About vitamin D-Brian lives in New Mexico where he can get lots of sun so he may not need vitamin D.
However, where I live in northern Pennsylvania, the sunlight is not strong enough to make vitamin D from September to May. The sunlight has to be fairly strong to cause vitamin D synthesis, so for a large part of the year I cannot make vitamin D myself.
3 1/2 ounces of salmon has 360 IU of vitamin D and 3 oz of tuna (canned, in oil) has 200 IU. Eggs have 20 IU. The current US guidelines call for 200-600 IU per day, but the the general thought is that the number should be much higher, about 1000 IU per day. If you live in the north, it's pretty hard to get enough vitamin D from food.
My vitamin D levels were tested a year ago last June. I am outside regularly, was taking 400 mg vitamin D every day (as D2 which is less potent than D3) and still came up very D deficient. I take cod liver oid as a vitamin D source now.
If anyone is in doubt, vitamin D levels are fairly easy to test.
Karen
