Cataracts and a vegan diet

Before we go into how diet affect cataract development... a friend of mine has been raising funds for A New Vision - a charity organization giving free eye surgeries for the poor and blind in indonesia to help them see again. Indonesia is the 2nd country in the world after Ethopia with the largest number of blind - and guess what? 4 out of 5 of these blind people Can Be Cured with a simple cataract surgery.

I urge you to help them recover their sight, you can click on the crowdfunding link below to take a look at their campaign and contribute... hurry though, the campaign will expire in a few days. The campaign has expired, see updates below. You can still donate to A New Vision here.

UPDATE 25oct16: For those who donated to A New Vision, thank you very much! You have helped them meet the target amount raised, this means more eyes will not have to remain blind!

Currently the campaign is still accepting donations and it will end in less than a day, if they receive a good sufficient number of unique donors during this period (repeated donations from the same individual not counted) they will stand a chance to win the Mastercard Grand Prize of US$25K for their charity. So do inform your family and friends about this good cause, the more support they can receive, the closer to getting more funds for the blind beneficaries. Thanks once again!

UPDATE 1nov16: Thank you to all who supported! A New Vision has now entered the Grand Finals to pitch their project to the judges. Check out Project Inspire's facebook post below.  

Now about sight and diet... how is the amount of meat we are eating related to cataract development later? Nutritionfacts.org have summarised a study on this pretty well... Take a look at the video.

Key points
Cutting back on meat cuts down your risk about 15%.
Just do fish, down 21%.
No fish, 30% drop in risk.
And then, no eggs and dairy for the full 40% drop in risk.

Overall, compared with meat-eaters who consumed 100 grams of meat and meat products a day, fish-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans had approximately 20%, 30%, and 40% lower risk of cataracts, respectively.

It's great that we still have our sight now, and have the blessings to learn how to lower the risk of getting cataracts through dietary intake - compared to the blind in Indonesia whom many have no access to the proper education and medical facilities. What better way is there to celebrate and be thankful for our sight by going and staying veg and make a small donation to help the blind recover their sight?

Take Action Today

Antioxidant workshop

Merry Christmas! Happy New-Mayan-Era! Happy new year! After missing in action for a month, it's about time to be back here. Food picture posts will be coming up soon as well as the next post in the "Ask Ketki" series... Meanwhile I had been busy last december helping out my friend at his antioxidant workshop. My friend Yeow was running "raw" health workshops for the public. These workshops teaches people how to make green smoothies, soy yoghurt, edible enzymes and stuff. I was tasked to prep the stuff and serve the participants. Check out the pictures.

Soy yoghurt with dragon fruit enzyme and bananas yummy...

Sprouted green beans with trial mix for an energy packed snack...

His raw and green energy drinks are the best... blended on the spot and drank on the spot. Taste simply full of goodness and energy.

Orange pineapple punch with red dragon fruit enzyme.
 




Mango passion fruit


Yeow has these for his meals day in and out and hardly eats cooked stuff. Most people's antioxidant levels fall into the red and orange danger zone, vegetarians in the yellow zone. His level was way past the blue zone, in fact out of range in the chart. Yeow will be running his future seminars at Kampung Senang, so do look out for his events if you want to learn how to boost your antioxidant level.

Liver and gallbladder cleanse review 1

I have been told by my relatives and my dad about the liver & gallbladder flush by Andreas Moritz.

Was quite skeptical about passing out stones - especially huge calcified ones. And more incredibly, without pain due to the apple juice softening the stones. But logically speaking, mini stones as well as sludge can move out of the system with a flush, that I believe.

Read some reviews on him being a quack, but on the other hand I heard positive reviews from many who have done the flush - including stones with a 80% cholesterol composite (bile only contains 0.3% cholesterol, and olive oil has none, so the "stone" has a high chance of being a cholesterol stone). It will be fair to give the procedure a try before judging.

I did not follow Andreas Moritz's instructions in the book 100%. But I did my best to do so, including eating meals lighter in fat throughout the 7 day program.

Six 1 litre cartons of apple juice, I use the German brand Bio Voelkel. The juice is organic and unfiltered.

Day 1 to 5
1 carton of apple juice throughout the day. Everything was more or less ok, except more frequent urges to go to the toilet.

Day 6
I finished the 1 carton apple juice by morning according to instructions. It was terrible. May be too acidic for my stomach to handle. By early afternoon, I started to get terrible pains and aches on my upper back and shoulders. Later on, it developed to slight pain and tenderness in my stomach area. Since you have to fast after lunch, I can't eat anything to help with what feels like a gastric problem that used to happen during my university days of irregular meals. I was quite scared as it was the last day and I still have to drink the lemon+orange+olive oil emulsion at night, but didn't want to give it up.

This problem went on for a few hours until I drank the Epsom salt once I reach home around 7+ pm.

I felt tired, dizzy, and tender at my stomach area, so went to sleep (not in the detox protocol).

(This is very important especially if you have gastric problems. My gastric problem was slight in the past, and dormant until this cleanse. So if you intend to do this cleanse with a gastric problem, it may be better to use an apple juice alternative mentioned in the book. Certainly not 1 litre of apple juice in the morning on day 6.)

After another dose of epsom salt at around 9pm, I down the emulsion around 11pm and prayed it won't kick up a gastric attack. The emulsion felt "spicy" in the stomach - something I dread. But I kept to the instructions of lying on the right side of the body for 20 minutes before changing positions. You can feel movements on the liver side of your tummy. I couldn't get back to sleep until after a long while of tossing and turning.

(I do not think this is will be a problem with people who do not have a gastric problem. So far my family members did not have such complains)

Day 7
After the Day 6, I awoke feeling better. Stomach is still a little sore, but not creating problems. I can feel more movements in the gall bladder. Drank the last two doses of Epsom salt solution (urgh!).

Results:
Plenty of diarrhea but no "stones" at all and I had pain in my kidney area during the flush. Was pretty disappointed. However, my colleague told me about an improvement in my skin tone, so perhaps it helped if at all. They say you may need more than 1 flush to get results. So I think I may do that, but maybe omit the apple juice on day 6, substitute the epsom salts and perhaps take a kidney support before the flush.

Benefits of a plant based diet

This website - nutritionfacts.org has lots of interesting short videos based on scientific publications about the benefits of a plant based diet - how a plant based diet can slow cancer growth, slow aging, avoid brain parasites, etc. If you are interest in facts and figures or just overall health in general this site can help.

Slowing cancer growth on a plant based diet


Do you know fish and processed meat ages our DNA?


Something disgusting about milk


Brain parasites in meat

Supplements for a vegan diet

Something interesting about us vegetarians is that some of us are anti-supplement and say that if we eat a balanced diet we will be able to get all the nutrition we need. Can't disagree with that. But I believe this anti-supplement sentiment could be due to the pressure from the society telling us that "the vegetarian diet is nutritionally deficient" which pushes vegetarians to try to prove the opposite is true by not taking any supplements.

However, if we consider the kind of stressful and demanding lifestyle we are living now compared to 100 years ago, even non-vegetarians, whose diet are suppose to be "nutritionally complete", are supplementing like mad. Vitamin C, multi-vitamns, fish oil, calcium, vitamin B complexes - just to name some of the supplements the non-vegetarians I know are taking.

The best way is to eat as naturally as possible. But now lots of things are processed and have low nutrient levels. If you feel that taking a supplement helps you in some way, you could do so, it is unrelated to whether the "vegetarian diet is nutritionally deficient" or not.

Two things so far on a vegan diet that you will want to look out for is vitamin B12 (MUST supplement for vegans) and DHA (Optional).

Vitamin B12

I have a friend who was on a regular fruit, nuts, seeds diet, and when he went for a blood test, the b12 levels were below the normal range, in fact the level was quite bad that doctor classified it as an emergency and wanted him to the hospital immediately. He told me of his experience and the symptoms he had was mainly a kind of dizziness where he didn't have a sense of balance and couldn’t walk straight at times. His physical strength and mental clarity were fully intact and he could still do a 10km run. However he experience tingling sensations in hands and feet under heavy physical exertions.

For myself, I did not do a B12 supplement right away when I go into a vegan diet. Only after some time I got some GNC B12 tablets. Even then, I do not eat it regularly because I hate swallowing tablets.

When I went for a B12 blood test last year, my B12 level was 100 something. It was still in the normal range according to the doctor. However, it was already on the lower side of the normal range. According to other countries 100 something may be considered below normal.

Not long ago, I ordered the 500mcg B12 spray from vegan essentials - this is great for a pill-hater. I spray 1 or 2 times into my mouth regularly now. If you haven't supplement B12 and have been vegan for some time, please do, B12 deficiency could lead to nervous and cardiac problems.

Vegan EPA and DHA

The other supplement I thought was something vegans can consider is EPA and DHA. Chia, kiwifruit seeds, perilla and Flax seeds contains high amounts of omega 3 fatty acids ALA. This is the short chain omega FA that will be converted to the long chain EPA and then to DHA in our bodies.

ALA -> EPA -> DHA

Some reports say this conversion is not very efficient and could be further impeded by omega 6 fatty acids.

Most plants to not contain EPA and DHA - with the exception of purslane and chlorella (processed under certain conditions) containing some EPA.

Wakame - an edible seaweed, contains high levels of EPA - and thankfully for us, it's one of the top invasive species. My guess this is how vegetarians in the past in asia got their source of EPA when modern technology is unable to produce algae DHA.

Spirulina contains some EPA and DHA as well, but I don't really fancy eating bacteria.

If you really don't want to bother hunting down these for your source of EPA and DHA, then you have modern technology to thank because we now have vegan EPA and DHA. Do keep your oils in the fridge, because they can taste "fishy" if you leave them out.

Study: Vegetarian diet reduces toxins the body

We ingest toxins with our food everyday, there's no way to avoid it completely. However, there is a way to lower the amount of toxins ingested - by switching to a vegetarian diet.

Sometime back, a study was conducted on 25 volunteers to find out the influence of dietary change on the levels of exposure to several environmental chemicals – in particular, antibiotics and phthalates. The volunteers were put in a 5-day temple stay in Korea (the temple serves only vegetarian food), and their urine samples were collected before and after study. The participants followed the daily routines of Buddhist monks and maintained a vegetarian diet.

It was found that the levels of 3 antibiotics and the metabolites, 4 major phthalates metabolites, and oxidative stress biomarker MDA decreased noticeably during the study.

Although the exposure to target compounds might be influenced by other behavioral patterns, these results suggest that even short-term changes in dietary behavior may significantly decrease inadvertent exposure to antibiotics and phthalates and hence may reduce oxidative stress levels.

Kyunghee Ji et. al. Influence of a five-day vegetarian diet on urinary levels of antibiotics and phthalate metabolites: A pilot study with “Temple Stay” participants. Environmental research, Volume 110, Issue 4, May 2010, Pages 375-382

Bill Clinton's interview on a plant-based diet

Bill Clinton is not a vegan, but someone who is close to that. Check out this interview on his switch.


Check out too the interview with Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn and Dean Ornish


Dr Caldwell Esselstyn will be here in Singapore for a talk on Sunday, 27 March 2011, 2.30 – 5.30pm, at DBS Auditorium Level 3, 6 Shenton Way, DBS Building Tower One.

Write to Vegetarian Society Singapore at heart(at)vss.sg and make your online payment for the ticket at this site.

Blackstrap molasses

Many people said that being a veg you get deficient in iron. If you eat junk food, mock meat, deep fried, unhealthy stuff frequently, this is no surprise.

It is important to ensure the vegan food we eat is nutritious in every bite, not empty calories that make you satiated but contain hardly any nutrients.

I did some research on iron and concluded that blackstrap molasses is one of the best sources of iron for vegetarians and vegans. If you do away with the comparison of the type of iron they contain - heme or non-heme, the iron content practically surpasses that of many meat products. And I am talking about per tablespoon. (Exclude fortified foods).

Look at this table from the 2005 dietary guidelines for Americans

Blackstrap molasses beats beef big time. You can also take a look at this table, and it's the same result.

Make sure you get organic and unsulphured BSM. The bottle I have is by Biogreen from Malaysia and cost SGD$8.80. This brand is the most value for money that I found compared to the others I have seen in Singapore. I found it at fortune center at the vegetarian dried goods store on the 1st level.

Contents of the BSM:
calories 50
sugar 12.5g
calcium 116mg
potassium 735 mg
iron 15.5%
magnesium 4.5%
vitamin b6 9.8%
based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Down you BSM with fruits high in Vitamin C to ensure maximal absorption.

Free health course by seven day adventists

This post is for those who are considering a lifestyle change + a move towards a vegetarian diet.

There is a free health course by Seven Day Adventists. These are the 12 topics in the course.

Taking Charge of Your Health
Eating Smart
Healthy Heart Healthy Bones
Active for Health
Coping with Stress
Your Choice: Why Do Drugs?
No Butts About It - Smoking
Healthy Weight
Reduce The Risk - Cancer
Plant Foods
Healthy Families
Healthy Self Esteem

If you are interested, you can click on the link above and sign up for the internet course (which is free). If you prefer a hardcopy, you can contact your nearest SDA church, I think they probably have it.

Plant-based nutrition certification program

An online course on plant-based nutrition. From the author of China Study, T. Colin Campbell, with guest lecturers. Click here for more information.

Moving towards plant-based diets

The online citizen has an article by George Jacobs, the president of vegetarian society Singapore.

Three key reasons given for topping up the plant component of our diet are as follows:
1) Health
2) Environment
3) Animals

Check out the article here

Did the health minister just go veg?

In today's local publication "My paper", there is an article on Singapore's health minister Mr Khaw Boon Wan going vegetarian. Apparently he also avoiding dairy products! Which made him more like a vegan.

Mr Khaw has recently underwent a heart bypass surgery, and has a high cholesterol problem. Avoiding animal products should have been high on his priority list right at the start if he wished to avoid the surgery. Never the less, it's never too late to quit animal products now. I hope he can continue to stay on this diet as a role model for Singaporeans.

Talk by Dr T. Colin Campbell

The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health
We had often heard of going veg for animal rights, environment protection and health. This event brought the link between health and going veg.

Last week, I attended a talk by Dr T. Colin Campbell - author of the China study. He showed and explained some of the results of his many years of research on a powerpoint slide, and I felt like I have been teleported back to the days where I sat in a lecture theatre in school listening to my professors speak. However, Campbell's lecture was much easier to understand with many of his slides showing correlation between different aspects to prove his point e.g. protein intake vs foci response.

The main conclusion is that we should eat whole, plant-based foods and I was surprised to learn that vitamins supplements and the like may instead bring you more harm instead of health. However, he did clarify that vegans should take B12. In his book he also advises minimizing refined carbohydrates, added vegetable oils, fish, and to avoid meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs.

We also had 112 year old vegetarian - Teresa Tsu who came for a Q and A. She mentioned she lives largely on raw foods. Usually you hear people say "50 years ago, I such and such..." and you think is was really long ago. But wait till you hear the way Teresa Hsu said "90 years ago, I such and such..." it was simply amazing and amusing at the same time that everyone laughed. Teresa also went to the poolside party by vss last year.

We also had a movie screening, the conclusion was - cut back and avoid animal products.

What's a vss event with no food? Here in the picture you see the crowds queueing (or maybe not) for the food. People who bought the tickets were given $5 food vouchers to spend at the booth.

VSS poolside party

Somedays back Vegetarian Society (Singapore) held a poolside party. We invited three special guests who were all vegetarians - Teresa Hsu, Murugiah Rameshon and Ang Hwee. It was awesome so have all of them there.

Teresa Hsu is an amazing 110 year old (going 111) woman who has been a veg for over a century. At her age, she is still very sharp and witty. During the Q and A session, when someone asked her what to do in order to follow her footsteps, she said "walk behind me". She also told us about her grandma (or mum?) who told her to eat fish for health, and Teresa laugh and said "she eat fish she die, I don't eat fish and I am still here". She runs a charity Heart to Heart services even at her age. She truly lives life. That's Teresa on the left.


Murugiah Rameshon is the current marathon national record holder with a time of 2:24.22. Everyone was surprised when he told us his was over 40 years of age, he looked much younger!

Next up we had Ang Hwee lift up to 120kg weighs. The bar he was holding was already 20kg. It was amazing to be able to see a vegetarian lift weights off the tv screen.

Fruit fast

During the weekend, I went on a fruit fast to ease the digestive system a little. Didn't do much preparation work like eating smaller meals beforehand, but it was overall ok!

WEAKNESS: My mum was saying it will make me weak or something and I was told by other people it will lead to gastric or something. But during the fast, I volunteered to help out for VSS at the Lian He Wan Bao fair, sweep and mop the floor the following day and went to visit my relatives and am still quite fine. No I didn't get trembling fingers or faint.

HUNGER: I do feel hungry quite a few times, so I tend to eat small amounts and spread it out throughout the day. Usually I will feel more hungry between breakfast and lunch and late at night. But down some fruits and it goes away (at night I just go to bed). No I won't wake up in the middle of the night feeling hungry.

HEALTH: I haven't had a runny nose for some time, after I started this fruit fast, it came. Usually people will attribute it to part of the body detoxification process. Perhaps it is because today when I switch back to vegan, it stopped. Unfortunately, if I had fast for a longer period, I probably feel great! I also slimmed down a little at the waist line, but then again I am now going back to a vegan junkie and adding it back :( .

CRAVINGS: I can now understand how some omnivores feel when they are making the switch and what they mean by "Going vegetarian is so difficult!". It would certainly require a certain amount of determination and a strong motivation. I don't have a very strong reason for this short fruit-only diet except that I must do it for the weekend, even if I can't do it three days. I get ocassional "Urgh" from fruits, maybe because I am eating too few a variety of them. My cravings include oily, spicy, carbohydrate, salty foods. When I went to my relatives' place, I passed by two vegetarian stalls, and I was having thoughts of doing my lunch there. My aunt cut watermelons and added salt to them. When I tasted the salt, it was ~heavenly~. I guess this is what people call cheating. :) If you can't imagine how a world without salt is like, trying going on a fruit or water fast.

ADAPTING: Going back to the usual diet is not a one step thing. I tried to increase my proportions slowly, starting with a bowl of green bean soup in the morning and some fruits before lunch. I bought a pack of mix veg rice for lunch (ask for small portions) and ate only slightly more than half of it - and my that was really too filling. The rest I ate slightly before dinner time and had some vegetables and tofu soup for dinner. Followed by fruits a little while later. Tomorrow I will increase a little more of the carbohydrate and protein portions.

In my 2 day fruit fast, I also ate ginger as a means to balance the cooling effect most fruits have. (Ginger is warming in nature). That's the only non-fruit item I had.

2 free online veg recipe books and a guide to cancer survival

I have found another 2 almost 100% vegan pdf recipe books online. Some of the recipes use Emes kosher gelatin, which was once thought to be vegan. Other recipes include honey and on ocassion, milk. But these appear very rarely in the cookbook, and shouldn't pose a problem to vegans who already mastered the "Art of substituting" :). What's good about these books is they teach how to make vegan cheeses, non-dairy milks, gravies, sauces and seasonings besides the usual stuff.

The two ebooks are "Vegetarian dishes of Latin America" and "Lifestyle to health recipes". Check them out at this page...wait, don't click yet, there's another free ebook "The survivor's guide - eating right for cancer survival". This book promotes a meat and dairy free approach to surviving cancer, do take a look and pass it on. Well, that doesn't mean vegetarians and vegans will not get cancer, just that lowering the risk is always better than egging your cells to screw up their division process.

White Lies

Recently, I read that farmers were complaining about a report called "White Lies" published by the Vegetarian and Vegan foundation claiming that VVF is irresponsible as it means removing entire food groups (dairy), thus, essential nutrients, from the food pyramid. Interestingly, VVF has also provided a dairy-free guide for those dropping dairy and are concern about nutrients such as calcium and protein.

I was really curious about the constituents of cows milk and human milk so I did a search on that. The article says that the protein level was lower in human milk than in cows milk and vice versa for the carbohydrate level. I found this interesting because even in a growing child who require much nutrients, the protein was not as high as in cow's milk, yet we often hear people say a vegetarian diet lacks protein.

Other interesting aspects of human milk different from animal milk include:
- human milk has low energy and nutrient density compared with the milks of most other mammals, except for a high density of carbohydrates
- in cow's milk the major proteins are a-casein and , b-lactoglobulin; the ratio of casein to whey protein is 80:20; the casein micellar volume is double that of human milk, and the curd formed is hard; the principal milk immunoglobulin is IgG; and lactoferrin and Iysozyme are present only in small amounts
- cow's milk triglycerides contain a higher proportion of short chain fatty acids and a lower proportion of long chain and polyunsaturated fatty acids
- many of the non-nutritional factors found in human milk are absent from cow's milk or are present only in trace amounts

Read more from the article: http://www.unu.edu/unupress/food/8F174e/8F174E04.htm

News report of the farmers' complains: http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Agriculture&F=1&id=12620

Sublingual Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is always an issue for vegans. I have always believe there is a plant source of vitamin B12, but due to the limited research on the Plant Kingdom for vitamin B12, it's not surprising to hear people say vitamin B12 is only found in animal products (even though it's actually from a bacteria source). Some vegans claim that by eating unclean food you will be able to get your vitamin B12 and vegans do not need extra supplement. Still, I thought it's best not to toy with this, afterall it's your health, play safe and get a supplement or fortified foods.

Vitamin B12 supplement can be taken orally or injected. Some people have problems absorbing B12 due to a lack of intrinsic factor, but I have recently come across the sublingual way of eating B12 which will bypass the gastrointestinal tract and diffuses into the bloodstream directly. This is done by placing vitamin B12 under the tongue.

Here is the research study done on the sublingual method which I took from veganhealth.org.

Delpre & Stark (1999, Israel) studied patients with B12 deficiency to see if B12 can be absorbed by holding a tablet under the tongue, known as sublingual. The theory behind sublingual is that the mucous membranes under the tongue are efficient at absorbing certain molecules, particularly if combined with something fat soluble such as a cyclodextrin. 5 patients had pernicious anemia, 7 were vegetarians, and 2 had Crohn's disease (which can prevent the absorption of B12 in the ileum). The patients held two 1000 µg B12 tablets (equaling 2,000 µg/day), made by Solgar, under their tongues for 30 minutes until completely dissolved. This was done for 7 to 12 days. Average serum B12 levels went from 127.9 ± 42.6 to 515.7 ± 235. All patients' serum B12 normalized. There were no side effects and all patients preferred this to injections. Unfortunately, Delpre & Stark did not include a control group who chewed the B12 tablets, so there is no way to know if taking the tablets sublingually was more effective than chewing and swallowing them.

Vegetarianism encouraged in many places

On my way to lunch, I was pleasantly surprised by a BMW with a "Love Us, Not Eat Us" car decal on it. Looks like VSS' distribution of these stickers and car decals didn't go to waste at all. It will be great if we have more of these "go veg" type of decals.

I got a trans fat flyer from the supermarket. Interestingly, one of the ways to reduce trans fat in the diet was stated as such "Replace meat in dishes with beans or bean products (e.g. tofu), peas and lentils on some days". Now, isn't this obvious it is telling people to go vegetarian on some days? This is also what vegetarians are doing to get their protein contrary to what some believed that being a vegetarian will be protein deficient. Another veg promoting statement I found was this "You should also ensure that your diet is rich in a variety of fruits, vegetables and wholegrains (e.g. brown rice, wholemeal bread)". Eat more wholegrains, vegetables and fruits - the same as eating less meat. Interesting, but if only the brochure was more direct.

Unbalanced, unhealthy vegetarian diet?

Many of the food sold at vegetarian stalls here aren't healthy. You find that in many places, you are mostly eating carbohydrates and fats. Protein usually come in the form of tofu and mock soy meat, sometimes tempeh - mostly from soy. And there is hardly any fruit or vegetable unless you order mix veg rice.

True, we can't complain, afterall these vegetarian stalls are here to help make lives easier for us when we are looking for a meal, but in the long run, eating out at these stalls all the time isn't going to do our health good at all. First, they have to make profits, that means no expensive plant foods and a lack of variety in the diet. Second, how good the food taste is very important, that means more oil, more salt, more condiments. Third, if it is healthy, it's usually more expensive. With a situation like that, how can we promote vegetarianism?

Thinking about the unbalance vegetarian diet, it reminds me that traditional chinese medicine practitioners usually do not advocate a vegetarian diet. However I came across this blog which teaches you how to balance the vegetarian diet.

Here are some of the points:
1) Include warming plant foods as many plant foods are cooling in nature
2) Cook your food (this may not be aggreable to raw people)
3) Balance the flavours and colours in the diet
4) Vary your diet in accordance with the four seasons
5) Avoid processed food
6) Make sure Vitamin B12 is supplemented

Read the details of the blog here.