Foods with Vitamin D: 9 Best Foods Rich in Vitamin D
What is Vitamin D?
Vitamin D is otherwise known as the sunshine vitamin. Most of your daily vitamin D is absorbed through your skin in a reaction that occurs, resulting in the production of vitamin D.
Vitamin D is a prohormone, that essentially means it is the starting hormone to make many of the other hormones that are essential for your daily functions.
It is a vitamin because it is a molecule that is essential to life.
Vitamin D goes by the name of Cholecalciferol, a fat-soluble vitamin produced from cholesterol. Once made in the skin from UV or absorbed from your dietary intake of food rich in vitamin D, the body can store vitamin D and other molecules, like vitamin A, in your fat tissue.
Vitamin D is first metabolised in the liver and kidneys.
When you exercise or burn fat tissue you release vitamin D into your blood.
This emphasises a need for healthy dietary fats to be eaten with vitamin D in your diet, to absorb and retain vitamin D.
If you are supplementing with vitamin D you should also do so while eating a meal that contains some fats.
Why Do I Need Foods Containing Vitamin D?
Hormones and Vitamin D
You need vitamin D to make or regulate the production of many major hormones including testosterone, oestrogen, parathyroid hormones and insulin.
It shares many of the effects of the sex hormone progesterone, the pre-form of testosterone and oestrogen and is classed as a steroid hormone.
Vitamin D also plays a function in regulating the amounts of melatonin and serotonin hormones in the body. You can find our article covering our top 10 melatonin rich foods here.
Vitamin D is necessary for the regulation and formation of androgen hormones, testosterone and oestrogen, the combination of which determine many of our overall sexual characteristics.
This includes muscle size and hip-to-waist ratio in women. Pregnancy is quite difficult and can get complex for women, emphasising the importance of a strong hip-to-waist ratio.
Insulin is regulated by vitamin D. Insulin is how your body can access sugar properly and is vital for your survival. Other hormones like melatonin, important for healthy sleep, are regulated by vitamin D.
While you might think you can just absorb vitamin D through sunlight, the facts are that most people worldwide are deficient in vitamin D.
Calcium and Vitamin D
We need so much vitamin D because it’s essential in our day-to-day lives including normal nerve cell communication, calcium intake for maintenance of bone mass, enhancing the immune system and healthy cell death to prevent cancers.
The core function of vitamin D is to help push calcium into the body. In our evolutionary history this is a highly conserved and ancestral process. Your bone calcium density is not fixed.
Calcium influx and absorption allowed our fish ancestors to do all sorts of interesting things from protecting core organs, killing prey and allowing us to leave the ocean. Of course, leaving the oceans meant a flurry of new possibilities and evolution of new animal species.
Deficiencies in vitamin D can result in diseases such as rickets or osteoporosis, where the body is not getting enough calcium. This causes bone weakness or deformities.
Immunity and Vitamin D
Your bone mass influences the amounts of white blood cells there are in the body which encourages healthy immunity. The numbers of T-killer white blood cells upregulated by vitamin D consumption.
T-killer cells are important in the natural cell death of potentially cancer-causing cells that have gone wrong, as well as identifying pathogenic cells that need to be destroyed.
There is growing evidence that vitamin D could also help with the prevention of depression escalation and supplementation has proven to be quite effective.
We’ve written an article on vitamin D and depression which you can find here.
Let’s talk about the best foods for vitamin D.
9 Best Foods with Vitamin D
When trying to increase your dietary intake of vitamin D it is important to remember that vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin.
This means you should be consuming more fats with your diet than usual.
Remember that eating excess fat can lead to weight gain however, healthy levels of dietary fats are essential to normal bodily functioning.
You should also consider increasing your dietary calcium levels to go with the added dietary for the full benefits.
Liver
Liver, especially beef or duck, is one of the richest food sources of vitamin D.
It is not the tastiest part of the animal to eat, however this is one of the richest foods with vitamin D you can eat. This is because the liver is where a lot of vitamin D is processed.
Liver can be available in a form of beef or chicken liver and forms a nice pate too. We strongly suggest trying liver and onion pie if you want to add more foods with vitamin D into your diet.
Liver is usually quite cheap as it is not a popular cut of the animal to buy from the butchers.
Liver is highly nutrient dense and makes up for a lot of nutrients that people are deficient in, including vitamin A and D.
We love nutrient dense foods here and liver is just that. Per 100 gram portion of chicken liver there is a whopping 222% of your RDA of vitamin A, another fat soluble vitamin. Beef liver is said to contain more vitamin A than this, at 731% of your RDA.
That is incredible for such a small amount of food. For emphasis, it contains 691% RDA of vitamin B12 per 100g, is packed with copper, phosphorus and other minerals too.
Beef liver contains an astounding 55 IU of Vitamin D, or 9% of your RDA, per 120g of liver. With beef liver you have all of your major fat-soluble vitamins in one package.
Chicken Liver
The vitamin D RDA values in chicken liver have not been fully verified. They do contain vitamin D but not as high as with beef liver.
Based on beef liver and existing studies, we estimate that this is about 6 IU of vitamin D per 120g of chicken liver. This estimate would be on the lower end of the spectrum.
The vitamin D levels are likely lower than in beef liver as chickens have a lower or low bone density in certain growing environments.
100g of chicken liver supplies 29.5% of protein and 3.2% fat. The fat content makes liver a synergistic partner for vitamin D uptake.
Kidney
Steak and kidney pie is a hearty meal appreciated by most food lovers. Beef kidney contains 45IU of vitamin D per 100g of kidney meat.
Also rich in other nutrients, the kidneys represent another cut of meat that is nutrient dense. Steak and kidney pie is a great family meal for those on a budget wanting to add more foods rich in vitamin D into their diet.
Cod Liver Oil
Traditionally used as a vitamin D and an omega 3 oils supplement, cod liver oil contains one of the highest concentrations of vitamin D of all foods.
Cod liver oil, as a food, contains 10,000 IU of vitamin D as measured by an independent study. As a supplement this might vary.
Cod liver oil is fairly cheap and easy to obtain that makes a really quick way of accessing higher amount the vitamin D that rivals some food supplements.
Fish
Fish are extremely popular as a food for vitamin D. Sardines contain one of the highest levels of vitamin D of all fish. Sardines contain a massive 200 IU vitamin D per 100 grams or 24% NRV.
Salmon are also quite rich in vitamin D and healthy fats such as omega 3. Omega 3 contributes to normal vitamin D absorption, so is synergistic with Vitamin D uptake.
Depending on the variety of salmon and if they are grown or caught, they contain around 526 IU of Vitamin D per 100 or 66% of your RDA.
Mushrooms
Various mushrooms such as white button or chestnut mushrooms contain large amounts of vitamin D. Portobello mushrooms contain 12IU of vitamin D per 100g.
Mushrooms are great to add to pretty much any cream or tomato-based sauce recipe and can taste bland on their own, unless mixed with herbs and garlic.
As a non animal source of vitamin D this seems like a good option if your are looking for foods with vitamin D to add to your diet.
They aren’t exactly a vitamin D powerhouse like liver but provide a regular dose of dietary vitamin D.
Cereals Fortified With Vitamin D
While this doesn’t strictly count as a food naturally high in vitamin D, fortified breakfast cereals like cornflakes are fairly high in vitamin D.
Easy to integrate as a breakfast with some yoghurt, this does make quite a good start to the day. Fortified cereals contain at the highest, around 344 IU of vitamin D per 100 grams.
Eggs
Eggs are also fairly rich in vitamin D. While not as high as beef or chicken liver they do contain a substantial amount of vitamin D. An organic egg from a chicken provides 44 IU of vitamin D.
They are also a source of cholesterol and healthy fats, which all contribute to normal vitamin D production or absorption.
Red Meats
A typical beef steak contains around 60IU of vitamin D per 100 grams of red meat.
Steak is quite an easy to make and rich vitamin D food. Moreover it contains healthy dietary fats and other nutrients. On the downside, beef steaks can be quite expensive.
Cheese
Cheese is cost effective as a vitamin D containing food and readily available in the shops.
We recommend cheese is eaten in moderation as it is very high in fat. In 100g of most regular cheeses, there is 24IU of vitamin D.
This food rich with vitamin D is so easy to add to most recipes or dishes.
Conclusion
We’ve shown how important vitamin D is to our health and well-being. From maintaining calcium levels in the bones, ensuring the survival of our ancestors against predators, helping with immunity, regulating levels of hormones and sugar intake.
Is quite clear that finding foods that are rich in vitamin D is not so easy.
This is clearly one reason why there are so many people deficient in vitamin D worldwide, even in hot countries.
In our 9 foods listed here, the top vitamin D foods are fish such as salmon, sardines and cod liver. Beef liver is also a strong candidate for top foods containing vitamin D. Considering nutrient density, we would recommend liver and sardines.
All of these foods can form a base for many different recipes.
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