Which foods are highest in folate?
3 oz of Chicken, liver, all classes, cooked gives 491.3 µg of folate. That is 123% of the Daily Value, and it is the highest of the 1000 foods on this site that has not been fortified.
The largest number in the table belongs to Cornmeal, degermed, white at 131% of the Daily Value. It ranks there because folate was added during manufacture rather than because the food carries it naturally, which is what the fortified label marks.
Share of the Daily Value (400 µg) in one portion.
| Food | Portion | Amount | % DV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cornmeal, degermed, white fortified | 1 cup (157 g) | 526 µg | 131% |
| Cornmeal, degermed, yellow fortified | 1 cup (157 g) | 526 µg | 131% |
| Chicken, liver, all classes, cooked | 3 oz (85 g) | 491.3 µg | 123% |
| Edamame, frozen, prepared | 1 cup (155 g) | 482.1 µg | 121% |
| Lentils, mature seeds, cooked, boiled | 1 cup (198 g) | 358.4 µg | 90% |
| Cowpeas, common, mature seeds, cooked | 1 cup (171 g) | 355.7 µg | 89% |
| Mung beans, mature seeds, cooked, boiled | 1 cup (202 g) | 321.2 µg | 80% |
| Sunflower seed kernels, oil roasted | 1 cup (135 g) | 315.9 µg | 79% |
| Sunflower seed kernels from shell, dry roasted | 1 cup (128 g) | 303.4 µg | 76% |
| Beans, pinto, mature seeds, cooked | 1 cup (171 g) | 294.1 µg | 74% |
This ranking is per typical portion rather than per 100 g. Lists built per 100 g end up full of dried herbs and fortified bars, which is technically correct and practically useless, because nobody sits down to 100 g of thyme. Items marked fortified rank where they do because nutrients were added during manufacture, not because the food itself is rich in them.
How to read this list
The cornmeal at the top is there because of fortification rather than nature. Enriched grain products in the United States carry added folic acid, which is also absorbed better than the folate that occurs in food, at least 85 per cent against roughly 50.
That gap is the label's assumption more than a measured fact, and it has held up worse than expected. The label counts one microgram of folic acid as 1.7 micrograms of food folate, which puts food folate at around 59 per cent of the synthetic form. Measured with labelled folate over four weeks in 72 adults, folate from fruit, vegetables and liver came out at about 78 to 85 per cent of folic acid, on an interval wide enough to include 100 per cent. Nobody should read that as the two being equal. Read it as the gap being smaller than the arithmetic on the packet assumes.
The food the folate sits in matters as well. Given the same tracer dose from spinach, wheat germ and Camembert, 24 adults took it up best and fastest from the spinach, and the spread between people was very high for the wheat germ. There is no one conversion that works for every food, which is the quiet problem underneath every folate table, this one included.
Everything else in the table is the natural version. Liver, edamame, lentils, cowpeas, mung beans, sunflower seeds, pinto beans. A cup of cooked lentils is most of a day.
Not for everyone. One group should not rely on this table alone. If you could become pregnant, the advice is 400 micrograms a day of folic acid from a supplement or fortified food, because the thing it prevents happens in the first weeks, often before a pregnancy is confirmed. Food folate is good for you and it is not the form this particular recommendation is written in.
If you are here because you have been told you are low, the sign that usually prompts the test is megaloblastic anaemia, where red blood cells come out large and abnormal, along with fatigue, breathlessness and a sore tongue. Food fixes the intake. The anaemia is a conversation with a doctor, because B12 deficiency looks the same on a blood count.
One reason this table is not the whole answer. The trials that made folic acid a public health recommendation used the synthetic form, which is absorbed at about 85 per cent against roughly 50 per cent for the folate in food. That is why the advice for anyone who could become pregnant is written as 400 micrograms of folic acid from a supplement or fortified food rather than as a number of cups of lentils. the full review is here.
Written from the evidence cards and the data on this page, then checked back against the sources. Bioma Learn has no human medical reviewer at this time and we say so rather than invent one. Information, not medical advice. How we verify.
Full guide: Folate and folic acid: the clearest success in nutrition policy, and its one side effect
Data: USDA FoodData Central. % Daily Value against the FDA DV of 400 µg. Checked 2026-09-15.