Folic acid is a water soluble B vitamin that can be found in many foods. It is considered extremely beneficial to the human body and especially babues or more appropriatly future babies. Folic acid is involved in the replication and maintaince of RNA and DNA. In the early weeks of pregnency proper DNA replication is essential to having a healthy fetus.



Women who are deficient in folic acid or have a diet low in folic acid are at a higher risk for giving birth to babies with certain types of birth defects. These defects include neural tube disorders, including Spina Bifida, Cleft Lip, Cleft Palate, and limb defects.

Folic acid is also associated with Homocysteine, which is a molecule that can build up in your blood and scar the lining of your blood vessels. Folic acid helps to keep levels of homocysteine down in the blood.

In order to get enough folic acid on a daily basis one would need to take in around four hundred micrograms. A woman who could become pregnent, is pregnant or is lactating would need six hundred to eight hundred micrograms daily. There is an upper tolerable limit of one thousand micrograms maximun that a person should take in on a daily basis. Although an accident such as taking two folic acid supplements in one day probably won’t do any harm, as long as its not an extremely high dosage and its just a one time thing.

To get say four hundred micrograms of folic acid it is possible to eat from a variety of food sources. Beef liver by far has the largest amount of folic acid at one hundred and seventy four mcg. for each liver. Also a large stalk of brocolli has seventy six mcg. and a few ounces of cheddar cheese has eleven mcg. A meal of fried beef liver and broccoli and cheese would add up to a little over half or two hundred and fifty mcg of the daily requirement. Though many aren’t fond of Beef liver these days, it would also provide a great deal of other vitamins and nutrients.

A light lunch such as a salad with four large leaves of Kale is forty nine mcg, four large leaves of lettuce which are twenty four mcg and four large leaves of Spinach that are thirty three mcg. would provide one hundred and six mcg of the daily requirement. Add this to the beef liver meal and that equals three hundred and fifty six mcg. of folic acid, nearly to the recommended amount.

And add to that a breakfast of one medium orange, twenty nine mcg. and a slice or two of whole wheat toast at approximently eleven mcg. and the total becomes three hundred and ninety six mcg of folic acid Top it off with a cup of whole milk at four mcg. and the total is four hundred micrograms of folic acid.

Obviously this is just an example of the daily meal choices that can be made in order to achieve the mininum daily requirements for folic acid.

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