Chers amis,
It is an honour for me to be accepted on this forum, despite my non-jain background. Very many thanks for your open minded welcome, and let me apologise for my lack of recent activity.
As most of you must be aware of, vitamin B12 isn't synthesised by any animals, nor plants, or even mushrooms. We all belong to the eukaryotic group, and none of us possess the required enzymes to synthetise B12. Only microorganisms do, and not all of them, some bacteria and some archea do.
Our species does need that vitamin and our digestive systems are not built like that of ruminants, who only allow chewed and rechewed grass to ferment for up to 48 hours before sending the resulting digestive fluid to the intestinal absorption locations. The appropriate B12 producing microorganisms thus multiply and produce B12 during that very long fermentation process, much before absorption actually takes place.
Other herbivores get their B12 through similar fermentation processes. Rabits, for example, only have a simple stomach, and do not ruminate, but they possess a relatively big cæcum, which is a like a very big apendice, a fermentation pocket into which some food "travels around" for quite some time before being expelled (specific peristaltic movement). The food that has travelled through the cæcum forms smelly sticky black balls called cæcotrophes (night feces). This has aproximately the same purpose as rumination, which is to produce some essential nutrients through long fermentation process, among which B12. The rabits' cæcum is located near the exit, as it were, so they don't have time to absorb the extra nutrients before they are expelled. That is the reason why rabits ingest cæcotrophes as they are produced, thus resending them once again through thé digestive tract. If they don't eat their cæcotrophes, they die of nutrient deficiency, among which B12 deficiency.
Many animals do not have a built in symbiotic relationship with the appropriate B12 producing microorganisms. Those sadly rely on the consumption of animals that do possess the appropriate B12 producing symbiosis. Strict carnivores depend on eating other animals, not just for B12 as a matter of fact. Other animals that are not strict carnivores rely on animal origin B12 sources, like our genetically closest relatives, be them chimps or bonobos (5-10% of their diet is animal flesh, insects, etc.), gorillas (eat ants and B12 rich thermites, as well as feces), and even orang-outans (eggs found in the trees are eaten, and during the rain season up to 15% of their diet can be made of insects, most of which are carnivorous ants).
Unlike cows, humans only have a single pocket and relatively acidic stomach, that empties itself within 2 hours. We do not ruminate like cows, and our cæcum is extremely small. Fortunately or unfortunately, we can't rely on rabits' method, as our intestinal flora doesn't produce any B12, as a matter of fact our whole digestive tract isn't favourable to the developement of B12 production by microorganisms, be our food raw or cooked, and our microflora degrades some of the B12 we ingest. Globally, our digestive system destroys 98% of the B12 we ingest.
The human species has relied upon animal products in the past, due to our very clear need for B12 (B12 deficiency wrecks our blood, our nervous system and DNA). Sadly, the "natural" source from a hunter-gatherer diet was: animals. From the invention of agriculture onwards (approximately -10,000 years), breeding made it possible to have more compassionate diets, by using by-products only such as milk, that doesn't theoretically require to kill (even though nowdays cows are systematically sent to the butcher as soon as their milk yield reduces, that's after giving birth to 6 to 8 "insemination calves" on average, of which the males are quickly sent to the butcher, etc., while the milk production itself produces immense suffering, notwithstanding cows' selection to breed abnormally productive races).
Until it was discovered that B12 is of microbian origin (1948), humans' vitamin B12 needs couldn't be satisfied by a strictly vegan diet. Since that great discovery, it has become possible to produce vitamin B12 directly from microorganisms, and to free mankind from using any sort of animal as a B12 source.
How B12 is made today is relatively simple. Big tanks are filled with a substrate, usually corn syrup. Appropriate bacteria is then inocculated and by the end of the week, the produced B12 is mechanically filtered up to a very pure product.
Vegans only really get their B12 from where it originates: microorganisms. We prefer not to use the animals as a B12 source, for the animals, and because all the other essential nutrients can be found in a plant based diet. The paradox is that using B12 supplements also considerably lowers our impact on the B12 producing microorganisms, and all the other microorganisms that are multiplied in the ruminants' stomachs. Milk consumption is responsible for billions of extra microorganisms' use and destruction, compared to just supplement with B12.
Here's where I would be extremely greatful for an enlighted Jain update. Obviously, to multiply the appropriate microorganisms directly has a much lower impact on the appropriate B12 producing and many other microorganisms, especially if we try to compare the necessarily much higher numbers of microorganisms needed if humans' B12 source was to remain milk, or even animal flesh, notwithstanding the animal suffering. Cultivating those microorganisms directly reduces drastically the number of microbial casualties. Is that potentially acceptable and/or an incentive to go vegan by Jain phylosophical points of view?
Very many thanks for having read this very long message, and for the kindness with which Jain knowledge has always been transfered on this forum. I am greatful and feel really lucky.
Amitiés sincères de France,
Tintin
[email protected]