Life in Balance: Amit D. Chaudhary’s Blog
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Background: When trying to find out why all the milk I see on American shelf has Vitamin D, I ran into the following information.

Takeway:

1. My thoughts are that it helps to Vitamin D in milk, particularly as North Americans(Pacific NorthWest residents even more so) get very little sunlight exposure, the sunlight is more liable to burn your skin and the sun is not out many days (>200 here) of the year.

2. It is not a law to put Vitamin D, it is a law to mention on label how much has been put.

3. Vitamin D creation could and does involves animal products (See below.) As a by choice vegetarian in recent months and having known vegetarian by upbringing(many Indian friends), this falls into that thin line of worth knowing before deciding.
4. Aadil Palkhivala, founder of an excellent Bellevue, WA Yoga Center called “Yoga Centers” said in a workshop that the calcium in milk available in the US is not of any benefit due to the phosphorus contained in the milk.
Excerpts:

1. Vitamin D and Milk

The classic deficiency state resulting from a dietary absence of vitamin D₃ or lack of ultraviolet (sunlight) exposure is the bone disease called rickets in children or osteomalacia in adults. The clinical features of rickets and osteomalacia depend upon the age of onset. The classical skeletal disorder of rickets includes deformity of the bones, especially in the knees, wrists, and ankles, as well as associated changes in the rib joint functions, which have been termed by some as the rachitic rosary (1).

Since vitamin D3 is produced in the skin after exposure of 7-dehydrocholesterol to sunlight, the human does not have a requirement for vitamin D when sufficient sunlight is available. Man’s tendency to wear clothes, to live in cities where tall buildings block adequate sunlight from reaching the ground, to live indoors, to use synthetic sunscreens that block ultraviolet rays, and to live in geographical regions of the world that do not receive adequate sunlight, all contribute to the inability of the skin to biosynthesize sufficient amounts of vitamin D₃ (5). Thus, vitamin D₃ does become an important nutritional factor in the absence of sunlight. It is known that a substantial proportion of the U.S. population is exposed to suboptimal levels of sunlight. This is particularly true during winter months (6;7). Under these conditions, vitamin D becomes a true vitamin which dictates that it must be supplied in the diet on a regular basis.

The commercial production of vitamin D₃ is completely dependent on the availability of either 7-dehydrocholesterol or cholesterol. 7-Dehydrocholesterol can be obtained via organic solvent extraction of animal skins (cow, pig or sheep) followed by an extensive purification. Cholesterol typically is extracted from the lanolin of sheep wool and after thorough purification and crystallization can be converted via a laborious chemical synthesis into 7-dehydrocholesterol. It should be appreciated that once chemically pure, crystalline 7-dehydrocholesterol has been obtained, it is impossible to use any chemical or biological tests or procedures to determine the original source (sheep lanolin, pig skin, cow skin, etc.) of the cholesterol or 7-dehydrocholesterol.

Next the crystalline 7-dehydrocholesterol is dissolved in an organic solvent and irradiated with ultraviolet light to carry out the transformation (similar to that which occurs in human and animal skin) to produce vitamin D₃. This vitamin D₃ is then purified and crystallized further before it is formulated for use in dairy milk and animal feed supplementation. The exact details of the chemical conversion of cholesterol to 7-dehydrocholesterol and the method of large-scale ultraviolet light conversion into vitamin D₃ and subsequent purification are closely held topics for which there have been many patents issued (2).

The major producers of vitamin D₃ used for milk and other food supplementation are the companies F. Hoffman La Roche, Ltd (Switzerland) and BASF (Germany).
A regular access to vitamin D₃ throughout life is important to facilitate the normal absorption into the body of dietary calcium which, in turn, is essential for normal bone health and may diminish or prevent the onset in the elderly of the bone disease osteoporosis.

Any vendor of milk for human consumption containing added vitamin D₃ is required by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to include a notice on the milk carton label. Usually this label states “400 IU of added vitamin D3″. However it is not required by law to indicate either the manufacturer of the added vitamin D₃ or the sources of the cholesterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol used for its production.

It is a fact that most milk sold in the US will contain vitamin D₃ with two origins. (a) That vitamin D₃ made by the cow using sunlight to irradiate 7-dehydrocholesterol present in her skin. (b) That vitamin D₃ made by a chemical process and then added to the cow milk as a nutritional supplement. It is simply not possible to distinguish the origins of the two vitamin D₃ preparations by any biological or chemical procedure, because they are the same molecular structure.
Author of above article:
Prepared by Professor Anthony W. Norman;
Department of Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences
University of California, Riverside CA 92521
(December 12, 2000)

2. Horizon Organic, milk producer

In addition, Horizon Organic milk is fortified with vitamin D, an important vitamin that helps your body absorb calcium. Without vitamin D, bones can become brittle and soft. Also, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, people who consumed vitamin D in daily servings of milk and fish were 40 percent less likely to develop potentially cancerous growths in the colon than those who didn’t get enough vitamin D.6