Orange juice is a good natural source of folic acid. We all need to know which foods we should eat to help build up the amount of folic acid in our bodies.
Do you know how much folic acid you are getting from the food that you eat? The Vitatrack folate tracker will tell you! Log in now, enter the foods that you eat, and you’ll soon see if you are getting enough. Its fun, its easy and there’s nothing else like it...
Eat plenty of these…
Some common foods naturally contain useful amounts of folic acid (Vitamin B9) - peas, potatoes, broccoli, spinach, yeast extract, orange juice, bananas, peanuts, baked beans and granary or wholemeal bread.
Some breakfast cereals are also a good source of folic acid, in many cases extra folic acid is added to help you get up to half of what you need from food each day. You can check which cereals are best by looking on the packet for a blue spot saying ‘contains Folic Acid’.
Kelloggs have produced a helpful fact sheet which explains more about the importance of folic acid in your diet - Click here!
You can find out more about vitamins and healthy diet, including folic acid, on the NHS Healthy Start website - Click here!
Now prepare some folic feasts…
The womens’ charity ‘Wellbeing of Women’ has lots of advice for healthy eating during pregnancy. If you click here, the link will take you directly to some delicious folic feasts including temptations like steak and vegetable stir fry, warm chicken and broccoli salad, three-bean spinach and tomato stew and chick-pea and spinach curry!
Or you might like to try inventing your own folic feasts using the foods recommended on these and linked pages. If you stumble on something really delicious with lots of folic acid in it then please share it with Go Folic! and we’ll make sure it appears on these pages. Email your recipes to gofolic@asbah.org
But folic acid in food is not enough!
Many women say: "I already have a really healthy diet, won’t I get enough folic acid this way?" No! A healthy diet high in folic acid is very important but you will still need a folic acid tablet (400mcg) every day to prepare for a healthy pregnancy.
What the experts say:
"It is important that we prepare our bodies nutritionally for pregnancy. One nutrient that is particularly important is folate (vitamin B9) which is needed to make DNA and for cell division when the fetus is developing. Getting our nutrient levels right, ready for conception, and continuing this into pregnancy can help to protect the baby against Neural Tube Defects such as spina bifida (when the spinal cord does not close properly).
"Certain foods such as fortified cereals and green leafy vegetables can provide folate but it is very difficult to get the amounts of folate needed for pregnancy from foods alone. For this reason, it is recommended that a supplement containing 400µg folic acid is taken before conception and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy."
Dr Emma Derbyshire (pictured) is Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Human Nutrition, Manchester Metropolitan University