The Great California Tortilla Conundrum

In this 147th episode, I discuss the recent California law taking effect on Janurary 1, 2026 enforcing the supplementation of Folic Acid into corn masa (corn flour). This will impact corn tortillas, tamales, corn chips, etc. It just so happens that upwards of 40% of the people this new law is intended to protect have a genetic trait where they cannot process folic acid properly. In this episode we will discuss the reasons why California has made this new law, who it is meant to protect, why it is a terrible idea, and how it is a hidden (though likely an unintended) attack against a specific ethnic group. Citations:Folic acid and vitamin B12 fortification of food for preventing neural tube defects in Europehttps://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k1572/rr-0#:~:text=Folic%20acid%20is%20a%20synthetic,unable%20to%20process%20folic%20acid.Circulating folic acid in plasma: relation to folic acid fortificationhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3763811/Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase Deficiencyhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK66131/NIH website: Folatehttps://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Folate-HealthProfessional/#:~:text=People%20with%20an%20MTHFR%20polymorphism,defects%20below)%20%5B41%5D.Selenium protects against the likelihood of fetal neural tube defects partly via thearginine metabolic pathwayhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35263693/