HWN Suggests

Give me a beet: Why this root vegetable should be on your plate

Meet the beet. Fans of "The Office" may know it as the mainstay of Schrute Farms. Others may have casually tossed them into conversation, remarking that someone has turned "beet red" from embarrassment. While the crimson-colored vegetable has deep roots in American culture and colloquialisms, it rarely seems to make it onto the plate where it belongs.

That's because people just don't understand the beet, said Catherine Champagne, a professor of dietary assessment and nutritional counseling at Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.

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Featured

 No, beetroot isn’t vegetable Viagra. But here’s what else it can do

Is beetroot really vegetable Viagra, as UK TV doctor Michael Mosley suggests? What about beetroot’s other apparent health benefits – from reducing your blood pressure to improving your daily workout? Here’s what the science says.

 The Truth About Beetroot and Nitric Oxide

The recent media buzz around beetroot being used to enhance nitric oxide is sending many athletes and bodybuilders to health food stores in search of products that contain beetroot. Before you race off to buy a pre-workout product with beetroot to increase your pumps, let’s discuss the facts.

Articles of Interest

Drink your beets

Carnitine, chromium, anabolic steroids: Athletes have experimented with a broad array of aids in pursuit of a performance edge. A popular — if unglamorous — one today that seems safe and backed by solid data: the juice of beets, for the nitrate it contains. But because these products are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, consumers often can’t know for sure how much nitrate they contain. Last year, Coggan and an undergraduate tested 24 products, from powders to concentrates and bulk juice, and found that only five contained effective levels of nitrate.

Surprising Health Benefits of Beets

The health benefits of beets range from lower blood pressure to improved athletic performance. Learn about beet nutrition, the healthiest ways to eat beets—juiced, raw or cooked—who can benefit from eating them and who should steer clear of them.

The Root Vegetable of Love: Everything You Need to Know About Beets and Their Benefits

Forget Tinder—it might be time to eat some beets. According to European folklore, if two people eat from the same beetroot, they are destined to fall in love. Or, if you follow the beliefs of the ancient Greeks and Romans, at least get a little bit frisky. In fact, beetroots were believed to be the root of Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love, Pleasure, and Fertility.

A new way to "beet" high blood pressure?

Beets rarely rank high on anyone's list of most-loved vegetables. But here's a reason to give these ruby-red roots another try: beet juice may help lower blood pressure, according to a study in the February 2015 Hypertension. Beets contain naturally high levels of nitrates, which your digestive system converts into nitric oxide. This compound relaxes and widens blood vessels, which, in turn, lowers blood pressure.

Beet of the moment

The Romans painted them on the walls of their brothels and the Elizabethans 'seasoned' them with fresh dung. Monty Don celebrates the colourful delights of the humble beetroot.

Beetroot as a functional food with huge health benefits: Antioxidant, antitumor, physical function, and chronic metabolomics activity

Previously, beetroot is mainly consumed as a food additive. In recent years, the beetroot, especially the betalains (betanin) and nitrates it contains, now has received increasing attention for their effective biological activity. Betalains have been proven to eliminate oxidative and nitrative stress by scavenging DPPH, preventing DNA damage, and reducing LDL. It also has been found to exert antitumor activity by inhibiting cell proliferation, angiogenesis, inducing cell apoptosis, and autophagy.

Beets: The New Spinach

It’s easy to love fresh beets, and not just for their nutritional advantages. Beets have an earthy, hard-to-define flavor like no other vegetable’s, one reason they so often appear on high-end restaurant menus. But they're perfect at home, too, and so this week we'll be offering some simple ways to prepare them.

Benefits of Root Beets – Get this Vegetable on Your Plate!

Beets might be intimidating to the naive. They have knobs, are blood-red, and have a little muddy flavor. But beetroot is considerably more complex than meets the eye. Beets are unique. They are one of the very few fruits or vegetables with that deep red-purple color, which offers a different mix of nutrients and antioxidants than you’ll find in the produce of other colors.

Dancing to the beet

Beets are a healthy addition to any diet. The juice is considered safe, even as a concentrate, in supplements, smoothies, and as a food additive. Advise patients that, though perhaps surprising, it is harmless to have pink or red urine or stools from drinking beetroot juice. Few adverse effects have been reported, but caution those with already low blood pressure to monitor carefully when drinking beet juice regularly. Patients subject to calcium oxalate kidney stones should avoid beetroot juice as beets are high in oxalate content.

Discover the History of Beets

They are said to have grown in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Elizabethans enjoyed them in tarts and stews. Thomas Jefferson planted them at Monticello. Medieval cooks stuffed them into pies. The colorful, sweet root vegetable known as the beet tends to spark an impassioned response from folks who either love it or loathe it.

Eat Beets?! Why Beets Should Be a Staple in Your Pantry (Plus 3 Delish Recipes!)

Last week I posted a Cook Like Me for roasted beets. It really is a simple thing to make but it does take time. If you want the beets but don't want to turn the oven on (or get your hands pink) you can always buy prepared beets all ready to eat right at your grocery store.

Everything you need to know about beetroots

Beetroots have been around for centuries, yet only recently have they come into the limelight. These vibrant and versatile vegetables are packed with health-promoting nutrients, providing a wide range of benefits. Whether raw or cooked, beetroots make a delicious and nutritious addition to any diet.

How Beets Became Beet-Red

Beets, it turns out, have evolved another, separate way of being red. In a paper published in New Phytologist, biologists recently reported that they have discovered a key step in the evolution of this process, which not only helps explain the origins of a brilliant natural color, but could have uses far beyond brightening your dinner table.

I Drank Beetroot Juice Every Day for a Month, and It Gave Me a Major Energy Buzz

Could this be my new flat white?

Making The Case For Beets

What's behind all this beet antipathy? Is it chemistry? Genetics? Canned beets? President Obama? (He famously banned them from the White House garden.) Unlike the president, I adore fresh beets, which are at their sweetest from May through September. Some beets, especially dark red ones, have a sweetness close to sugar, while others admittedly taste a little like dirt, or as beet lovers prefer, "earthy."

The Good & The Not-So-Good Truth About Beets...

Lastly, if you're drinking your nitrates in beetroot juice or beet juice concentrate, you might want to watch your blood sugar! Those products carry a hefty dose of sugar — do you really want to take something that saps your energy when you're trying to promote your health?

The Potential Benefits of Red Beetroot Supplementation in Health and Disease

Based on the available data, beetroot appears to be a powerful dietary source of health promoting agents that holds potential as therapeutic treatment for several pathological disorders. The powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and vascular-protective effects offered by beetroot and its constituents have been clearly demonstrated by several in vitro and in vivo human and animal studies; hence its increasing popularity as a nutritional approach to help manage cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Trend alert! Why beets are the hot new ‘superfood’

As awareness of their potential benefits grow, we have to ask: Are beets really healthy? Or is this just hype?

What Is This Hype Of Dehydrating Beets?

Dehydrated Beets are a unique source of phytonutrients called battalions. Betanin and vulgaxanthin are the two best-studied battalions from beets, and both have been shown to provide antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and detoxification support. You can see these betalain pigments in other foods. The concentration of betalains in the outer layer and the inner layer of beets gives you an unexpectedly great opportunity to boost these health benefits.

What to Know About the Health Benefits of Beets—From Your Muscles to Your Heart

Who ever thought you could supercharge your workout with a bowl of borscht?