Source: Serious Eats

Vitamin B6 – its many forms – have hundreds of uses in the body. Many people call it the energy vitamin, maybe because it helps break down protein and carbohydrates freeing glucose for energy. Could be its role in anemia, or maybe testosterone production. Who knows. It does seem to supply a kick.

This post exists for that chart below, from:
National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements, Vitamin B6

Look at the first entry: Chick peas, 1.1 mg in a cup. As beans go, not much can beat chick peas. Lentils have 0.4 mg in a cup, kidney beans 0.2 mg, black beans 0.1 mg.

Here are the RDAs. A cup of chick peas have almost a day’s dose of vitamin B6:

Other respectable sources for vegetarians look to be bananas and potatoes.

This is interesting:

Groups at Risk of Vitamin B6 Inadequacy

People with rheumatoid arthritis often have low vitamin B6 concentrations, and vitamin B6 concentrations tend to decrease with increased disease severity. These low vitamin B6 levels are due to the inflammation caused by the disease and, in turn, increase the inflammation associated with the disease.

Patients with celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other malabsorptive autoimmune disorders tend to have low plasma PLP concentrations. The mechanisms for this effect are not known. However, celiac disease is associated with lower pyridoxine absorption, and low PLP concentrations in inflammatory bowel disease could be due to the inflammatory response.

One cup of chick peas have a lot more that vitamin B6. Some notable high levels:

12.5 grams fiber
14.4 grams protein
80.4 mg calcium
4.7 mg iron
78.7 mg magnesium
2.5 mg zinc

Here’s my recipe for Red Pepper Hummus.