Vitamin D Mushrooms

 

After five years of work, M&S is excited to announce that they are launching the first ever Vitamin D Mushrooms that contain 100% of the RDA of Vitamin D. The M&S Active Health Vitamin D Mushrooms have been developed with Irish supplier Monaghan Mushrooms and are grown locally in Tyholland, Co. Monaghan. M&S are the first retailer in Europe to offer these enriched mushrooms to customers and just three M&S Active Health Mushrooms (1 portion) = 100% of your daily Vitamin D which is required for strong bones and teeth.

Claire Hughes, M&S Nutritionist explains: “It’s taken us over five years to bring these mushrooms to our shelves, but it has been worth the wait – they provide 100% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin D and are a delicious way of making dinner even healthier”.

According to recent nutrition studies, Ireland suffers from one of the highest levels of Vitamin D deficiency – essential for bone and general nutritional health.  Vitamin D is naturally present in very few foods, however it is essential for bone health as it helps us absorb calcium and phosphorous from foods.

• The main source is sunlight exposure, and the window for making Vitamin D in sunlight is very limited – we make no Vitamin D from October to March.
• During the 1990’s, University researchers in Finland discovered that mushrooms contained levels of Vitamin D which varied by the amount of light the mushrooms had been exposed to.
• Mushrooms naturally produce Vitamin D when they are out in the sunlight and the process works by converting natural sterols in the mushroom to Vitamin D. The same process happens in our own skin when we go out in the sunshine.  The longer mushrooms are out in the sunlight, the more Vitamin D they contain.
• M&S grow their mushrooms inside houses where they are not exposed to sunlight (mushrooms don’t need sunlight to grow). They are then laid under a high wattage light for a few seconds, where the bulb acts like the sun and contains wavelengths of light, including UV, which produces Vitamin-D inside the mushroom.
• Each mushroom has the exact same amount of light and one portion (three mushrooms) provides 100% of your recommended daily intake of Vitamin D.
• M&S are launching Brown Vitamin D mushrooms, as the process works even better than on white mushrooms. Research has concluded that the Active Health Vitamin D mushrooms taste exactly the same as normal mushrooms. M&S Vitamin D Mushrooms are €1.79.