Many raw vegan's take products like Greens Life which is a mixture of
spirulina, cereal grass sprouts, healthy flora and soil based organisms to
maintain intestinal health and get B12.  There was a discussion on this list
about a year ago as to whether the B12 in spirulina was properly absorbable
or not as there seemed to be some evidence that perhaps it was not.

If you already have a B12 deficiency, you may be better off taking pills or
an injection for a short time while you work to restore healthy gut bacteria
'cause it doesn't happen instantly and there could be some deleterious
effects on your body from going without sufficient B12 for an extended
period of time.  I don't know much about this, surely someone with medical
training on this list has more information.

Janis

At 06:37 PM 1/17/99 +0200, you wrote:
>I went raw only about 3 months ago, could I have had the deficiency
>before going raw/vegan?  I was on a completely SAD diet before that
>(meat, dairy, salt, sugar etc.).  What does it have to do with flora?
>
>