Dietary supplements are big news. Two thirds of people in the UK take a vitamin or mineral supplement. Every year in the US alone, $4billion is spent on vitamin and mineral supplements. The most popular are multivitamins and Vitamin D supplements.

But what is the really story - do we need supplements or can a healthy, balanced diet give us all the vitamins and minerals we need? Why are people taking Vitamin D supplements and is there really any need? We take a look at the history of diet supplements, the need for Vitamin D and the Vitamin D3 source you need to know about if you are following a plant-based diet.

The History of the Vitamin Supplement

One of the first recorded uses of vitamins was in 1749 when Scottish surgeon James Lind discovered that citrus fruits could help prevent scurvy. The Royal Navy adopted his recommendations to use lemons and limes to avoid the disease.

But it wasn’t until 1912, when Dr Casmir Funk discovered that untreated rice hunks were rich in amines (Vitamin B1). A year later, scientists at Yale and the University of Wisconsin studying animal diets with butterfat and cod liver oil discovered the first vitamins. Throughout the 1920’s there was a decade of discovery and development of supplements, from Vitamin C to D and K.

But it wasn’t until the 1930’s and 1940’s that we started to see the explosion of what would become the £600million industry in the UK every year. During the second world war, amid fears that rations meant people weren’t getting the nutrients they needed, people were encouraged to take supplements.

But we aren’t at War anymore. Surely we can get a lot of our vitamins and minerals from a healthy balanced diet, be that plant-based or otherwise? Not quite.