Vitamin D Foods: What Actually Contains It, and How Much

Why vitamin D barely counts as a food nutrient

Unlike most nutrients, vitamin D comes mainly from skin synthesis rather than from diet. It is made in skin exposed to summer UVB light, and food is the fallback. The NHS puts the UK synthesis window at late March or early April to the end of September; outside it, SACN states that at UK latitude vitamin D is not synthesised at all.^[4][2]

Two forms exist: D3 from animal foods and from sunlight, D2 from fungi. That is why a nutrient with a 10 microgram daily figure has so few foods that carry a meaningful amount of it.^[1]

The arithmetic shows in national survey data. UK adults aged 19–64 average 3.9–4.5 micrograms a day from all sources including supplements — under half the reference nutrient intake SACN set in 2016 for everyone aged 4 and over.^[5][2]

Vitamin D foods, portion by portion: the micrograms table

Official UK food composition data settles the question that lists of "top 10 vitamin D foods" usually dodge — how much a real portion delivers. The figures below come from Table 1 of the SACN Vitamin D and Health report, which draws on McCance and Widdowson's Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset.^[2][3]

Source: SACN, Vitamin D and Health (2016), Table 1, page 109, from Finglas et al. 2015 (CoFID).^[2][3] The final column is the portion figure expressed against the 10 µg reference nutrient intake.

That is the whole list worth ranking — eleven foods rather than a top ten, and only five of them clear a third of the daily figure in one portion.

Where vitamin D foods leave a vegetarian or vegan diet

Vegetarian vitamin D sources top out in the single-digit micrograms. Eggs are the strongest at 1.7 micrograms each, fortified breakfast cereal adds 1.3 per bowl, and a portion of fortified fat spread 0.75 — together nearly 40% of the 10 microgram figure, and only if all three are eaten daily.^[2]

A vegan diet loses the eggs and falls back on fortification, which in Great Britain is voluntary rather than routine: cereal and spread together come to about a fifth of the figure. The exception is mushrooms. Cultivated ones are grown in the dark and hold very little, but wild mushrooms run 13–30 micrograms per 100 grams and UVB-treated mushrooms are sold here.^[2]

Whether voluntary fortification should stay voluntary is an open question in Britain. A 2024 SACN rapid review commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care found that a well-designed policy has the potential to improve UK vitamin D status, and that D3 raises blood 25(OH)D slightly more than D2 — by roughly 8 nmol/l in daily-dose studies.

Only Finland has systematically assessed its own programme. The review concluded that a modelling exercise is still needed to pick suitable foods and safe levels.^[9]

Our guide to vitamin D deficiency in the UK covers what that gap means over a winter.

Which food is highest in vitamin D?

Grilled herring is the highest vitamin D food in the UK composition tables, at 16.1 micrograms per 100 grams and 19.2 micrograms in a typical portion — almost twice the 10 microgram daily figure in one serving.^[2] Canned pink salmon follows at 14.4 micrograms a portion, then grilled mackerel at 13.6.

Every food at the top of that list is oily fish, which is the practical takeaway. Nothing outside the fish group comes close: the best non-fish entry in the table, a fortified fat spread at 7.5 micrograms per 100 grams, collapses to 0.75 micrograms once you use a realistic portion of it.^[2]

What are the 10 signs of low vitamin D?

There is no authoritative list of ten signs, and low vitamin D frequently produces no symptoms at all — which is why a blood test through a GP is the only way to know. What the NHS does describe is what prolonged, severe deficiency can lead to: rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults.^[6]

The symptoms the NHS lists for those conditions are bone pain in the back, shoulders, ribs, pelvis or legs, weak muscles, tingling or cramping muscles, bowed legs, swollen painful wrists, and bones that break after a minor accident.^[6] That is six, not ten, and it describes a diagnosed condition rather than a checklist to self-assess. See a GP if any of it sounds familiar.

How can I increase my vitamin D naturally?

Vitamin D goes up by three routes, and only one of them is large. Summer sunlight is that one: from late March to the end of September, short daily periods of skin exposure make most of what a UK adult needs.^[4] Oily fish is the second — one grilled salmon portion delivers 8.3 micrograms, one herring portion 19.2.^[2]

Fortified foods are the third and the smallest, adding roughly 1 to 1.3 micrograms per serving of cereal or spread.^[2] Stacking all three still leaves the October-to-March months uncovered, which is exactly why NHS advice for that period is a 10 microgram daily supplement rather than a diet change.^[1]

What drink is high in vitamin D?

No drink sold in the UK is naturally high in vitamin D, and British milk is not routinely fortified. That detail matters. Most online advice about drinking milk for vitamin D is written for the United States, where almost all milk is fortified at 9.6 micrograms per litre.^[2] In Great Britain, fortification of milks and plant drinks is voluntary.^[2]

Fortified plant drinks are therefore the realistic answer, and the amounts are modest. UV-treated mushroom powder, one novel-food route to fortifying a drink, was assessed by EFSA at a maximum use level of about 1.1 micrograms of vitamin D2 per 100 millilitres. A 200 ml glass fortified that way carries around 2.2 micrograms.^[7] Read the per-100 ml figure on the carton; if the label does not declare it, the drink has not been fortified.

What drains vitamin D from your body?

Nothing drains vitamin D in the way the question implies. What lowers vitamin D status is reduced production plus, for some people, dilution across body tissue. SACN reports that body fat and body mass index are inversely related to blood 25(OH)D concentration, and that levels rose again after weight reduction in studies of people with obesity.^[2]

On the production side, SACN names time of day, season, latitude, altitude, cloud cover, air pollution, clothing and sunscreen use as the factors that change how much skin makes.^[2] SACN also notes that synthesis is less efficient in people with darker skin pigmentation and in older people, and that season is the dominant factor at UK latitude.^[2]

Is 2 eggs a day enough vitamin D?

Two eggs a day supply about 3.4 micrograms of vitamin D — 34% of the 10 microgram daily figure, so no, not on their own.^[2] A whole boiled egg holds 3.2 micrograms per 100 grams, which works out at 1.7 micrograms for one egg, and the vitamin D sits in the yolk: 12.6 micrograms per 100 grams of yolk against 3.2 for the whole egg.^[2]

Eggs are still the most useful non-fish source in a normal week, and they are the reason a vegetarian diet reaches nearly 40% of the figure while a vegan one struggles to reach a fifth. UK survey data suggests the average egg carries 1.7 to 2.1 micrograms, varying with how the hens were fed.^[5]

If you are comparing formats across our gummy vitamins range, our vitamin D3 4000 IU + K2 gummies declare 100 µg of vitamin D per serving — the same unit the table above uses. That is ten times the NHS advice figure of 10 µg, and it matches the 100 µg a day upper intake level SACN cites for adults: a figure to know rather than to double.^[2]

The GB nutrition and health claims register authorises the wording "vitamin D contributes to the maintenance of normal bones" for the nutrient.^[8]

Related reading

For how the two nutrients work together once you move past food, read our guide to vitamin D3 and K2 benefits, which covers the pairing, the doses and what a UK label may say about them. And for when Britain actually goes looking for all of this, our UK supplement search trends report tracks vitamin D demand month by month — it swings 2.13× across the year, the sharpest seasonal curve of the health categories we measure.