[captaincrunch]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that potatoes gave you every vitamin and mineral you needed (except b12 which you can get from butter).

[corrral]

You can pick one of the usual Native American crop patterns and get a solid set of vitamins. Potatoes + beans + squash or something like that, maybe with some corn. Cf. Mann's 1491. If you're going for a minimal veggie ingredient diet these new-world combos work well as a base, in part because potatoes are pretty much a superfood.

[lucideer]

B12 is a pretty important one if you want to avoid the title of section 1 of this article though.

And while butter contains b12, you'd probably have to be eating a few bars of it a day to get enough long-term.

[mod]

That's my understanding.

The spudfit guy did only potatoes and a B12 supplement for a year. His claim was that he was getting everything else he needed from the potatoes.

[zhynn]

I did the SMTM study and they prohibited dairy. So I got my B12 from sweet potato.

[lucideer]

Sweet potato doesn't contain B12 - you're probably thinking of Vitamin A.

Dairy doesn't contain enough B12 to supplement you on it's own, which is why the study recommends against and instead suggests taking an actual B12 supplement (Puritan's Pride lozenges)

4 weeks shouldn't be enough time to develop a serious B12 deficiency but doing this for longer could impair you cognitively.

[lucideer]

fwiw, I wouldn't personally be a massive advocate of supplements - dietary sources are usually better if possible - so not sure whether the study's supplement recommendation here is a good one. Just quoting the instructions given to participants

[xeromal]

Is there an easy way to test your B12 when on this diet?

[lucideer]

It's typically via blood test, I'm not aware of any easier methods