Recommended daily intakes in the USA are 400 μg per day for both men and women and 600 μg per day for pregnant women (USDA, 2011). In France, authorities recommend a folate intake of 330 μg per day for men and 300 μg per day for women with an increase to 1 mg per day for pregnant women (ANSES, 2012).
INCA 1 and 2 studies report that in France there is a gap between the real and the recommended intake of around 20% for women and 15% for men and that vegetables contribute significantly to this folate intake (40%) (Lafay, 2009). The evolution of life styles means that most fruits and vegetables, particularly green vegetables, are consumed as processed products such as cans or frozen products. Therefore, there is a need to better understand folates losses during industrial processing so as to be able to alleviate this loss in process optimisation. This motivated our study in folates losses along two representative industrial chains, i.e. canning for green beans and freezing for spinach.
Green beans and spinach were chosen for their high folate content and high share of processed products in their consumption. Moreover, industrial canning and freezing chains were studied because they combine processing steps frequently found for fruits and vegetables such as washing and blanching, but with different intensities of heat treatments, such as blanching and sterilisation.