Vegetarians have limited options when it comes to sources of vitamin B12. This relates to the fact that the best sources of vitamin B12 are animal foods. Vegans are even more limited in choice as they cannot eat the few animal foods that are allowed by vegetarians that contain vitamin B12. Plants do contain some vitamin B12, but as plants do not require the vitamin for their own metabolism, they have no reason to store it and so the plant tissues are very low in the vitamin. Only microorganisms can produce vitamin B12 and so where plants interact with such microorganisms, vitamin B12 can be present in the plant tissues at reasonable concentrations. The dried edible seaweed Nori (purple laver; Porphyra yezoensis) is one such food that may contain reasonable amounts of vitamin B12. About 4 grams of dried nori supplies around 2.4 micrograms of vitamin B12. Evidence suggests that nori consumption may prevent a vitamin B12 deficiency from developing in vegetarians and vegans.
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