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

DFE Details

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

Entering Food Folate or Folic Acid Values

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.

Entering Total Folate Values

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:

Total Folate µg was the sum of the food folate and folic acid values, so nutraCoster increases food folate and folic acid proportionally to 105 µg and 150 µg.
The new value of 105 µg for food folate converts to 105 DFE and 26 %RDI.
The new value of 150 µg for folic acid converts to 255 DFE and 64 %RDI.
Using the new DFE and %RDI values, Total Folate is now 360 DFE and 90 %RDI.
The following table shows the results after the change:

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.