B12 is produced by bacteria and we used to get plenty of it from the environment. Public sanitation means we don't have those bacteria in our food and water anymore so you need to supplement.

A lot of meat is also artificially enriched with B12 though and a lot of meat eaters are also deficient so a B12 supplement is probably a good idea for most people anyway.

It's added to all soy milk, far as I know, so personally I've never had to worry about that, I get B12 with my breakfast cereal.

Along with a huge amount of phytoestrogens from your soy juice :-/

I didn't remember hearing about those; you say that like it's Bad, well, dark innuendo at least, beerlord.

A lil while googling about them seemed to say no-one's sure what good or bad effects they have, if any. And they're in a lot of things:

"According to one study...foods with the highest relative phytoestrogen content were nuts and oilseeds, followed by soy products, cereals and breads, legumes, meat products, ...vegetables, fruits, alcoholic, and nonalcoholic beverages."

And well, Japan has the world's greatest life expectancy doesn't it? And they have soy everything.

Nowhere near the amount of estrogens you get from drinking milk meant for a baby cow.

That saying prefer almond milk myself.