Beet

Taxobox
name = Beetroot


image_width = 240px
image_caption = "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris"
regnum = Plantae
divisio = Magnoliophyta
classis = Magnoliopsida
ordo = Caryophyllales
familia = Chenopodiaceae
genus = "Beta"
species = "B. vulgaris"
binomial = "Beta vulgaris"
binomial_authority = Carolus LinnaeusThe beet or beetroot is a flowering plant species ("Beta vulgaris") in the family "Chenopodiaceae". Several cultivars are valued around the world as edible root vegetables, fodder and sugar-producing sugar beet.cite web
url=http://plants.usda.gov/java/ClassificationServlet?source=display&classid=BETA |title=The PLANTS Database
publisher=U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
format=Database |year=2006 ]

"Beta vulgaris" is a herbaceous biennial or rarely perennial plant with leafy stems growing to 1-2 m tall. The leaves are heart-shaped, 5-20 cm long on wild plants (often much larger in cultivated plants). The flowers are produced in dense spikes, each flower very small, 3-5 mm diameter, green or tinged reddish, with five petals; they are wind-pollinated. The fruit is a cluster of hard nutlets.

Three subspecies are recognised. All cultivated varieties except chard are "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "vulgaris"; chard is "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "cicla". "Beta vulgaris" subsp. "maritima" is the wild ancestor of bothcite web| url=http://www.borax.com/agriculture/files/beets.pioneer.pdf |title=Can’t beet this |format=PDF
publisher=Rio Tinto Minerals] , commonly known as sea beet.

Properties

"Beta vulgaris" roots contain significant amounts of vitamin C, whilst the leaves are an excellent source of vitamin A. They are also high in folate, soluble and insoluble dietary fibre and antioxidants. It is among the sweetest of vegetables, containing more sugar even than carrots or sweet corn. The content of sugar in beetroot is no more than 10%; in the sugar beet it is typically 15 to 20%.

Beetroots are rich in the nutrient betaine. Betaine supplements, manufactured as a by-product of sugar beet processing, are prescribed to lower potentially toxic levels of homocysteine (Hcy), a homologue of the naturally occurring amino acid cysteine, which can be harmful to blood vessels thereby contributing to the development of heart disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease.cite web |url=http://www.umm.edu/altmed/ConsSupplements/Betainecs.html |month=April | year=2002 |publisher=University of Maryland Medical Center |title=Betaine ]

Uses

Food

Spinach beet leaves are eaten as a pot herb. Young leaves of the garden beet are sometimes used similarly. The midribs of Swiss chard are eaten boiled while the whole leaf blades are eaten as spinach beet.

In Africa the whole leaf blades are usually prepared with the midribs as one dish.Grubben, G.J.H. & Denton, O.A. (2004) Plant Resources of Tropical Africa 2. Vegetables. PROTA Foundation, Wageningen; Backhuys, Leiden; CTA, Wageningen.]

The leaves and stems of young plants are steamed briefly and eaten as a vegetable; older leaves and stems are stir-fried and have a flavour resembling taro leaves.

The usually deep-red roots of garden beet are eaten boiled either as a cooked vegetable, or cold as a salad after cooking and adding oil and vinegar. A large proportion of the commercial production is processed into boiled and sterilised beets or into pickles. In Eastern Europe beet soup, such as cold borscht, is a popular dish. Yellow-coloured garden beets are grown on a very small scale for home consumption.

Beetroot can be peeled, steamed, and then eaten warm with butter as a delicacy; cooked, pickled, and then eaten cold as a condiment; or peeled, shredded raw, and then eaten as a salad. Pickled beets are a traditional food of the American South. It is also common in Australia and New Zealand for pickled beetroot to be consumed on a burger. [ [http://www.weird-food.com/weird-food-vegetable.html Weird Foods from around the World ] ]

One increasingly popular preparationfact|date=September 2008 involves tossing peeled and diced beets with a small amount of oil and seasoning, then roasting in the oven until tender.

A traditional Pennyslvania German (US) dish is Red Beet Eggs. Hard-boiled eggs are refrigerated in the cooking liquid of pickled beets and allowed to marinate until the eggs turn a deep pink-red color.

Betanins, obtained from the roots, are used industrially as red food colourants, e.g. to improve the colour of tomato paste, sauces, desserts, jams and jellies, ice cream, sweets and breakfast cereals.

Beet pulp is fed to horses that are in vigorous training or conditioning and to those that may be allergic to dust from hay.fact|date=September 2008

Beetroot can also be used to make wine. [Making Wild Wines & Meads; Pattie Vargas & Rich Gulling; page 73]

Medicine

The roots and leaves have medicinal uses.

The Romans used beetroot as a treatment for fevers and constipation, amongst other ailments. Apicius in "De re coquinaria" gives five recipes for soups to be given as a laxative, three of which feature the root of beet. [Apicius "De Re Coquinaria" 3.2.1, 3, 4] Hippocrates advocated the use of beet leaves as binding for wounds.

Beet juice can help lower blood pressure. Research published in the American Heart Association journal "Hypertension" showed drinking 500ml of beetroot juice a day led to a reduction in blood pressure within one hour. The reduction was more pronounced after three to four hours, and was measurable up to 24 hours after drinking the juice. [cite web| title=BBC NEWS| article=Beetroot 'may cut blood pressure'| url=http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/51/3/784] [cite web| title=My Blood Pressure| article=Beetroot juice reduces blood pressure| url=http://www.my-blood-pressure.com/beetroot-juice.html] [cite web| work=Hypertension| title=Acute Blood Pressure Lowering, Vasoprotective, and Antiplatelet Properties of Dietary Nitrate via Bioconversion to Nitrite| publisher=American Heart Association | url=http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/short/51/3/784]

Since Roman times, beetroot juice has been considered an aphrodisiac. It is a rich source of the mineral boron, which plays an important role in the production of human sex hormones. Field Marshal Montgomery is reputed to have exhorted his troops to 'take favours in the beetroot fields', a euphemism for visiting prostitutes. [cite book |url=http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/beetroot6.htm |title=Beetroot |author=Stephen Nottingham |format=E-book |year=2004] . From the Middle Ages, beetroot was used as a treatment for a variety of conditions, especially illnesses relating to digestion and the blood. Platina recommended taking beetroot with garlic to nullify the effects of 'garlic-breath'. [Platina "De Honesta Voluptate et Valetudine", 3.14]

Today the beetroot is still championed as a universal panacea. One of the most controversial examples is the official position of the South African Health Minister on the treatment of AIDS. Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Health Minister under Thabo Mbeki, has been nicknamed 'Dr. Beetroot' for promoting beets and other vegetables over antiretroviral AIDS medicines, which she considers toxic.cite news
first=Fran|last=Blandy
title='Dr Beetroot' hits back at media over Aids exhibition
publisher=Mail & Guardian Online
url=http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/&articleid=280903
date=2006-08-16]

Other uses

Forms with strikingly coloured, large leaves are grown as ornamentals.

Beets are used as a food plant by the larvae of a number of "Lepidoptera" species.

Cultivation

Beets are cultivated for fodder (e.g. mangelwurzel), for sugar (the sugar beet), as a leaf vegetable (chard or "Bull's Blood"), or as a root vegetable ("beetroot", "table beet", or "garden beet"). Major root vegetable cultivars include:
*"Albina Vereduna", a white variety
*"Burpee's Golden", a beet with orange-red skin and yellow flesh.
*"Chioggia", an open-pollinated variety originally grown in Italy. The concentric rings of its red and white roots are visually striking when sliced. As a heritage variety, Chioggia is largely unimproved and has relatively high concentrations of geosmin.
*"Detroit Dark Red", with relatively low concentrations of geosmin, and is therefore a popular commercial cultivar in the United States.
*"India Beet" is not as sweet as Western beet. However India beet is more nutritious than Western beet.Fact|date=September 2008
*"Lutz Greenleaf", a variety with a red root and green leaves, and a reputation for maintaining its quality well in storage.
*"Red Ace", the principal variety of beet found in the United StatesFact|date=September 2008, typical for its bright red root and red-veined green foliage.

"Blood Turnip" was once a common name for beet root cultivars for the garden. Examples include: Bastian's Blood Turnip, Dewing's Early Blood Turnip, Edmand Blood Turnip, and Will's Improved Blood Turnip. [ [http://heirloomseedsmen.com/types/Beets/ Beets Varieties] , from Heirloom Seedsmen, a website of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company]

The "earthy" taste of some beetroot cultivars comes from the presence of geosmin. Researchers have not yet answered whether beets produce geosmin themselves, or whether it is produced by symbiotic soil microbes living in the plant.cite journal | coauthors=Lu G, Edwards CG, Fellman JK, Mattinson DS, Navazio J. | title=Biosynthetic origin of geosmin in red beets (Beta vulgaris L.). | journal = Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (abstract) |volume=12 |issue=51(4) |pages=1026–9 |publisher=American Chemical Society |date=February 2003|url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12568567&dopt=Abstract | doi=10.1021/jf020905r | author=Lu, G. ] Nevertheless, breeding programs can produce cultivars with low geosmin levels yielding flavours more acceptable to consumers.cite book |url=http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/beetroot.htm |title=Beetroot |author=Stephen Nottingham |format=E-book |year=2004]

Beets are one of the most boron-intensive of modern crops, a dependency possibly introduced as an evolutionary response its pre-industrial ancestor's constant exposure to sea spray; on commercial farms, a 60 tonne per hectare (26.8 ton/acre) harvest requires 600 grams of elemental boron per hectare (8.6 ounces/acre) for growth. A lack of boron causes the meristem and the shoot to languish, eventually leading to heart rot.

Red/purple colouring

The colour of red/purple beetroot is due to a variety of betalain pigments, unlike most other red plants, such as red cabbage, which contain anthocyanin pigments. The composition of different betalain pigments can vary, giving breeds of beetroot which are yellow or other colors in addition to the familiar deep red.cite web |first=Dave |last=Hamilton |year=2005 |url=http://www.selfsufficientish.com/beetroot.htm |title=Beetroot Beta vulgaris ] Some of the betalains in beets are betanin, isobetanin, probetanin, and neobetanin (the red to violet ones are known collectively as "betacyanin"). Other pigments contained in beet are indicaxanthin and vulgaxanthins (yellow to orange pigments known as "betaxanthins"). Indicaxanthin has been shown as a powerful protective antioxidant for thalassemia, as well as prevents the breakdown of alpha-tocopherol (Vitamin E).

Betacyanin in beetroot may cause red urine in some people who are unable to break it down. This is called beeturia. cite web |work=QJM: An International Journal of Medicine |year=1995 |author=M.A. Eastwood|coauthors= H. Nyhlin|url=http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/88/10/711 |title=Beeturia and colonic oxalic acid]

The pigments are contained in cell vacuoles. Beetroot cells are quite unstable and will 'leak' when cut, heated, or when in contact with air or sunlight. This is why red beetroots leave a purple stain. Leaving the skin on when cooking, however, will maintain the integrity of the cells and therefore minimise leakage.

History

The sea beet, the ancestor of modern cultivated beets, prospered along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Beetroot remains have been excavated in the Third dynasty Saqqara pyramid at Thebes, Egypt, and four charred beetroot fruits were found in the Neolithic site of Aartswoud in the Netherlands. But it is difficult to determine whether these are domesticated or wild forms of "B. vulgaris". Zohary and Hopf note that beetroot is "linguistically well identified." They state the earliest written mention of the beet comes from 8th century BC Mesopotamia; the Greek Peripatetic Theophrastus later describes the beet as similar to the radish. "Roman and Jewish literary sources indicate that by the 1st century BC domestic beet was represented in the Mediterranean basin by leafy forms (chard) and very probably also by beetroot cultivars." [Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf, "Domestication of plants in the Old World", third edition (Oxford: University Press, 2000), pp. 200f]

Modern sugar beets date back to mid-18th century Silesia, selected from fodder beets. [http://sugarbeet.ucdavis.edu/sbchap.html Sugarbeet] from a University of California, Davis website] Commercial interest grew after Andreas Marggraf proved that sugar could be extracted from beets that was the same as that produced from sugarcane. British blockades of cane sugar during the Napoleonic Wars stimulated the rapid grown of a European sugarbeet industry, with an expansion into North America starting in 1879 at a commercial farm in Alvarado, California.

References

External links

* [http://database.prota.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?AC=QBE_QUERY&BU=http%3A%2F%2Fdatabase.prota.org%2Fsearch.htm&TN=PROTAB~1&QB0=AND&QF0=Species+Code&QI0=Beta+vulgaris&RF=Webdisplay PROTAbase on "Beta vulgaris"]
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Beta+vulgaris+craca "Beta vulgaris craca"] - Plants For a Future Database entry
*
* [http://www.news.wisc.edu/8104.html "Professor upbeat about unappreciated root crop"] - general information about beets (UW article)
* [http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Beta.html Sorting Beta names] - multilingual listing of the Beta species