Sainsbury’s mushrooms with Vit b12!!

[Kazania]

Have you seen this? I thought only meat and a type of seaweed contained this vitamin.

[Nackapan]

Yes naturally have vit D. Very odd!!

[helvella]

This was posted a while back:

healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...

I think you will find that the B12 is added.

(It is also suggested that some mushrooms contain tiny amounts of B12 because they are grown on a substrate which contains animal waste - manure. Whether the B12 in manure is made by bacteria in their guts or could even be from veterinary sources is not at all clear to me.)

[Kazania in reply to helvella]

Thank you Helvella😄

[Kazania in reply to helvella]

Helvella, just followed your link, I didn’t realise it was already a ‘news’ item a year ago. I wouldn’t have posted if I ‘d known. Many thanks again.

[Kazania]

Hello again, just checked Google and an article in the Mirror says ‘fortified’ so not a naturally occurring thing.

[clivealive Forum Support]

It does state "enriched"

However if the mushrooms were grown in a compost containing say cow manure, if one was not too fastidious in cleaning them there would possibly be B12 in the "dirt". The same principle would apply to any manure grown vegetables, salads etc.

A charming thought

These days even All Bran is fortified with Vitamins D, B12 and Folic Acid

I wish you well

[helvella in reply to clivealive]

I had a quick look around and the highest B12 in mushrooms value I could find was 0.1 microgram per 100 grams.

I suspect that is at the forgettable level.

[clivealive Forum Support in reply to helvella]

That's an awful lot of mushrooms in a 100g

[Janma123 in reply to clivealive]

The compost is sterilised before the mushrooms are grown on it!

[clivealive Forum Support in reply to Janma123]

I wonder if B12 would survive the process being "metallic". I don't think cooking damages it

I'm so scientist.

[pitney]

It says enriched with on the label so I would think it had been added

[Slothlike]

Enriched means it’s something naturally present that has been lost and replaced or boosted in some way. Fortified means that it’s been added and not naturally present.

This distinction is important because they say enriched on the packet. Straight vitamin D mushrooms launched about a year ago say enriched since all they do is boost levels in the mushroom by exposing it to UV light. Mushrooms will produce vitamin D and B12 “naturally”. They will need to be grown in the right conditions to do this though since vitamin b12 varies a lot. I believe they have targeted vitamin b12 due to the rise of veganism and see a market for these products.

There are strict labelling laws in the UK and EU so the fact that it says enriched rather than fortified gives a clue. The mirror article uses fortified ...but this is more likely to be sloppy journalism. The packaging is the legal declaration.

I can’t find a lot about this but suspect that they are growing the mushrooms under certain conditions to encourage the vitamin b12 levels to be higher. It is highly unlikely that they are spraying synthetic vitamin b12 on to the mushrooms like a fortified cereal but I suppose this could still be the case ..perhaps in the wash water (sounds like a pretty expensive way of doing it though.

It is more likely to be a breeding thing or a feed/compost. that encourages the mushroom to make more of its “natural” B12. This may not necessarily be adding b12 (although looking at substrate production this is likely to be after the main substrate is produced and sterilised).

Here is a website with a good video of a big mushroom producer:

walshmushrooms.com/What_We_...

I notice they produce a vitamin d mushroom and have novel food status permitted for this by the EU.

No mention of vitamin b12 mushrooms though.

Substrates seem to vary but most contain manure of some sort , straw and gypsum.

See very dry link here ...very technical

assurance.redtractor.org.uk...

I suspect the vitamin b12 mushrooms are a smaller operation using specific growing substrate “tweaked”. Perhaps they are using a combination of manure and another component that encourages b12 production in the mushroom mycelia?

Perhaps a cobalt enriched compost that they add to substrate after the sterilisation?

Just guessing.

[Kazania in reply to Slothlike]

Well! i really started something posting that item😂. Your reply is very comprehensive; maybe I should write to Sainsbury’s and just ask them how they can make this claim. I’m out at the moment so haven’t followed your links; will do so later. Many thanks.

[Slothlike]

It’s a great thing to do a bit of research on a Sunday morning before facing the day 😀

it looks like a patent may be in progress hence the secrecy around it.

Hopefully whatever technique they are using involves the natural mushroom based form of b12 which has the same bioavailability as liver, fish etc. I think a portion of normal mushrooms gives you 2% of nrv (depending upon variety) so whatever they are doing is significant to bring this up to 100%. I wonder how long Sainsbury’s have exclusivity on this with the supplier?

To get a better answer when contacting the retailer ...ask to have a response from the buyer or technologist/technical manager for the relevant produce department. This will bypass the customer services route. Asking a very technical question is normally sufficient.

Good luck

[helvella in reply to Slothlike]

This previous post says a bit more:

healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...

[Kazania]

Ok thanks for your advice 😃. Have a good evening.