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The most delicious way to get your vitamin D
Not-so-fun things happen if you don’t get enough vitamin D….
Your bones become brittle. You develop an increased risk of respiratory diseases. Your cancer risk goes up. Your diabetes risk gets higher. The list of negative repercussions goes on and on.
Unfortunately, most people aren’t getting enough of this critical vitamin. Roughly two-thirds of US teens and adults have low vitamin D levels. If you’re one of them, you’ll want to raise your levels as soon as possible to protect your health.
The good news is raising your vitamin D level isn’t hard. There are a bunch of easy and effective ways to do it. Get more sun. Eat more fish. Drink more milk. Take a vitamin D supplement.
But if you’re looking for something that’s not only effective but ultra-enjoyable too, here’s the most appetizing way to raise vitamin D levels that I’ve stumbled upon…
Eating more chocolate.
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The cocoa cure for vitamin D deficiency
Researchers from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Max Rubner-Institut recently found that foods that contain cocoa also contain quite a bit of vitamin D.
After they’re harvested, cocoa beans are fermented and dried. They sit in the sun for one to two weeks. These cocoa beans already contain precursors to vitamin D2, which researchers suspect come from harmless fungi in the beans. But after spending time in the sun, these vitamin D2 precursors are transformed into full-fledged vitamin D.
Researchers used a technique called mass spectrometry (which identifies compounds in a substance) to figure out how much D2 was in various cocoa products. And here’s what they found…
The amount of vitamin D2 in different cocoa products varies quite a bit. But your best bet for getting vitamin D from cocoa is to eat dark chocolate or cocoa butter. Those have the highest concentration of vitamin D2.
White chocolate, on the other hand, is a waste of calories if you’re trying to get more vitamin D2. It has minimal amounts of the vitamin.
What about D3?
It’s all well and good that cocoa contains vitamin D2. But what about vitamin D3? Isn’t that the one you need most?
It’s true that D3 raises blood vitamin D levels more than D2. But that doesn’t mean you should discount D2 altogether. If you want to get enough vitamin D, there’s nothing wrong with getting it from multiple sources.
Most of us get about 90 percent of our vitamin D from the sun. The stuff we get from the sun is vitamin D3. The remaining 10 percent comes from food. Animal products contain D3, while plant-based foods contain D2. That’s why cocoa beans (a plant-based food) give you D2 rather than D3.
Unfortunately, you can’t get all the vitamin D you need from cocoa products alone (you’d have to eat a heck of a lot of chocolate). So, you need a multifaceted approach to getting enough of this essential vitamin. The foundation of that approach should be spending time in the sun or taking a high-quality supplement.
Still, if you’re looking to give your vitamin D levels an extra boost, why not add a bit more cocoa to your diet? A few squares of dark chocolate a day will not only support healthy vitamin D levels, it’ll give you a hefty dose of antioxidants that helps your health in other ways. So, eat up and enjoy in the name of good health!
Sources:
- Vitamin D deficiency soars in the U.S., study says — Scientific American
- Cocoa: A tasty source of vitamin D? — MedicalXpress
- Cocoa and chocolate are sources of vitamin D2 — Food Chemistry
- Vitamin D2 vs. D3: What’s the Difference? — Healthline
By Jenny Smiechowski
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