I think I prefer the Girl Scout motto “Be Prepared” or “Is it in you?” from Gatorade These are more relevant for nutrition, especially since nationally representative clinical research data has repeatedly and clearly demonstrated that several vitamins (A, C, D, E, K) and minerals ( calcium, magnesium, zinc) are absent from our diet (diet). We are not getting enough of it in our diet to achieve adequacy.

We need to be careful with these shortcomings, and for some nutrients we are sorely lacking the diet-first approach. As the most widespread nutritional deficiency in our country, vitamin D is the worst victim.

You see, when we do ‘diet first’ for vitamin D, 100% of Americans over 2 years of age only get 400 IU of vitamin D per day (you actually need a minimum 3,000 IU per day to avoid vitamin D deficiency, but we’ll get to that later) from natural food sources of vitamin D.

Let’s incorporate fortified food sources. Okay, that leaves 93% of Americans still unable to eat up to just 400 IU of D per day. That’s about 300 million people with a major vitamin D deficiency. I would call it a nutritional emergency.

You can’t eat to achieve daily vitamin D sufficiency. I mean, you could … but you wouldn’t, and it could break the bank. How about 50 glasses of milk? This will provide you with 5,000 IU of vitamin D, which is an optimal dose for most adults to achieve a sufficient amount of vitamin D (i.e. a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level of 50 ng / ml. or more).

Here are some other options for the top food sources of vitamin D (natural or fortified), in order of ridiculousness, that will provide you with 5,000 IU of vitamin D: