Vitamin B12 is a very important vitamin that is highly needed by your body’s central nervous system, blood and metabolism. Lacking in this vitamin will definitely lead to very serious illnesses that will impair you and make you suffer.

You can find Vitamin B12 in animal products such as poultry, eggs, liver, fish, shellfish, milk and milk products.

Top ten Vitamin B12 foods:

• Beef sirloin
• Chicken breast
• Alaska king crab
• Pacific oysters, clams
• Beef liver
• Pork liver sausage
• Simmered chicken/turkey giblets
• Swiss cheese
• Whole chicken’s egg
• Whole cow's milk

The best way to prepare these foods, or any food for that manner, is through the “gentlest” form of cooking. Opt to steam them or grill them, because if you do so, you will be able to preserve the nutrients in the food. Frying and boiling destroys the nutrients in the food and all your effort to have the proper food in your diet will be wasted.

Lacto-ovo vegetarians can obtain a sufficient amount of Vitamin B12 through dairy products but the through-and-through vegans would definitely have Vitamin B12 deficiency unless they take in dietary supplements that contain B12 or B12-fortified food such as fortified soy products, fortified nutritional yeast, fortified energy bars, and fortified breakfast cereals.

Vitamin B12 can also be absorbed in the mouth, wherein small quantities of it are taken in through the mucous membrane. The stomach digests food protein-bound vitamin B12. With pernicious anemia, the normal process that vitamin B12 goes through in the stomach has failed. In this case, one needs to have and a relatively massive dose of about 0.5 to 1 mg a day that is orally administered.

Vitamin B12 is available in multi-vitamins, generally in pill form. You can also opt for liquid forms, nasal spray, transdermal patch, or injections, in which the last two are highly recommended in case you are unable to properly absorb the vitamin through digestion.