Vitamin B12 in Cheese

Is there vitamin B12 in cheese? Yes! Cheese is one of a number of vitamin B12-rich foods.

Commercial vitamin manufacturers sometimes use whey as the growing medium for concentrating vitamin B12. They add the bacterium Propionibacterium shermanii to whey, allow the whey to ferment, and then process the fermented whey as a relatively high-potency source of the vitamin.

Eating cheese can provide your body with vitamin B12, as can eating most meats, yogurt, peppers, and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, and turnip greens). Nutritionists have discovered, however, that cheese, yogurt, peppers, and vegetables in the cabbage family have more to do with keeping toxic homocysteine to low levels in the bloodstream, even more than taking vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 supplements.

Reference:

Ganji V, Kafai MR. Frequent consumption of milk, yogurt, cold breakfast cereals, peppers, and cruciferous vegetables and intakes of dietary folate and riboflavin but not vitamins B-12 and B-6 are inversely associated with serum total homocysteine concentrations in the US population. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6):1500-7.