Folic acid is an important B vitamin found in a variety of foods, including fortified foods. It is water soluble, meaning your body uses what it needs and gets rid of any extra through your urine. While you may be selecting foods rich in folic acid, you may not be getting as much as you need since it is extremely sensitive to heat. Cooking foods high in folic acid reduces the content of the vitamin, decreasing the overall amount in your diet.
What Does Folic Acid Do?
Folic acid, or folate, is essential for growth and development. Folate is the natural form in meat and produce, while folic acid is the synthetic form is used in fortified foods and supplements. Folic acid is easier for your body to absorb. This important nutrient helps make and repair new cells, making it an essential vitamin for women of childbearing age, since pregnancy is a time of rapid cell division. You also need folic acid to produce and fix DNA and RNA, the genetic material in all cells.
How Much Do You Need?
According to the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements, the recommended dietary allowance, or RDA, for folic acid is 400 mcg per day for all adults. If you are pregnant, this amount jumps to 600 mcg, and breastfeeding requires 500 mcg of folic acid daily. As a woman, you need adequate folic acid each day, since it helps prevent neural tube defects. These defects affect the central nervous system of your growing fetus and occur between the 21st and 27th days of pregnancy, often before you know you are pregnant. While many foods supply the folic acid you need to prevent such defects, you may want to take a supplement to ensure you get the amount you need, since it is destroyed during cooking. If you decide to take a dietary supplement, let your physician know first as a precaution.
Folic Acid and Processing
Water-soluble vitamins, such as folic acid, are lost during cooking, poor storage and exposure to light, according to the Colorado State University Extension Service. While folic acid is broken down during high heat exposure, some of it comes out in water, such as during blanching. Retain some of the nutrient by using cooking water to prepare other foods or blending it into soup.
What Temperature Affects It?
According to research published in the "International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition" in 2005, folic acid can handle cooking up to a certain temperature. Researchers evaluated the effects of heat on cowpeas, which is a type of legume. The cowpeas in the study were fortified and had 213 mcg of folic acid per 100 g, before cooking. Folic acid stayed intact as high as 70 degrees Celsius, which is equivalent to about 158 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers observed folic acid degradation beginning at 80 degrees Celsius, or 176 degrees Fahrenheit. Exposure to temperatures up to 120 degrees Celsius, or 248 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour, decreased folic acid content by as much as 42 percent. Plenty of foods, such as spinach, avocados, peanuts and fortified breakfast cereal provide the folic acid you need without having to be cooked. Consuming these foods allows you to get the maximum folic acid possible.
References
- Office of Dietary Supplements: Folate
- Colorado State University Extension; Water-Soluble Vitamins; J. Anderson and L. Young; May 2010
- "International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition"; Degradation Kinetics of Folic Acid in Cowpea (Vigna Catjang L.) During Cooking; P. Nisha, et al.; September 2005
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