Vitamin B12 is found predominantly in foods of animal origin. Only microorganisms can synthesise vitamin B12 and plants do not use it in their metabolism. As a result plants are a poor source of the vitamin. Vitamin B12 is essential to the health of humans and so vegetarians and vegans must find sources of the vitamin in order to remain healthy. One possible source of vitamin B12 for vegetarians and vegans is microalgae such as chlorella and spirulina. However, while chlorella is a poor source of the vitamin, spirulina may only contain pseudovitamin B12, which is not biologically active in humans. Purple laver (Nori) is an edible seaweed that may contain active vitamin B12, and feeding Nori to rats does prevent vitamin B12 deficiencies from developing. Therefore algal sources of vitamin B12 may be able to provide vegetarians and vegans with some of their vitamin requirements, but there is a need to be selective of the source of algae to make sure the vitamin B12 it contains is bioactive.
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