Deep Red & Delicious! The Health Benefits Of Beetroot
Beetroot is a root vegetable with an enticingly sweet taste, but it’s usually used in a savoury way. It has a stunning nutritional profile and contains several amazing plant compounds which research has shown are hugely beneficial to human health.
The red beetroot plant, Beta vulgaris rubra, is hugely versatile – you can eat the green tops, which poke above the ground and make an excellent addition to salads – or beetroot seeds can be sprouted to make beautiful, nutritious microgreens. The fresh root can be boiled, steamed, baked, eaten raw or even made into crisps. Canny bakers know it can also be grated and added to cakes for colour, moistness and sweetness.
You may be a huge fan of pickled beetroot, or perhaps you prefer the fermented, probiotic-rich version, or even a refreshing glass of beetroot juice. You might be totally doolally for these delightful little crispy cubes of freeze-dried beetroot – or it could be you love adding beetroot powder to smoothies, snack bars or even bread dough. Whatever beetroot tribe you’re in, one thing’s certain: adding this delicious, nutritious root vegetable to your diet can have all kinds of wonderful effects on your health and wellbeing. Let’s look at the facts….
It's stuffed with beneficial plant compounds
Betanin is a water-soluble nitrogen-containing pigment found in impressive quantities in beetroot. It’s used as a dye in food and cosmetics, but more importantly, it’s fantastically good for you. It’s a powerful antioxidant, and a roundup of the available research suggests it repairs DNA damage, fixes ‘bad’ cholesterol levels and is a potent eradicator of free radicals, unstable molecules which damage our cells. Don’t be alarmed if you have red or pink pee after eating beetroot! Some people are better at digesting the red pigment than others, and sometimes it’s expelled harmlessly in urine. Beetroot also contains Vulgaxanthin, another impressive antioxidant, anti-inflammatory pigment which is brilliant at detoxifying our cells and improving our immune system. There’s also lots of inorganic nitrate in beetroot, and this analysis of the available research says that could be magnificent to stop infection, protect our stomach and prevent diseases affecting our network of blood vessels.
Low in calories, high in fibre
There are around 43 calories in 100g of beetroot, which means that while it will certainly fill you up, you won’t pile on the pounds! This amount will also give you around 2.8g of fibre, roughly 40% of which is is soluble fibre, which forms a gel-like substance in our gut and is digested by the beneficial bacteria in our large intestine. This makes them very happy and as a result they do lots of wonderful things for us in return, like significantly decreasing our chances of suffering from diabetes, obesity, depression and cancer. The rest is insoluble fibre, which eases the passage of food through the digestive system and out the other end.
People who eat beetroot are filling their body with some prime nutrition. There’s a cornucopia of health-giving vitamins to be found in this lovely root, including a splendid amount of Vitamin B9, also known as folate or folic acid. This protects us against heart disease, some cancers and even hearing loss, while it’s a great idea for pregnant women to eat beetroot as Vitamin B9 also protects against miscarriage and birth defects. There’s also a good amount of Vitamin C in beetroot, which is important for healthy skin, and regulates our blood pressure and immune system. There’s also good amounts of Vitamins A, B6, B12, D, E and K.
Beetroot contains a very decent amount of Boron, which regulates sex hormones in both men and women, as well as increasing the bioavailability of Vitamin D. There’s also a good amount of Potassium (essential for heart health and blood pressure regulation), Iron (great for helping our blood transport oxygen more efficiently) and Manganese (superb for the health of our bones and connective tissue).
As well as having a good amount of fibre, beetroot is rich in betaine, which is excellent for digestive health, regulating our levels of stomach acid, thereby helping to reduce food intolerance and bloating. Beetroot’s mix of soluble and insoluble fibre means it lowers your bad cholesterol while easing the passage of food through the gut, making it ideal for weight loss. Added to this, the amino acid Leucine, which is present in beetroot, has been shown to reduce body fat levels by increasing protein availability.
Increases exercise capacity in older people
Drinking a beetroot juice supplement before working out makes the brain of older adults perform more efficiently, mirroring the operations of a younger brain, according to a 2017 study by scientists in North Carolina. Because beetroot contains a high level of dietary nitrate (which gets converted to nitrite and then nitric oxide when consumed) blood flow in the body is increased, and multiple studies have shown this can improve exercise performance in people of various ages.
A study published in 2019 found that regular consumption of beetroot juice lowered both systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. The researchers attributed this largely to the presence of dietary nitrate – and as this is water soluble, they advised that people who boil beetroot won’t harvest these rewards, as the nitrate will leach out into the boiling water. However, drinking beetroot juice or using freeze-dried beetroot or powdered beetroot will all have a positive effect.
From crispy freeze-dried cubes to pure beetroot powder, and fermented probiotic-rich beetroot to beetroot pickle, we’ve got you covered for every way you could possibly want to consume this magical root veggie.
Step into our beetroot wonderland here!