Easy tip for the day:

How to get more vitamin D into your diet

mushrooms

If you love mushrooms you are in for a treat!

Not many foods that we consume contain vitamin D.  It is found in foods such as oily fish (how many of you consume sardines on a regular basis?) and small amounts in egg yolk (pasture raised-the deep orange kind) and grass fed butter. 

On top of that we spend most of our time indoors and not exposed to the vitamin D from the sun.  And if we are outside we are usually lathered up in sunscreen.  Also, if your cholesterol levels are too low you won’t be able to reap the benefits of vitamin D from the sun. 

In an experiment using shitake mushrooms sitting outside with gills up getting full sun for 6 hours per day for 2 days found that the vitamin D content in the mushrooms soared from 100 IU/100 grams to 46,000 IU/100 grams! Yes, mushrooms have been shown to be a rare food that can contain large amounts of vitamin D.

Here is a tip:

Take your mushrooms that you just purchased from the store (any kind will suffice) and keep them in a sunny window or outside.  (Studies showed they just had to be exposed to UVA light)

When they sit in the sunlight they act like little solar panels and soak up the sun!

Here is what you do:

Let them sit in the sun for 2 days in an area that they will get roughly 6 hours of sunlight.

If you are letting them sit outside, then cover them at night to avoid moisture from dew.  

Keep the gills exposed to the sunlight.   They will retain this amount of vitamin D for at least a year (not that you are going to wait that long before you eat them!)

And then eat as you normally would!

 

Sources

Gregor, M. (8/1/13) Vitamin D from Mushrooms, Sun, or Supplements?  http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/08/01/vitamin-d-from-  mushrooms-sun-or-supplements/

Holick, M.F. Vitamin D deficiency.  New England Jounral of Medicine, 2007; 357(3): 266-81.

Stamets, P. (8/6/12) Place Mushrooms in Sunlight to Get Your Vitamin D.    http://www.fungi.com/blog/items/place-mushrooms-in-sunlight-to-get-your-vitamin-d.html

___(4/16) Alternative Medicine. Issue 27.

 

Karen Brennan, MSW, CNC, Board Certified in Holistic Nutrition (candidate), author of the E book Tru Foods Depression Free Nutrition Guide; How Food Supplements and herbs can be used to lift your mood and owner of Tru Foods Nutrition Services, LLC believes in food first when addressing the root causes to your health conditions.  For more information, visit her website at www.trufoodsnutrition.com