Want strong and healthy bones?
Then you better make sure you’re getting enough Vitamin D.
At this point, we’ve all heard it before (and have seen enough celebrities with milk mustaches) to know that at least some of the hype must be true. But the reality is, you haven’t heard the half of it.
Vitamin D isn’t just for bone health or celebrities in magazine ads. Vitamin D helps regulate virtually your entire immune and neuromuscular system, helping reduce inflammation throughout your muscles and joints and fight off infection.
So, with Vitamin D supporting the positive functioning of nearly every part of our bodies, how can we actually make sure that we’re getting enough of it?
Unfortunately, over 75% of the US population is vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D can be produced naturally within our bodies through at least thirty minutes of daily sun exposure - but it can take longer depending on your age, diet or skin color.
And what about during winter? Or when we’re stuck inside an office all day? Or that cancer-causing UV radiation from the sun that we’ve been warned to stay away from?
One study found that sunscreen with an SPF of only 15 can reduce vitamin D formation by as much as 99 percent. So where does that leave us?
Nutritional supplements should be an easy and effective way to get Vitamin D, right? Unfortunately, for this exact reason, the nutritional supplement industry (a loosely regulated 80 billion dollar business), has made a killing manufacturing low-cost and ineffective synthetic versions of Vitamin D that are then sold to consumers at a ridiculously high price. In fact, artificial Vitamin D production is one of the fastest-growing subsectors of this industry. And what do they make it with? Drum-roll...
Sheep grease.
That’s right – sheep grease. Also referred to as wool wax or wool grease, and often more technically (read: inoffensively) called lanolin.
Sheep secrete lanolin through their glands to help protect their wool coats from the environment by making them water-resistant. This secreted grease not only protects the wool coats of sheep, but it also contains the same vitamin D used in the vast majority of artificially manufactured vitamin D supplements on the market today.
Vitamin D is extracted from sheep’s wool by squeezing or rolling the wool until it excretes a yellow and waxy substance – sheep grease. After which it is heavily processed and concentrated with synthetic chemicals until it’s consolidated into one hard-to-swallow pill for yours truly.
Synthetically produced Vitamin D supplements aren’t the only place you can find sheep grease. It’s also commonly found in the wax that baseball players use to soften their mitts, shoe-polish, and generally, any product meant to prevent rust or corrosion created by water exposure. Meaning, the same thing you’re taking daily to stay healthy could also be used to make your shoes and gutters shiny.
So, what’s the alternative?
We believe this long-established industry-wide status quo of producing low quality, artificial, ineffective, and well, gross, nutritional supplements needs to be challenged.
A plant-based source is a far more natural, bioavailable and sustainable way to get the Vitamin D you need. The vitamin D found in Sol Food comes from a pure, vegetarian source: lichen.
Sure - it might be a little bit more expensive, but we’ll take lichen over sheep grease any day of the week.