Vitamin D

Last year, while in Norway, my husband, Kory, took out his bottle of Möller's Tran (cod liver oil) for his morning swig.  It’s loaded with vitamin D.  It’s hard to find a Norwegian that didn’t grow up swallowing it every morning of their childhood.  Norwegians have more cod, than they do sunshine, so they figured out years ago how to solve that vitamin deficiency.  Old habits die hard.

Our son had friends over that morning so Kory offered the boys a spoonful.  They wrinkled up their noses and said, “No, thanks,” except for 12-year-old Henrik.  Henrik’s response was, “Sure, I’ll have some.”  The other boys looked at him in astonishment as they told him how much they hated that stuff.  “I hate it too,” Henrik replied, “but it’s good for the body,” and down the hatch it went.  Smart kid.

Some Norwegians still opt for the liquid variety of cod liver oil but overall it isn’t as popular as it once was.  I’m guessing it’s because Norwegians have much more free time than ever before so they afford themselves the time to absorb their vitamin D from the sun, when it does finally appear.

Every house I’ve seen in Norway has a sun deck. I’m certain that one of Norwegian’s favorite pastimes is sunning themselves.  If the sun is out, all the world stops and everyone goes outside, leans back in a chair on their veranda, and quietly soaks up the sun for hours on end. 

The oddest thing about this whole ritual is that women take off their tops and sit outside in their bra, in order to maximize their skin exposure.  A bra, in Norway, is just another piece of clothing and not considered an undergarment, like we think of it here in America.  It’s common to see old ladies out working in their yards on a nice day, just wearing pants and a bra.  It was hard to get used to.  Even on the warmest of days, I still can’t bring myself to do it.

One sunny day, we hiked to the top of a nearby mountain and a young woman came running up soon after us, just wearing shorts and a sexy see-through bra.  I recognized her as the woman that had helped us earlier that day at the bank.  It instantly moved our otherwise professional relationship into the realm of fairly intimate.  I wasn’t comfortable with it at all, but Kory thought it wasn’t so bad. 

I’m thinking this may be why the younger generation has moved away from Norway’s tradition of swallowing cod liver oil to finding other, more stimulating ways, of getting their vitamin D requirements.