Vitamin D is an extremely important vitamin that you cannot do without and you need certain amounts of in order to function healthily.
Vitamin D is an absolutely essential vitamin and nutrient that your body needs in order for it to carry out many of its functions and vital processes. In fact, the situation regarding Vitamin D is so severe, that vitamin D deficiency is a major public health concern in almost all parts of the globe. In fact, it has been estimated that around 13 percent of the total population of the world has vitamin D deficiencies. That is a whole lot of people who need to get more vitamin D into their systems. Luckily, there are some ways other than direct exposure to sunlight that can help you get those sweet nutrients and ample amounts of vitamin D. Let’s take a look at some of these methods.
Eat More Fatty Fish and Seafood
Fatty fish and seafood are just in general some of the most healthiest sources of protein. They also happen to be extremely tasty and also delicious to eat. At the same time, they also happen to be one of the best sources of getting vitamin D.
In fact, when you really weigh it up, just a 3.5 ounce serving of canned salmon has enough vitamin D in it to meet about 50 percent of the required daily intake. It has on average about 386 IU of Vitamin D.
There is also a lot of variety of fish and seafood you can choose from in order to get the right amount of vitamin d in your diet. This means that you can try out a bunch of different recipes and experiment with different techniques of cooking.
Consume a lot more mushrooms
Mushrooms happen to be the only known plant-based food that has vitamin D in it. Just like humans, mushrooms are also capable of making their very own vitamin D when they are exposed to UV light. The kind of Vitamin D that humans make happen to be known as D3 or cholecalciferol. On the other hand, the kind of vitamin D that mushrooms produce happens to be known as D2 or ergocalciferol.
Both types of this vitamin have the potential to raise the levels of circulating vitamin D within the body. There is, however, a lot of research that posits that the D3 variation of vitamin D is known to be able to do this particular function much more effectively than the D2 variation. Though it is very obvious but it still needs to be mentioned that the type and amount of vitamin D present in the mushroom will most likely depend on the mushroom itself. There are certain varieties of mushrooms, such as wild maitake mushrooms, which have the potential to provide a very large quantity of vitamin D, in fact they can give you almost 300 percent of the Required Daily Intake, providing as much as 2,348 IU per 100 gram serving.
Owing to the fact that wild mushrooms happen to get exposure to sunlight, they often have a lot more vitamin D than you find in commercially grown mushrooms. The work around this is to purchase mushrooms which have been treated with UV light. Make sure that when you do get these wild mushrooms, you do so from a trusted source – for example a grocery store or a farmers market- in order to make sure that you do not consume any mushrooms that are of the poisonous variety.
Make sure that you consume egg yolks as part of your diet
Egg yolks happen to be another excellent source of vitamin D which you can add to your diet immediately. Just like many other natural food sources, yolks also have a good amount of vitamin D within them and who among us does not like eggs. It happens to be one of the most popular food items that are available. It is eaten in various forms and varieties as well. Some people have a habit of not consuming the yolk part of the egg though but that is where you are likely to find the most amount of vitamin D within the food.
Chickens raised conventionally produce eggs that only have about 2 to 5 percent of the Required Daily Amount. This is because those chickens do not typically have access to the outdoors and hence do not get enough sunlight. On the other hand, chicken which are of the free-range variety or which have been raised in pastures, produce eggs which have 4 times more Vitamin D in it, that is up to 20 percent of the required daily intake. It will all depend on how much time the chicken actually spends outside in the sun. Chicken feed is yet another factor which affects the vitamin D content that is in the eggs. Chicken which are fed grain that is vitamin-D-enriched may very well be able to produce eggs that boast vitamin D content that is well over 100% of the required daily intake.
Make use of an UV lamp or a light therapy lamp
Though these devices can be quite costly, lamps that can emit UV-B radiation also have the very real potential of boosting the Vitamin D levels in your body.
When our skin happens to get exposed to UV-B radiation that comes from the sun, it is able to produce its very own vitamin D. UV lamps work by mimicking the action of the sun and it can especially come in handy for those who have limited exposure to sunlight either due to their geographical location or because of their need to spend time indoors. This lamp is the perfect solution for both these groups of people.