Vegan diet and Vitamin B12

I thought the only reason Unilever own Marmite is because they merged with some other company that owned Marmite around 2000. I had shares in Bass and I understood that the original marmite was manufactured by them from the beginning of the 1900s from yeast extract. It was actually given to soldiers during World War I as it contained vitamin B complex. I am not sure the original marmite had a lot of vitamin B12 but it is now added. The provenance of marmite is pretty good, it is only recently they were taken over by Unilever. Unilever is actually bigger than a lot of countries. I would have thought it inevitable there would be some animal testing involved. Do vegans take medications? They are animal tested.

"Vegans won't touch it" - well really Joe. I have friends who have been vegans all their adult lives and they keep stocks of Marmite - and were distraught when there was a threatened shortage.

As ptolemy says - all the vegans I know take medications. And there aren't many of them that aren't animal tested.

if you know animals have been exploited in order to produce something and you still choose to buy that product then i think you should question whether you should be calling yourself a VEGAN A vegan armed with this knowldge would seek other foods

good story about marmite. BUT THE FACT REMAINS THAT UNILEVER DO NOW OWN Marmite

i dont think comparing food to medicine is quite fair . i had a type of lymphoma and was successfully treated with medicine tested on animals but that was live or die i'm glad i made the choice to live so i can have conversations like this i do use medicines for things like headaches but you can now get them with VEGAN FREINDLY capsules ie no gelatin

I think that is very hypocritical, it is OK to take tablets to save your life but to hell with the animals who helped you. I cannot see anything different about being being anti Unilever or anti GSK or Pfizer for example. Just because one helps save your life and you believe the other doesn't. It is not the gelatin in your headache tablets, are you sure that no animals were used to test your headache pills?

we dont live in a pergect world and im not a perfect vegan but i try my best there are animal derived components in the technolgy we use every day but i dont live in a cave its just about choices thats all

Do you really believe that no one else cares about Orangutans? It is the fact that their home is being destroyed not why it is being destroyed. Is palm oil a no no for vegans? My niece is vegetarian and was very upset to discover that Quorn is grown on hides of cows and horses. Do vegans eat the vegan version? I assume they do. Until recently they were owned by Astra Zeneca who probably do much more with animal experimentation than Unilever does.

palm oil is not a sugar nor is it a soy bean. Soy beans are grown in many countries and nothing to do with palm oil.

I am still confused as to what you are concerned with about b12?

firstly i NEVER said that palm oil is a sugar i was merely making an observation about the simularities between the industries, albeit in the mass production of different products. it is the sam with SOY BEANS. different product but much of it being grown on vast amounts of land reclaimed from forests thereby removing habitats for scores, sometimes hundreds of species. I was making the point that the exploitation of animals is not just about eating them

I CERTAINLY DID NOT IMPLY THAT CARING ABOUT ANIMALS IS EXCUSIVE TO VEGANS.

Hi Joe,

I am still confused as to what your issue is with b12 and how that is then linking to palm oil, sugar and soybeans. I may be getting it wrong but, are you saying vegans need to live more ethically? I'm not sure. I live to the best of my means eating fair trade/organic/no gmo/enviro friendly cleaning products and wash products/ not tested on animals /less plastic/recycle/energy save/member of the wwf/rspb/give to shelter and local homeless charity at Christmas!!! etc I avoid palm oil and have for some time and sugar to be fair.

There's change . org and 38 degrees if you want to get involved in signing petitions to help change the world and maybe you could start your own re deforestation etc? You seem to have a lot of passion but not sure where it's going in this discussion.

Beverley

'joe24421 ORANGUTANS will be extinct in 10 years due to the burning away of rainforests in order to grow more and more palm oil.' I take it you don't eat anything with palm oil in then joe24421...?

(I think your caps lock key might be a bit stuck joe24421)

Vegans/vegetarians are always sent a barrage of insults and criticisms by meat eaters, who will then try and belittle them about being a vegetarian/vegan on something that they themselves already do.

85% of the world's soybean crop is used as animal feed. On top of this, less land and resources are required per kg of soybean produced than meat. Also, 50% of the global deforestation is caused by creating new land for animal farms/grazing.

I assumed he was shouting...

I did too, but that's what exclamation marks are for, not capitals.

Quite!!! I do use capitals when I want a word or two to stand out - easier than messing with bold - but a whole sentence? No - that's rude 😉

You certainly gave the impression that it was part of an exclusive vegan aim. I am glad you are aware it is in fact something that a lot of people are fighting for, hopefully successfully. I must admit I did feel you were rather trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

i am a VEGAN

see above comment

so judgemental see my comment my dosabilty makes using keyboards difficult

It may be that since we got the new system it does not automatically go back to lower case again, so you discover you have just written everything in upper case which is a real pain.

I didn't realise it did that before. I only use shift+letter to capitalise an i or the first letter of a word, so maybe that's why I didn't notice. Depending on how well you get on with Microsoft Word, I've accidentally written in all capitals before, so I've just copied and pasted it into word where there's a function to turn all the words to small case.

I guess I just get a bit irritated when people use capital words instead of punctuation. It just looks like sentences I remember seeing as child from people writing things in primary school.

Since the site was updated, I don't get automatic capitals after a full stop anymore. I type on my phone on patient as it is easier on my eyes and not so weighty so, I don't even have a caps lock.

This discussion has educated me as I believed that in text speak, all capitals tend to mean shouting or is used to highlight certain words. I tend to class shouting as aggression and rarely use capitals for more than single words myself as I'm not a shouter in real life so don't feel the need to shout on screen.

I usually use a tablet so tend to click the upper case button which then just sticks there. Really annoying as no other system seems to work like that any more. I really like the facility in Word to convert to lower case, but I rarely use my old XP computer any more.

Wow... I've seen some of your replies on Patient Beverley_01 and they are lengthy. It's impressive that you have the patience to write so much if you do it on your phone. Have you ever heard of the software f.lux? It will change the level of light coming out of you computer screen (not sure if you can get it on a phone) depending on the time of day.

Same goes for me, I don't use capitals for highlighting words and if I need to shout or raise my voice, I'll use and exclamation mark.

hi sockpim,

Ha yes, I do type alot !

I haven't heard of flux no. I have my laptop screen on the lowest light setting I can but, it still affects my eyes if on it for too long. Maybe the distance between my eyes and screen contributes too? My phone screen is much greyer and easier on the eye.

Beverley

I have a new Chromebook computer - which offers me a "Night light" setting. That is much more yellow and supposed to make it easier to see in low ambient light. Like the difference between white LEDs and the yellower ones.

My iPad has a sort of yellow night setting which can be made lighter or darker.