Robert Lustig explains how milk got fortified with vitamin D: UV light converts 7-dehydrocholesterol into vitamin D. Harry Steenbock discovered this at Wisconsin in 1919, and the patent made the university rich.
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Rob, what do you mean by irradiate it? Harry Steenbach from the University of Wisconsin back in 1919, figured out that you could irradiate with ultraviolet rays a, you know, carton of milk, and the 7D hydrocholesterol in the milk would basically isomerized to vitamin D. And you could vitamin D fortify milk that way. And that was one of the reasons why the University of Wisconsin had one of the large, largest budgets, because, you know, that patent made the University of Wisconsin a friggin fortune. The other one that made them a lot of money was Warfarin or, you know, Coumadin. And they've had a couple others since then, too. But that was the thing that really got them started. So that's another reason why Wisconsin is America's Dairylands. But, you know, having, you know, been a faculty member there for several years.