thanx for the kind words
if you drink milk or eat milk products, or eat eggs then you can get b-12 from that. what a lot of meat eaters also don't understand is not all meat has b-12 , only red meat . there are vegan sources of b-12 like spirulina , but there is some controversy on whether it can be absorbed in the form it is in. if you are a pure vegan and don't drink milk , eat milk products or eat eggs then you might want to supplement with b-12. i'm an ominvore but I supplement anyhow. since cheap vitamin brands like Centrum and such have a very low absorption rate I just take a product called "Emergen-C" since everything is bound to mineral asborbates making it highly absorbable. Emergen-C has plenty of b-12 in plus other vitamins and lots of vitamin-C in a highly absorbable form. If all you want is B-12 then most any brand will do . B-12 shots will offer the most absorption but really isn't necessary. BTW : Sly Stallone and Chuck Norris haven take Emergen-C for many years
the main difference between cheap multi vitamin/minerals and higher quality ones are the minerals . take calcium for example, cheap calcium like oyster shell calcium and calcium cabonate isn't very well absorbed because the calcium is in mostly inorganic form. Calcium bound to one or more Kreb cycle intermediates will make it more absorbable like citrate,malate,etc. Minerals bound to amino acids in chelate form are also more absorbable than the inorganic ones.
in general though it's best to get the majority of your nutrients from food and then take supplement(s) just as a backup insurance policy . the reason it's good to try and get most of your nutrients from real food is because more and more we are discovering substances in food that work synergistically together with vitamins and minerals where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
One quick example of this are apples. one apple might only have 15% of the RDA for vitamic C . on the surface that may look pretty weak but apples also contain substances such as quercetin, catechin, phloridzin, chlorogenic acid and malic acid. When combined together all these substances pack quite a healthy punch.
i'm sure many of you have seen that supplement that Lance Armstrong has been pushing a lot lately called FRS. All that product mainly is is quercetin which as previously mentioned is in apples. Instead of spending a lot on that supplement a person could just eat a couple apples per day. Well this is getting long winded so i'll shut up. i'll be lucky if anyone reads all this as is
P.S. Too much soda, especially diet , can make your bones weaker. This is because many sodas contain phosphoric acid. This will cause your blood to try and become acidic but the body will take actions to prevent this from happening. One way the body will do this is to strip calcium from bones if it needs to to keep blood from becoming acidic.
Forget FRS,just eat an apple !
