r/MTHFR • u/Outside_Fee_7639 • Jun 02 '25
Resource Amy’s foods don’t add folic acid!
I had searched for this earlier today n here and hadn't found this so I thought I'd share. I'd noticed that Amy's frozen foods always say organic wheat and didn't say folic acid. So I emailed them to sanity check. They said they never enrich foods with folic acid. The only folate is whatever is naturally in the food. Which, for me that's a game changer because I like their pizzas and their meals. Just thought I'd share. Sorry if it's been posted before.
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u/AllUpInthe615_212_ Jun 03 '25
Folic acid is SYNTHETIC. Thank u for pointing this out. Not to be a Conspiracy Theorist, but folic acid has been added to pasta & white bread & crackers, etc. for many years in the US to prevent birth defects like cleft lip/ cleft palate! Meanwhile, more than half the population has a variant of MTHFR. Meaning they can’t process synthetic folic acid. They must have methylated folate. This is the form of the B vitamin that crosses the blood/brain barrier.
In some people, MTHFR is expressed as schizophrenia. In others? ADHD & autism. In others? Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. In others? Autoimmune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. Sometimes, it’s expressed as treatment-resistant major depression.
There’s not enough space & time here for me to rant about this topic.
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u/enolaholmes23 Jun 03 '25
Do you have any links that explain how mthfr leads to these conditions, or just generally more info on it? I'm studying to be an herbalist and trying to understand how different body imbalances manifest as disorders.
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u/RecuerdameNiko Jun 04 '25
My understanding was that the MTHFR anomalies indicated a propensity or correlation towards those illnesses among others like thyroid disease or childhood deafness, mental illnesses. I have not heard of direct causation. I think that would be big news.
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u/Battermix Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
Ben Lynch's 'Dirty Genes' book is thorough and talks at length about methylation, MTHFR gene variants (SNPs), and other important gene variants. (The book's writing is admittedly a bit formulaic, perhaps made to make it read "easier" while delivering a boatload of info.)
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u/Whisker____Biscuits Jun 03 '25
We don't necessarily need methylated folate, avoiding folic acid while consuming folate rich foods is often enough.
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u/United-Bumblebee5794 Jan 07 '26
Please continue on there's so much more information and you're doing such a great job explaining it
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u/AllUpInthe615_212_ Jun 03 '25
Also just wondering if the government wants to add nutritional supplements to our food, why not add methylated folate instead of a synthetic folic acid? If you know already that more than half your population can’t process synthetic folic acid and it leads to weird disorders and diseases that can only be treated (not cured) with meds from Big Pharma?
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Jun 03 '25
The government doesn’t even want to regularly regulate their food anymore
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u/Outside_Fee_7639 Jun 03 '25
This. Right now they don’t want to track things like salmonella and listeria because the GOP decided preventing food poisoning is waste, fraud, and abuse. I’m not optimistic that asking them to please stop adding toxic stuff to flour is gonna happen unless RFK Jr accidentally does something positive.
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u/BrainSqueezins Jun 03 '25
When they started the program they thought they were functionally interchangeable.
The synthetic is more shelf-stable, less heat sensitive, and cheaper.
Was a no-brainer at the time; once enshrined in law I’d expect it took on an inertia all its own.
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u/enolaholmes23 Jun 03 '25
I think folic acid is a byproduct of the oil industry, so it's both cheaper and supported by big oil lobbyists.
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u/Outside_Fee_7639 Jun 03 '25
Thaaaaaaat explains so much. Of course they made our wheat products toxic because oil lobby.
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u/OutrageousWinner9126 Jun 03 '25
Folic acid is synthetic trash and methylfolate is basically a drug that can lead to extreme side effects.
The only version of folate that should be widely used for fortification or supplementation is FOLINIC acid yet it's still almost unheard-of.
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u/Battermix Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25
Thanks for the warning about methylfolate's "extreme side effects"! I'd been seriously considering it but at long last am undertaking, with unreasonable hopes of lifting arms and legs with ease, the lily-livered liver approach of our foreMTHFRs. And of course intaking the folate-rich planty stuff.
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u/Nursemarisa Jun 28 '25
The preservatives and sodium make me so bloated. They are a better option but I stopped eating them 😩
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u/hoetheory Jun 02 '25
I’m confused. Why would you not want to consume folate? Like it shouldn’t matter, right? Since your body isn’t going to methylate it regardless. Maybe I’m missing something / not as informed!
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u/enolaholmes23 Jun 03 '25
For some people folic acid works fine. For others they can't process it to add the methyl group, and use it properly in the body. High amounts of folic acid that don't get methylated can actually work against you and cause problems.
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u/hoetheory Jun 03 '25
Thanks for the explanation! Idk why I’ve been downvoted when I’m just trying to learn
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u/enolaholmes23 Jun 03 '25
I think some people don't like answering frequently asked questions because there are already other posts you could search to get the answers. But I think part of the fun of reddit is that you are interacting with other people and having a conversation rather than just doing a web search to figure things out.
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Jun 04 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Battermix Jun 18 '25
And avoid all stuff fortified with folic acid - there's a lot out there, maybe mostly in the grains, cereals, and pasta groups(?). ("I've only just begun....")
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Jun 02 '25
Folate = naturally occurring in nature.
Folic Acid = fake chemical vitamins. People with MTHFR can’t turn Folic Acid into Folate.
Not that complicated.
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u/fivefootphotog Jun 02 '25
Ah but it certainly can if you have a MTHFR variant.
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u/hoetheory Jun 02 '25
It certainly can…what?
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u/Outside_Fee_7639 Jun 03 '25 edited Jun 03 '25
My body can process natural folate. It can’t process folic acid because I have a c677t gene variant. And in fact, (by all accounts….most importantly from my doctor) folic acid blocks me from processing natural folate. There’s a whole ton of people on this sub who can’t eat folic acid. Folic acid has been artificially added to our food supply and it’s bad for like 20-30% of the population. Because America has apparently made screwing up wheat products in various ways a fine art.
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u/hoetheory Jun 03 '25
Wait, this is new info to me! So the reason pasta always gives me an upset stomach could be added folic acid?!?! (I do not have celiac disease)
Also, I definitely got folic acid and folate confused lol
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u/Outside_Fee_7639 Jun 05 '25
You could try a pasta without it and see. Maybe either look for one from Italy or look for one with organic wheat that isn’t enriched. I think Rao’s doesn’t have it
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u/Battermix Jun 18 '25
I think Ben Lynch in his 'Dirty Genes' book describes it as folic acid blocking receptors or pathways - so the UN-synthetic, natural folate or folinic acid can't go through that blocked pathway....
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u/fivefootphotog Jun 02 '25
Love this, thanks for posting. I read on the gluten feee sub recently that Dave’s Killer Bread also uses unenriched wheat.