The vitamin D nonsense paper of the year: Biofortified tomatoes

This year vitamin D nonsense information of the year comes by a plant biologist at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, UK who wants to block a tomatoe conversion pathway leading to an “accumulation of the vitamin D precursor” (which reminds me of the 1930 attempts of mushroom irradiation to generate high amounts of vitamin D2).

Martin and her colleagues plan to study this, and have been given permission to grow their gene-edited tomatoes in fields. The team also hopes to measure the impact of outdoor UV light exposure on conversion of provitamin D3 to vitamin D3 in the plants’ leaves and fruit …You can only edit what you understand,” he says. “And it’s only because we understand the biochemistry that we’re able to make those sorts of interventions.”

Vitamin D supplements are clearly over rated according to a recent BMJ paper. No doubts that it is a bad idea to supplement an uncontrolled amount of an pro-hormone by eating tomatoes.

Fortunately with 0.2  μg/g  or 8 IU D3/g dried tomatoe we are below toxicity levels.