Coconut Water Kefir – Latest Unproven Source of Vitamin B12
To make a long story short, I recently became aware of a mainstream vegan who was relying on coconut kefir water for vitamin B12, and another vegan who did not immediately recognize the problems with this idea.
On their website, the company Tonix makes the following claim about their coconut water kefir:
“This product is brisling with Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria, which creates awesome intestinal flora, digestion and production of B-6, B12, K, niacin and folic acid.”
I wrote them on March 6:
Someone brought it to my attention that Tonix claims that its coconut keifer contains vitamin B12. I see on your website that you say that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria are the source of vitamin B12. I’m writing to let you know that those bacteria do not produce vitamin B12 and that there is no reason to think that coconut keifer would contain vitamin B12.
If you are interested in more information on vitamin B12 in plant foods, please see this article:
I hope you will correct the information on your website and I look forward to your response.
I never heard back and the info is still up as of March 31, so I decided to publicly warn vegans about this claim. I am now aware that I spelled “kefir” wrong in my letter to Tonix – perhaps, because of that, they had no idea what I was talking about.
March 31st, 2012 at 11:12 pm
It looks like Tonix misspelled “bristling”, so I wouldn’t worry too much about misspelling “kefir.” Thank you for alerting us to this issue…there’s so much nutritional misinformation out there, every little bit of clarification helps!
April 1st, 2012 at 12:03 am
Reminds me of the person at a health food store who told me I should not rely on those “dangerous man-made toxic B12 tablets” and instead take probiotics and be more “natural”. When I informed her that the probiotics do not produce B12 she told me that B12 is found naturally in our colons and we can help our body “make more” by taking probiotics. I countered with the fact that that B12 is too low in our tracts to be of use. She told me I was wrong and walked away.
It’s really unfortunate, but keep on spreading the word because people need to learn!
April 1st, 2012 at 12:29 pm
If Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria make B12, and this product contains these bacteria, then it seems to me that the company has made no false claims. Similarly, if the product contains “numerous strains of highly beneficial bacteria and minerals” as they claim, and one of the minerals is cobalt, and some of those bacteria produce B12, then they are not making a false claim. From what I can see, they do not state that the B12 from this source is bio-available, nor do they state that their product contains B12.
Either way they are misleading their customers because people will likely infer that they can absorb the vitamin.
Would you please tell me which bacteria in the presence of cobalt produce B12?
Thanks.
April 1st, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Rick,
My point was that those bacteria do not produce vitamin B12. Here is info on some bacteria that do:
veganhealth.org/b12/vegansources
“Streptomyces griseus, a bacterium once thought to be a yeast, was the commercial source of vitamin B12 for many years (8, 9). The bacteria Propionibacterium shermanii and Pseudomonas denitrificans have now replaced S. griseus (10). At least one company, Rhone Poulenc Biochimie of France, is using a genetically engineered microorganism to produce B12 (11).”
April 2nd, 2012 at 4:42 am
Is this a false claim?
http://www.spirulinacrunchies.us/All_About_Spirulina.html
April 2nd, 2012 at 9:04 am
Mindy,
I hate to say it, but that page would make a good Onion article. As for the B12, you should not rely on spirulina for vitamin B12 as the only studies testing it showed B12 status to become worse upon a combination of spirulina and nori supplementation:
http://veganhealth.org/b12/meas#DAG91
Vegans should not rely on *anything* except fortified foods and supplements for vitamin B12.