The Unbeatable Beet

Sales of beetroot soar to £1-million a week as it becomes the latest healthy superfood, proclaimed Brit-based Daily Mail a few weeks hence. Entrepreneurial foodies have seized upon the opportunity to create everything from soups and salads – even drinks.

Surprisingly, our ancient ancestors disparaged the fleshy taproot of Beta vulgaris, noshing down on the foliage. They may have had no choice. The early beets from coastal Europe, although perennial, sprang from wretched roots bearing nary a hint of future promise. Botanists and food historians agree that the plump red-rooted version arose in Italy about the third or fourth century A.D. However, in the first century Roman naturalist Pliny recorded the “crimson roots” being used medicinally for some two-dozen afflictions, although with no display of enthusiasm. By the Renaissance, the beetroots had found favour as an addition to the menu. Boiled, roasted or made into tarts it could be stored for three months or more following harvesting, an advantage in the days prior to global merchandizing. It seems though that white were preferred, although according to one imaginative Elizabethan gardener it was possible to turn them red by applications of red wine lees. Although red beets are the most common today, seeds for both white and yellow are also available for the discerning gardener to astonish their guests with. In his celebrated herbal, Nicholas Culpepper (1616-1654) advised that white beets were ruled by Jupiter and the red forms by Saturn. The white, he says, “doth much loosen the belly, and is of a cleansing, digesting quality, and provoketh urine,” amongst other useful advice. Red beet juice, “put into the nostrils purgeth the head, helpeth the noise in the ears and the toothache” while also curing “stinking breath.” As late as 1931, A Modern Herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve was to be found repeating this, adding helpfully that a wine could also be made from the roots.

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Belles of the 19th century used beet juice to rouge their cheeks, according to that doyen of all veggie things, Rebecca Rupp. More recently, the worsening Russian economy led Siberian Senator Igor Chernishev to suggest that women who could not afford expensive imported lipstick could use beetroot as an alternative to makeup. Back in the early years of the twentieth century, the popular Vernon County Club – an unpretentious-looking roadhouse in the middle of surrounding beet fields – was Hollywood’s first real nightclub. But then Vernon (an independent town that scoffed at blue laws) was wide open compared to Los Angeles, according to Robin Langley Sommer (1987). In Britain, beets sliced and sluiced with malt vinegar is a classic summer salad. At the other end of the world, physically and culinarily, New Zealanders wouldn’t think their hamburger complete without a slice of the same. In the last few years, however, beet juice has attained something of a health reputation. Clarinet and trumpet players should drink beetroot juice before playing because it could help them play for longer without running out of breath, a study described in the journal Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology (2012). Better yet, tests show that the juice helps windy musicians and everybody else to lower blood pressure, thanks to the roots naturally high nitrate levels. A glass a day can lower blood pressure by 7 percent according to UK researchers at the Barts and The London Medical School in 2013. And it doesn’t stop there. Athletes who down beet juice before exercising to increase blood flow and improve performance may be surprised at the results of a recent study conducted at Penn State’s Noll Laboratory, suggested online EurekAlert! While beetroot juice rich in nitrate did not enhance muscle flow or vascular dilation during exercise, researchers found it did “de-stiffen” blood vessels under resting conditions, potentially easing the workload of the heart, they reported in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. Today though, beets as a table vegetable find less favour in North America, although raised on 8,000 acres in the U.S. And the fact is that both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle despise them. Could this be for less than acknowledged reasons? Some, for instance, may find indulging in B. vulgaris roots disturbingly unhealthy, at least in appearance. These unfortunates are unable to metabolize betacyanin, the principal pigment. As a result they pee pink, which if not unhealthy in this instance, is distinctly discombobulating.