SweetWARE
nutraCoster 2.1
Folate Technical Details
Folate (Vitamin B9) is a water-soluble vitamin. It is important in cell division, and is important during pregnancy to prevent neural tube birth defects. Folate is also called Folacin.
Folate consists of naturally occurring food folate, and synthetic folic acid.
The body more easily absorbs folic acid than it does food folate. A unit called Dietary Folate Equivalents (DFE) is used to compare the activity of food folate and folic acid. 1 µg (microgram) of food folate is equivalent to 1 µg DFE. However, 1 µg of folic acid is equivalent to 1.7 DFE. The following table summarizes:
Nutrient |
µg |
µg DFE |
Food Folate |
1 |
1 |
Folic Acid |
1 |
1.7 |
At the time of this writing (2004), the RDI (Reference Daily Intake) of Folate is 400 µg DFE.
Because the conversion from µg to µg DFE is different for food folate and folic acid, you cannot convert µg to DFE (or DFE to µg) for Total Folate unless you know the proportion of food folate to folic acid in the sample.
For example, knowing that you have 170 µg DFE of Total Folate is not enough information to determine how much food folate and folic acid you have. 170 µg DFE of Total Folate can come from 170 µg of food folate, or from 100 µg of folic acid, or from 85 µg food folate plus 50 µg folic acid, or from many other combinations of food folate and folic acid. The following table summarizes:
Sample
Values |
µg |
Total µg DFE |
170 µg Food Folate |
170 |
170 |
100 µg Folic Acid |
100 |
170 |
85 µg Food Folate + 50 µg Folic Acid |
135 |
170 |
In general, if a food is naturally occurring and has not been enriched with folic acid, you can assume that all of the folate is food folate.
nutraCoster Details
When you enter µg for food folate or folic acid, nutraCoster automatically calculates the DFE and %RDI values for the nutrient.
When you enter DFE for food folate or folic acid, nutraCoster automatically calculates the µg and %RDI values for the nutrient.
When you enter %RDI for food folate or folic acid, nutraCoster automatically calculates the µg and DFE values for the nutrient.
When you change any of the values for food folate or folic acid, nutraCoster checks the Total Folate value. If the Total Folate value was the sum of the food folate and folic acid values before the change, nutraCoster recalculates the Total Folate value to be the sum of the new food folate and folic acid values.
If the Total Folate value was not the sum of the food folate
and folic acid values before the change, nutraCoster does not update the Total Folate value.
When you enter Total Folate values for µg, DFE or %RDI, nutraCoster cannot calculate the values for food folate or the folic acid unless it knows the proportions of food folate and folic acid (see the section DFE Details above for why this is so).
When you enter µg for Total Folate, nutraCoster checks to see
if the Total Folate µg value was the sum of the food folate and folic acid µg
values before the change. If so, nutraCoster recalculates the food folate and folic acid
µg values so the sum of the values is equal to the new Total Folate µg value,
while keeping the proportions the same
If nutraCoster recalculates the food folate and/or folic acid µg values as a result
of a change to the Total Folate µg value, it will also recalculate the DFE and
%RDI values for the food folate and folic acid.
Finally, nutraCoster will recalculate the
DFE and %RDI values of Total Folate based on the new values for food folate and
folic acid.
Example: Suppose you have 170 µg Total Folate, which is composed of 70 µg food folate and 100 µg folic acid. The following table lists the values for the example:
Nutrient |
µg |
µg DFE |
%RDI |
Total Folate |
170 |
240 |
60% |
Food Folate |
70 |
70 |
18% |
Folic Acid |
100 |
170 |
43% |
Now change the Total Folate to 255 µg. nutraCoster performs the
following steps:
Nutrient |
µg |
µg DFE |
%RDI |
Total Folate |
255 |
360 |
90% |
Food Folate |
105 |
105 |
26% |
Folic Acid |
150 |
255 |
64% |
nutraCoster performs a similar series of steps when you enter DFE or %RDI values
for Total Folate.