Are you getting enough?
om living
Nutrition Zone:
Quick and easy ways to gets your Vitamin D intake this winter. By Sarah Jackson
T
he Christmas count down is
officially here. As the dark nights
draw in earlier each evening and
the cosy nights in become the
new night out, not only are weturning to seasonal eating but we should
be looking at seasonal vitamins. With these
shorter, colder days comes new guidance
from Public Health England to ensure we get
enough Vitamin D in these winter months.What is Vitamin D?
Vitamin D is also known as the ‘sunshine’
vitamin due to most of our intake being from
the glorious sun. Vitamin D is made underour skin when we are in the sunlight and
although we call it a vitamin it is actually
a hormone that we make in our body. The
amount of Vitamin D our body makes is
dependent on how strong the sunlight is. In
theory we should make more when the sun
is at its hottest, however, not all of us are
lucky enough to live in hot sunny climates
throughout the year.
In 2016, The Scientific Advisory Committee
on Nutrition (SACN) produced a report
on Vitamin D and health looking at the
importance of the vitamin and to see if we
are getting enough in the UK. From this
report Public Health England (PHE) updated
its guidance for our recommended daily
intake of 5 micrograms (ug) to increase to
10ug. However, on average, people in the
UK are only getting approximately 2.8ug per
day...so we’re here to help you reach your
10ug each day!Why do we need it?
Vitamin D is important for protecting muscle
strength and can prevent rickets in children
and osteomalacia in adults. Vitamin D helps
to control the amount of phosphate andTofu with mushrooms
and soy sauce. A
brilliant plant-based
way to get Vitamin D