As temperatures plummet and daylight hours near their nadir, our bodies’ stores of  ‘sunshine’ Vitamin D are probably on the wane, only to be replenished next Summer, unless a Caribbean holiday is in the bag.  (Kindly refrain from bragging if so…) Vitamin D is essential for healthy bones and teeth, so is especially important for children.

However ROAD has learnt that an awful lot of Brits end up being deficient in Vitamin D by the end of the winter.  One tip to counter this is to expose our skin – even just hands and face – to 20 minutes of daylight each day during the winter months.  This is surprisingly difficult if you are either (A) Office based, in which case ‘outdoor time’ may only entail 30 seconds to and from the local deli – or - (B) A night worker – a far more common species than most people realise.  (Who bakes your bread, delivers your mail, puts breakfast news on the airwaves etc – ?)

The solution? Well it’s pink, it’s oily and it’s pretty much the best source of Vitamin D known to man and bear : Salmon.  Eat plenty of it and you should be fine.

With luck, this winter won’t last 8 months, unlike 2009’s.  It’d be nice if The Weatherman spared us the heavy snow which ground London to a halt, with all 8,000 buses unable to leave their sheltrs for the roads which had become ice rinks.  Remember this?

So, a little suggestion for the woman who left her home in the Scottish highlands last December to buy a turkey for Christmas but couldn’t get home for 30 days: Perhaps this year it’d be best to stick to a nice Lochmuir salmon.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8467242.stm