You can always tell when someone’s had a big old serving of the D. They look happy. Healthy. Practically glowing. If we had it our way, we’d be getting it every minute of the day… but unfortunately, our bodies are only capable of doing it in daylight hours.
That’s right. The main way we obtain Vitamin D is from sunlight exposure. When those sweet rays touch our skin, our incredibly helpful bodies set to work on synthesising the stuff to help keep us on firing form. In fact, we get about 80-90% of all our Vitamin D intake this way – great, right!? But it doesn’t take a genius to work out why there’s a whopping great portion of the UK population who are chronically deficient rn.
To put it bluntly, Grey Britannia just don’t deliver. For us to synthesise Vitamin D ourselves, the intensity of the UVB rays have to be 295 nm. This level is only achieved between March and October in the Northern hemisphere, so we’ve got to rely on other sources of vitamin D for the remaining 6 months of the year to ensure we are thriving. There’s only one thing for it.
Diet Hard Too
Yes, the mathematicians among you might have been wondering where that other 10-20% of Vitamin D intake was accounted for. Diet. It is possible to top up your levels by consuming D-rich foods. However, it turns out these are very few and far between. The select few places you’ll find it is:
- Oily fish – such as salmon, sardines, herring and mackerel
- Red meat
- Liver
- Egg yolks
- Specific mushrooms
- Seaweed
As you can see, if you eat an animal-based diet, there are several food choices available. But for the less carnivorous among us, the only two plant-based options on the Vitamin D menu are mushrooms… or seaweed. And we don’t know about you, but seaweed isn’t necessarily something we can simply nip down to the shops for on the regular.
That means we’re down to just mushrooms, and they’re only able to deliver on Vitamin D2 (which decreases through picking and cooking) and is also less than a third of the potency of Vitamin D3. To put that in perspective, to hit the same amount of vitamin D3 you find in a MOJU Vitamin D shot (33μg) you would need to eat 900g of mushrooms. That’s… a lot of mushrooms.
Putting diet to the test
In October ‘21, I decided to see just how tricky it is to hit sufficient levels of Vitamin D through diet, with a month-long self-imposed research project. Phase 1 involved the arduous (not to mention, expensive) task of planning a 2-week meal plan where I’d consume at least 1 or more Vitamin D-containing foods. Then for phase 2, I reverted to my normal diet with no other constraints than shotting a MOJU Vitamin D daily (consumed alongside a meal to ensure maximum absorption.)
My Vitamin D status was assessed at the beginning of the experiment, at the end of phase 1, and again at the end of phase 2.
The results
Test 1 = 81mmol/L
Test 2 = 85mmol/L - Food alone
Test 3 = 116mmol/L - Following MOJU (36.5% increase)
It’s not hard to see that diet alone is not good enough to increase your Vitamin D status if you’re deficient. Given that the optimal range is 75-120nmol/L, you may be able to maintain your vitamin D levels… but it is very much dependable on the individual.
Of course, in this case, I have the benefit of the nutritional knowledge to know that Vitamin D was being consumed daily through the foods I chose. If I didn’t have that insider info, would I know what I’d need to eat to make sure I was hitting peak Vitamin D consumption? Probably not.
The other thing worth drawing attention to is the fact that while my original status did fall within the optimal range, it was on the lower side. Again, with my pro nutritionist head in the game, I’d say I’d much prefer to see that figure on the upper end of the range to know my body was getting what it needed… and that’s what the MOJU Vitamin D shots helped with.
What can we take from this?
Vitamin D is crucial for maintaining and supporting many aspects of human health including bone health, muscle function and repair and immune health. As Vitamin D is such an important vitamin to optimise, it probably comes as no surprise that I’d encourage anyone to give MOJU a go. After all, beginning your day with a nutritious breakfast and a MOJU Vitamin D shot is a delicious, easy and convenient way to get your day off to the best start. Much better than a kilo of mushrooms.
