip of the Week
💡Vitamin B12 is one of the nutrients that requires special attention on vegetarian and especially vegan diets because it is naturally found primarily in animal-source foods. Vegetarians can obtain vitamin B12 from foods like dairy products and eggs, but vegans need to be intentional about including reliable sources of this essential vitamin. Fortified foods and supplements are often recommended, but there are also a few plant foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin B12.
The best natural vegan food source of vitamin B12 is nori seaweed (a.k.a. purple laver). Research has shown that nori contains substantial amounts of vitamin B12 and has confirmed that consuming nori increases vitamin B12 levels in the body. In fact, just 4.64 grams of toasted nori (about 1½ sheets) contains enough vitamin B12 to meet the Daily Value. In fact, nori is a more concentrated food source of vitamin B12 than almost any other food—only clams and liver beat it! Nori is versatile and can be enjoyed as a snack, crumbled over salads and grain bowls, added to soups, or incorporated into homemade sushi rolls. It’s possible that other sea vegetables also contain vitamin B12, but they haven’t been measured or tested yet to confirm.
Because vitamin B12 deficiency can take years to develop but can have serious consequences—including anemia, fatigue, neurological symptoms, and sometimes irreversible cognitive impairment—it’s important for vegetarians and vegans to regularly consume reliable vitamin B12 sources, whether you choose dairy, eggs, nori, fortified foods, supplements, or a combination. Adults over the age of 19 need 2.4 micrograms of vitamin B12 daily.
This Week’s Companion Downloads
📥For paid subscribers, your Companion Downloads this week are:
Nutrients for Anxiety and Depression - This 1-pager PDF guide lists all the nutrients that reduce risk of anxiety and depression along with top food sources, to give you a quick-reference for foods to add if mental health challenges are a concern for you.
Italian Fennel Beef Sausage - A beautifully-designed PDF version of this week’s recipe that you can save or print out, to build your own personalized Nutrivore Cookbook week by week.
Check your inbox for the Companion Downloads arriving in a separate email (or if you use the Substack app, they’ll be in their own post). You can also find them in the archive here. Thank you so much for supporting my work and Nutrivore!
Sincerely,
Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, PhD
Founder of Nutrivore