Hacker News Reader

Comment by ip26 | Hacker News Reader

almost no risks or real costs

I worry a little about risk compensation, or whatever the equivalent is for diet. That is to say, if I feel like I'm all set on vitamins & minerals via pills, maybe I don't need to try so hard to eat my fruits & vegetables anymore...

View on HN

Worth noting that the above mostly talks above Vitamin D specifically, not multivitamins. D is the only one you do not naturally get from food (ignoring fortified food), and it also as mentioned above one of the cheaper ones. Multivitamins are far more expensive in general.

Mushrooms? Salmon? Liver? Eggs? All of these have vit D without being fortified (mushrooms being a bit debatable as to if its fortified)

And its a little misleading not to talk about sunlight - technically that's not a food, but you were kind of implying you couldn't get it from the natural environment.

Vitamin D2 + D3 per 100g portion of mushrooms, according to this website from the USDA Agricultural Research Service (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/)

- Mushrooms, raw: 0.2 µg (7 IU)

- Mushrooms, Chanterelle, raw: 5.3 µg (212 IU)

- Mushrooms, enoki, raw: 0.7 µg (29 IU)

- Mushrooms, maitake, raw: 28.1 µg (1123 IU)

- Mushrooms, morel, raw: 5.1 µg (206 IU)

- Mushrooms, oyster, raw: 0.7 µg (5 IU)

- Mushrooms, portabella, raw: 0.3 µg (10 IU)

- Mushrooms, shiitake, raw: 0.4 µg (18 IU)

- Mushrooms, white, raw: 0.2 µg (7 IU)

As you can see, there are many types of mushrooms and most of them do not have much vitamin D. Some do, but unless you are a mushroom nerd you are getting the wrong kind.

Young adult daily recommended dose = 1000 IU

Just came across this fascinating review:

https://fungi.com/blogs/articles/place-mushrooms-in-sunlight...

267,000 IU after exposing mushrooms to 14 hours of UVB?

Holy cow.

So, much like humans, mushrooms produce vitamin D from sunlight?

How much vitamin D is in a mushroom is going to depend more on how they are grown and stored then on the particular species afaik (in particular how much uv radiation it is exposed to).

I believe also that there will be more vitamin D in mushrooms that are irradiated to give them a longer shelf life. I don't think usa is a country where that practise is common, but i believe it is common in some other countries.

using a multivitamin daily is considered 'expensive' ?

Trying for a rough estimate of the yearly cost of taking a multivitamin daily, I get about $10 USD a year. For the 15% of the global population that live on less than $2 a day, that's around a week's wages. For the 56% that live on $2 - $10 a day, it's slightly more affordable, but still a significant cost.

Now, that's a cheap multivitamin, so it's got about 300IU of vitamin D, which is a pretty small dose. At a guess it's probably cheaping out on some of the other ingredients as well. On the other hand, ingredients bought in bulk and distributed through outlets in the developing world with very low overhead might be more affordable.

EDIT: the numbers for global poverty are probably out of date, but you get the point

10-20$ a year, compared to just D which comes down closer to 2-3$ a year. And again considering the other vitamins are much easier to come by. D is usually the ones that's more commonly lacking, especially in northern places.

We could fortify beer and Coca Cola with it. While it’ll be on the label, I bet 9/10 people can’t rhyme off what is fortified.

(Around here, it’s salt, milk, flour and cereals that get fortified).

Dunno where fluoride fits, but that too.

You belong to an interesting language isolate with whoever wrote this article:

SUNNY VALLI CRAG

http://3.251.20.7/log-details/?log_id=490&y=2009

I was puzzled by your phrase "can't rhyme off". Google returns very few instances that are not related to spontaneous spoken word poetry (which is likely an example of convergent evolution). After poking around a bit, it seemed as though I had heard a similar phrase before "try (to|and) rhyme off" in which 'rhyme' is synonymous with 'to list' as well

Best wishes for yourself, your friends and your family during these uncertain times!

what a fun phrase. wiktionary says canada: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rhyme_off

That reminds me of a fun Canadian song that got passed around in the early Kazaa days (I had thought it was a Corky and the Juice Pigs song, but it is hard to attribute based on Google):

T'was the Scots that built this Country

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QakAwOhBkbA

I'll add that even many non-dairy milks are fortified with Vitamin D - check the label.

The way I understand it is that drinks fortified with Vit D are nearly always fortified with D2, whereas the consensus seems to be that D3 is the way to go. Not sure whether that's because D3 is less stable in drinks, or maybe there's another reason to prefer D2 there?

According to this article D3 is never vegan: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d2-vs-d3#TOC_TI...

I believe “being vegan” is the point of most milk substitutes.

Fair point, but D3 can also be derived from lichen, which is vegan.

https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/...

Cow's milk is also commonly fortified with D2. I'm guessing the vegan argument likely isn't the only reason.

"Risk compensation", to use your term, is a perfectly rational way to deal with these issues!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com