Elena Shekhova

My late submission to #TidyTuesday, week 5. I couldn’t resist making this 📊, as I’m planning my first garden this year. And since I’m ambitious (or delusional?), my plan is to grow more than 20 plants! I summarized the requirements for some of them. #vegetablegarden #greenheart #gardening

🧪🍎📃 I stumbled across this article about alternative protein sources. Many of them I had never heard of before. It mentioned: -winged beans -grasspea -lupins -Bambara groundnut Also, duckweed species can have protein contents of up to 43% (dry matter) and provide all essential amino acids.

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

To sum up 🔴 Neither animals nor plants synthesize B12 🔴 Symbiotic or environmental bacteria produce B12, which can be absorbed by other organisms 🔴 Animals and some algae require B12, and therefore accumulate it 🔴 Fermented plant foods and mushrooms may have some B12, but the amounts vary a lot

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

The final non-animal foods that contain B12 are mushrooms🍄 Not all mushrooms have meaningful amounts, but shiitake stands out. Still, compared to nori at about 32.3 μg per 100 g dry weight, shiitake only contains about 5.6 μg per 100 g on average.

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

Chlorella, as eukaryotic microalgae, obtains B12 from its environment, which means it can contain bioactive B12. Spirulina is actually a cyanobacterium, not a true alga, and can synthesize corrinoids, but mostly pseudo-vitamin B12, forms that are inactive in humans.

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

So some algae are like us, and others are more like plants. How cool is that?

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

Here is a question: are algae more like plants, simply absorbing B12 from the environment? Or do they actually require B12 like animals?

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

There is another non-animal B12 source: algae. Certain edible macroalgae, such as dried purple laver (nori), can contain substantial amounts of bioactive B12.

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

🦠because B12-producing bacteria may reside on or in the plant (think soil microbes and unwashed vegetables). This was likely one way our ancestors got some B12, not something wildly practiced in the modern world.

🧪🍎📃 Vitamin B12 is a rather unique vitamin. Only certain bacteria and archaea can make it, not plants or animals. Animals require B12 and can obtain and store it, which is why meat and fish are well-known sources for humans. But what about non-animal foods? Can they provide any B12 at all?🧵⤵️

❔First of all, let’s understand why meat like beef has substantial amounts of B12. Cows, like humans, need B12 to live and function, but they also cannot synthesize it. So how do they get it? ⚪cows eat food that introduces B12-producing bacteria into the rumen, where they act as B12 factories

🧪🍎📃 It only took me 500 years to finish this 📊, but here it is 🎉 Grocery shops in many wealthy countries are oversupplied with animal-based foods. They stock far more meat and dairy than we need for human and planetary health. 🔗 www.lumipie.com/data-vis/pla...

🧪🍎📃 Important new study: Animal products, especially beef, pose much higher extinction risks for wildlife than grains, legumes, or vegetables. This means shifting land use toward more plant-based diets can give greater opportunities to restore biodiversity and help save species from extinction.

🧪🍎📃 Even with a genetic predisposition, not everyone will develop dementia. Various factors play a role. This study suggests that people who are APOE4 homozygotes, the group at highest genetic risk, may benefit the most from following a Mediterranean diet. doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03891-5

🧪🍎📃 My recent work: I transformed a table from a publication into an interactive chart on the web. This 📊 illustrates the Planetary Health Diet designed by the EAT-Lancet Commission (PMID: 30660336). 🔗chart: lumipie.com/data-vis/pla...

🧪🍎📃 I’ve been learning React.js lately and made this 📊. It shows the protein & fiber content of processed foods commonly found in grocery stores. These nutrients are great for promoting satiety and may help reduce the risk of overeating (PMID: 35592279). Chart 🔗: www.lumipie.com/data-vis/fib...