Our piece — Vitamin D Enhancement In Mushrooms: Can This Be A Portal For The Produce Department Into Functional Foods? Professor Neal Hooker Of St. Joseph’s University Unveils The Latest Research At New York Produce Show And Conference — dealt with the mushroom industry’s efforts to produce and market mushrooms that are rich in Vitamin D. Such efforts may become very important. Produce is generally a poor source of Vitamin D, and a lot of recent work is pointing to the importance of Vitamin D.
There seems to be a new consensus gathering on its importance, as is explained in this piece titled, Sunshine, Vitamin D, and Death by Scientific Consensus:
The traditional “Top Ten Breakthroughs of the Decade” lists have been appearing in science-related publications. One breakthrough, however, is conspicuously missing from every list I’ve seen so far. I’m talking about the new understanding of the role and proper dosage of the sunshine vitamin D.
The “scientific consensus” that has held sway for four decades regarding both exposure to the sun and vitamin D has collapsed. What has emerged in place of the old “settled science” is the knowledge that most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient. The same is true for Canada and Europe, and the implications are staggering.
Simply put, unless you are one of the few people with optimal serum D levels, such as lifeguards and roofers in South Florida, you can cut your risks from most major diseases by 50 to 80 percent. All you have to do is get enough D. It also means we can significantly reduce both health care costs and the staggering national deficit by taking a few simple steps.
We tend to think that produce is always the healthy choice. In the case of Vitamin D, it is not, unless we find ways to make it so. Props go to the mushroom industry for being innovators in this area.
