Buffalo Milk Vitamin D
Buffalo Milk Vitamin D
Some time ago I read an alarming article about 88% of Delhi suffering from Vitamin D deficiency and I remembered my own personal tryst with this nutrient. Over three years ago, my then 18-month-old son was diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency and in two weeks of being on a course of Vitamin D supplements, he began to walk after a delay of seven or eight months. My sister, living in the US, then told me that the reason US fortified its milk with Vitamin D was that this vital nutrient, otherwise synthesised by the skin through sunlight, helped absorb Calcium in the body.
That set me on a spree of reading published research and I came across papers suggesting that the late morning sun (between 11 am and 1 pm) was most helpful in synthesising Vitamin D and that those with more Melanin pigmentation needed more sunlight to produce the same amount of Vitamin D than those with lighter skins. So when I took my son out to receive these precious but free for all sunrays in the 11 'o' clock heat, I had to weather a mini-rebellion at home. The established common wisdom, in most parts of India, is that only the early morning sun is healthy. The family backed down, but only after I took home printouts of the research papers.
But the absence of Vitamin D fortified milk in India despite this being available in the US for decades was gnawing within me and I confided my unhappiness with our flawed food standards policies to my colleagues who shared my sentiments. However, this past Sunday I walked up to the nearby Mother Dairy booth and ordered by three one-litre packs of single toned milk when a sudden fancy crept up. Over the past year, I was noticing a number of exotic offerings from this company like flavoured yoghurts, probiotic lassis, milkshakes, and the like, though I wished they would go easy on the flavours and give us the real plain, colourless stuff.
At risk of inviting derision, I asked the shopkeeper cryptically if he had "Vitamin D milk". The man thought for a second and brought back a half litre pack of fat-free milk labelled "Dietz" fortified with Vitamin A an D and supposedly high on calcium and protein. Impressed with my efforts, I went home and promptly clicked a photograph of the milk cover and sent to my sister in the US, with the message that we in India had truly arrived.
That is when my eyes chanced on the one-litre single toned milk pack that I have been buying for over a year. And in bold it said at the back: "India has a high burden of Vitamin A and D deficiencies. Vitamin A is essential for eyesight and Vitamin D helps in building strong bones and teeth. Mother Dairy now fortifies milk in building a stronger and healthier India."
Taken aback, my glance then drifted to the nutritional information and to my mortification I found that the one-litre buffalo milk pack I was buying for over a year was fortified with more Vitamin D2 than the fancy "Dietz" pack I had just photographed and sent my sis. The former had 55 IU(International Units) of D2 per 100 ml against just 25 IU in the Dietz pack. While the Calcium and Protein content was nearly the same, Dietz had nearly double the Vitamin A compared to the stock single-toned milk pack.
Soon after, I went on the Internet and found that Mother Dairy has been fortifying its milk with Vitamin D and A for nearly two years while many other brands had also begun following suit from last year. This is how we miss out on critical information related to our health despite them staring out from packs and covers. As citizens and consumers, we need to be paying more attention to ingredients and nutrient information. For example, the big scam in our snacks and other junk food, vanaspati and other so-called vegetable oils, deserve to be called out.
Interestingly, I also came across this FSSAI initiative called Project Dhoop sending schools advisories to hold daily assemblies between 11 am and 1 pm to boost student exposure to sunlight to get Vitamin D. It feels good that we in India are finally waking up to these basic public health challenges. As a citizen and journalist, I feel pretty stupid having missed out these stories and these policy changes when they occurred. As they say, better late than never.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author's own.
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Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/jibber-jabber/how-i-found-vitamin-d-in-my-milk/
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