Folic acid is needed for normal hematopoiesis and must be furnished from diet. In order to estimatefo="Total" folic acid
availability of food folate to man, the individual foods were selected for assay, based upon the general pattern of Korean diet in which consisted of and consumed almost all the time by Korean. Only certain common foods such as rice, beans, peas and some other vegetables were measured in this study by the method of microbiological assay using Lac tobacillus casei and Streptococcus faecalis with and without chicken pancreas conjugase treatment.
The folate content of foods assayed by L. casei, are significantly higher in all individual foods than.
released to the assay organisms especially to L. casei by conjugase treatment indicates that a large propo. rtion of the folate in foods is in the polyglutamyl form.
Although, the predominant chemical form of folate in the individual foods shows variable, even among similar foods. The use of ascorbic acid in assay to protect the labile form of folate against oxidation of tetrahydrofolates shows much increased folate contents at the different level in all of individual foods. These ,data were compared with some published values.
Total folate contents of foods assayed by L. casei were: cabbage 34. 5, carrot 17. 8, cucumber25.3, egg plant 24.7. Garland Chrysanthemum 76.5, garlic 3. 1, green onion 40.2, green peas 68.7, green pepper 27. 1, kidney beans 66.9, leek 64. 1, lettuce 39.3, onion 4. 3, spinach 150. 7, squash 26. 1, radish 40.3 and highly milled rice 29.9 ug per 100 g.
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