Try these healthy foods to get the sunshine vitamin into your diet.
From head to toe, vitamin D, also called the sunshine vitamin, supports both brain and body. Our bodies produce vitamin D after exposure to sunlight or through absorption from some foods. Vitamin D helps keep bones strong and muscles moving. Deficiency is linked to memory problems and troubled sleep.
Research suggests that approximately 35 percent of adults in the United States are deficient in D.
According to the National Institutes of Health, you need:
• 15 micrograms (mcg)/600 international units (IU) per day for adults 19 to 70 years old
• 20 mcg/800 IU per day for those 71 and older
Not many foods are rich in vitamin D. Here are seven that can help you get your daily dose.
1. Cottage cheese
Cottage cheese, made from curds that form when milk curdles, originated in farmhouses and cottages as a way to use up excess milk that’s about to turn sour. Cottage cheese fortified with vitamin D is an unexpected but good source of the sunshine vitamin. Since vitamin D helps with the absorption of calcium, which is plentiful in cottage cheese, the addition of D can help these two crucial vitamins work together.
2. Egg yolks
Egg yolks are a stellar source of natural vitamin D, which some studies have linked to protection against memory loss and forgetfulness. Aside from fatty fish, eggs are one of the only natural sources of vitamin D in the diet. The form of vitamin D present in egg yolks may be more potent than previously thought.
3. Sardines
We all need vitamin D to help keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy. The body absorbs calcium, the primary component of bone, only when vitamin D is present. The best food sources of D are oily fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines. Other foods rich in D include red meat and liver.
To learn about four additional foods that are high in vitamin D, from AARP, CLICK HERE.
