Breaking It Down: The Best Sources, Foods & Supplements For Vegan Vitamin D

As a vegan, you often face nosy people questioning your choices and asking about your health (yes, I'm getting enough protein, thank you very much).

Whether for ethical, health, or sustainability concerns, we respect your decision to follow this lifestyle and honestly just want to help you live your best life—which involves making sure you're getting enough vitamin D. 

You probably already know about the massive problem that is vitamin D deficiency, but just to reiterate, 93% of U.S. adults1 aren't even getting 400 IU of vitamin D on a daily basis, which is already drastically lower than the dose needed to achieve and maintain sufficient vitamin D levels in your body, aka your vitamin D status (more on that later). 

Given that 41% of American adults2 are insufficient in D (and 29% are straight-up deficient) per blood test results and the top sources of vitamin D are cod liver oil and beef liver (eeek), people who follow a vegan diet have to be extra intentional about their vitamin D intake.

With the right knowledge and a high-quality supplement on hand, keeping your plant-powered body pumped full of enough vitamin D is totally doable. 

This essential, fat-soluble vitamin is critical for proper calcium and phosphorus balance, musculoskeletal health, thyroid function, insulin secretion, blood pressure regulation, cell differentiation, and more.* 

Regular and meaningful vitamin D intake—from food, sunshine, and proper supplementation—can support the gut microbiome, encourage healthy muscle function, promote a healthy pregnancy3, and bolster deep, restful sleep.* Without enough vitamin D, you can experience suboptimal bone health, low mood, less immune resilience, brain fog, and higher oxidative stress.* 

Unfortunately, you can't depend on any of these sources to provide you with adequate amounts of this essential micronutrient day in and day out. Even getting vitamin D from the sun is hard. You have to be aware of season, location (latitude), time of day, minimal erythema dose (MED), and a list of other complicated factors (including age, skin tone, and highly encouraged SPF skin protection). 

"While we are huge fans of obtaining vitamin D from food sources and the sun, studies show that many American adults have suboptimal vitamin D levels, so supplementation is a great way to ensure levels are sufficient—with sunlight and foods providing an extra bonus,"* the Married to Health team tells mbg.

There are two main types of vitamin D you can consume: D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol). Generally, foods rich in D3 come from animals. These include cod liver oil, trout, salmon, and egg yolks. Sources of D2 are usually plant-derived and are sadly few and far between (as you can see from the list of vegan food sources above). 

When aiming to up your vitamin D levels, vitamin D3 is 87% more effective5 at raising and maintaining those levels than D2.* As mbg's vice president of scientific affairs, Ashley Jordan Ferira, Ph.D., RDN, shares, the totality of science is clear: D2 just isn't suitable for supplementation when compared to the superior stability, bioefficacy, and bioactivity of D3.* 

When looking for a vegan vitamin-D3-sourced supplement, be sure to check the source. Many supplements source their D3 from lanolin, which is a high-quality source but is derived from sheep's wool (for you vegan-minded folks). However, vegan D supplements will source their vitamin D from mushrooms (remember, that's the inferior D2 form). On the rare occasion, an innovative product will provide you with D3 from algae or lichen.

I think we can all agree that "thriving" is how we want to describe our health and wellness. There's a big difference between simply avoiding vitamin D insufficiency (aka survival) and striving for thriving levels—and unfortunately, clinical "sufficiency" is defined by the former. 

Vitamin D serum levels, aka 25(OH)D, are measured in ng/mL when your health care provider measures them (i.e., blood test). In order to achieve the clinical definition (cutoff) of vitamin D sufficiency, which is 30 ng/mL, you need at least 3,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day, and this level of D isn't even enough.

As Ferira is quick to point out, "This vitamin D math presupposes certain baseline assumptions about body composition. According to clinical research, folks with overweight or obesity need two to three times more vitamin D input to impact serum D levels in the same manner."

Furthermore, Ferira and other nutrition experts believe this 30 ng/mL cutoff level is not something to strive for but rather should be avoided with intention. Guided by science and the professional expertise of health care practitioners, mbg believes that the true 25(OH)D serum level goal is 50 ng/mL.

If you're strictly vegan, you'll find all of the above boxes ticked in mbg's ultimate multivitamin+, a vegan multi for women and men with a truly comprehensive (33 active ingredients) and clean formula, boasting 14 vitamins (including 2,000 IU of organic, algal D3), 13 minerals, and 6 botanical bioactives for whole-body health and longevity.*

When you follow any kind of specific diet, you have to be even more intentional about your nutrient intake. In a vegan diet, those nutrients include protein, iron, vitamin B12, iodine, and especially vitamin D. To name a few heavy hitters.

And if you look at the scientific evidence and ask the experts, they all tend to agree—supplementation is the most effective way to get the necessary amount of vitamin D to achieve healthy vitamin D status for your bone, muscles, brain, gut, etc. (shall I go on?).*

Proper intake of this MVP micronutrient vitamin D is critical to a thriving body and mind.* And what could be more important than taking care of your whole-body health so that you can get back to saving the animals, saving the planet, and veganizing every recipe that comes to mind?