Beet

The beet is a vegetable that can be cultivated in many areas. Both the thick, bulbous taproot and the greens are edible. Beets have been grown as food for centuries and have been used also as a source of sugar. Beets are nutritious and easy to grow. They are also versatile and can be eaten in a number of ways, including raw, cooked, pickled, canned, and roasted. In addition, beets can be used to make colorings and are sometimes used as animal feed.

Background

The word beet comes from the Old English bete, which is believed to be of Celtic origin. The beet's history goes back far beyond Old English times. It is believed to have developed from the sea beet, a plant with bunched green leaves and thin yellow-white roots that grew wild along the Mediterranean shores.

Initially, people only consumed the stalks and leaves of the beet that grow above the ground. The leaves would be cooked much like chard or spinach and eaten, while the roots were used only as an ingredient in medicinal preparations. Ancient Roman and Greek writings include references to beets, the juice of which they saw as an aphrodisiac, or an aid to developing feelings of love. Beets were so favored that the ancients developed ways to grow them not only in the cooler spring and fall months but also in the hotter summer months when the vegetable does not naturally grow. Beets are also known to have grown in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the ancient gardens that once grew in what is modern-day Iraq around the year 600 BCE.

The earliest mention specifically of eating the beetroot is found in writings from Europe in the 1500s. At this time, the beet was still long and thin, closer in shape to a turnip or carrot than the thick, round shape common in contemporary times. The Europeans cultivated the vegetable, and developed the form known today. Originally, the beet was used mostly for medicinal purposes, until French chefs began experimenting and developed ways to incorporate the vegetable into side dishes. The beet was popular in large part due to its sweetness and its ability to grow year-round. While red is a common beet color in modern times, beets were originally not red but were white; farmers bred the red color into the plant in the eighteenth century.

It was also during the eighteenth century that German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf (1709–1782) discovered a way to extract sugar from beets. The first commercial sugar beet plant was built in an area known as Upper Silesia in what is now Poland in the early nineteenth century and was a great success. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) boosted the sugar beet's popularity when he endorsed making sugar from beets to be used in place of the sweetener from sugar cane. Sugar beets were helpful to the English during a blockade of the nation Napoleon enforced beginning in 1813. The sugar beet would grow in popularity during other sugar embargos around the world, including one put into place against Cuba by the United States. In the twenty-first century, as much as 30 percent of the world's sugar comes from the sugar beet.

Overview

The beet, sometimes called the beetroot, is a root vegetable that comes in several different varieties. Its botanical name, or the name used by scientists, is beta vulgaris. It is from the plant family known as Chenopodiaceae, a grouping of about fifteen hundred plants that includes chard, spinach, and quinoa. There are multiple varieties of beets with roots of different colors and shapes.

The most commonly known is the red beet. This is the variation that is most often served as food for people. Beets also come in red and white multicolor forms as well as yellow and pure white. Beets have a sweet and earthy taste. That earthy flavor is from a substance called geosmin, which is the same substance that generates the smell of wet dirt. Some people are very sensitive to geosmin and are put off by beets because of the scent and taste they emit.

Other substances known as betalains give beets their characteristic deep red color. Because of this color, beets have been used in the past as a source of coloring for dyes and women's makeup. The substances can also change the color of urine and stools of people who eat meals rich in beets. Betalains are an antioxidant, or a substance that helps prevent a type of cell damage known as oxidation. Scientists are investigating the potential of betalains to help in fighting disease, particularly cancer. Beets also contain other antioxidants as well as potassium, folic acid, iron, manganese, copper, magnesium, nitrates, and fiber. Some research indicates that beets might provide health benefits including lowered blood pressure, improved health of the cardiovascular system, better endurance in exercise, improved brain health, reduced accumulations of fat in the liver, reduced inflammation, and better digestive health.

Many different ways exist to eat beets. One of the best-known methods of beet consumption is borscht, a red beet soup often associated with Ukraine and Russia. Pickled red beets are also common; while some people pickle their own, commercially pickled red beets in vinegary solutions can be purchased ready-made. Beets are also eaten roasted, which enhances their sweetness, or shredded or sliced as a salad ingredient. Beets have been baked into pies and tarts, cooked into stews, and added to tomato sauces to enhance the red color.

In addition to the beets consumed as human food and those used to produce sugar, another type of beet is known as a forage beet. Forage beets are sometimes known by the German name for beetroot, mangelwurzel. These beets are grown for feeding livestock. In some cases, the vegetables are harvested and used as a winter feed, while in other cases they are left in the field for animals such as sheep to uproot and eat.

Bibliography

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