Vitamin B12

The vitamin that most strict vegetarians go wanting is B_12. That begged the question of how to supplement the want.

20 ea. 12 ounce servings of beer has the US RDA of B₁₂

if :       a 12 ounce serving of beer has 0.12 µg of B₁₂ ¹

and:    the US RDA of B12 is 2.4 µg of B₁₂ ²

then:   20 servings of beer has the US RDA of B₁₂

Dave was outside sales for a local wholesale supply house. He had a customer who on his way home from work every night would buy a case of beer. His wife and he would sit down in front of the television each evening and split that case between them.

Mike was an Irishman here on a green card. He had been here for twenty four years without having been back to Ireland. We tried looking up the street view of the house he lived in in Ireland on Google. They had not been down his road.

Mike on non holiday evenings would drink 12 beers, on holidays he drinks whiskey. I asked him how much he cuts back on the beer for the holidays. He declared he does not. The beer is his base line consumption so the whiskey is in addition: a fifth a day.

He lost his job at the plant when he lost his wife to cancer. He was drinking too much. I wondered how much that took.

The US annual per capita consumption of beer in 2011 was 20.8 gallons as reported by the Huffing Post ³. This is beer only, not spirits or wine. As is most often with statistics or even calculations of quantities when reported in the press once the digits are on the page all else is at best incomplete. The US Census Bureau reported a US population of 311.7 million for 2011 (I take this for all populations counted and estimated, legal and illegal).

Now,

does this mean 20.8 gallons for every adult and child in the US,

does this mean every person 21 years and older,

does this include binging teenagers after Friday’s football game,

does this mean only admitted drinkers,

or is it the average for the eleven guys most frequently found down at the corner bar: probably not those eleven guys.

Dave’s customer and Mike were (if they took no holidays from drinking, drank 411 gallons of beer a year (but still were not getting their RDA of B₁₂)) taking up the slack for me. In any case, I am not keeping up.

1) USDA Basic Report 14003, Alcoholic beverage, beer, regular, all

2) USDA Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs): Estimated Average Requirements

3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/americans-soda-beer_n_885340.html