Where have the vitamins gone?
After winning a call for tenders from the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) to measure vitamins in almost 500 foodstuffs sold in Switzerland, we turned our attention to sources of vitamin D.
In Switzerland, as in many other countries, vitamin D requirements are often not fully met, particularly during the winter period. This is when dietary intake of vitamin D becomes key to ensuring adequate status for this vitamin, which plays an important role in several biological processes.
However, few foods are rich in vitamin D, and it used to be thought that cold sea fish and a few other foods were the only sources of vitamin D.
We then investigated Switzerland’s lakes and found that certain species of local fish are a good source of vitamin D. Analyses commissioned by the FSVO showed that consumption of coregon fish in particular (fera, palaea or oxyrhyncus) can make a significant contribution to the population’s vitamin D intake (Study of 2020)
Our foundation is continuing its investigations into the seasonal evolution of vitamin D content in certain species of fish from Lake Geneva, as well as the vitamin D content of Swiss farmed fish.