Beet is a vegetable with a juicy root of a round or conical form with a dark red/purple color. When this veggie is cut in half and viewed in cross-section, you can see light circles.
From the very outset people valued only leaves of this vegetable, not the roots. In the Ancient Rome they ate beet leaves soaked in wine and topped with pepper. Romans even paid a tribute to their owners with beetroot.
To Ukraine beetroot was brought from Byzantium at the time of Kyivan Rus. This vegetable has become the usual daily meal since that time. Thanks to its excellent eating qualities today the beet is used in major national cuisines all over the world: beet leaves are added to veggie salads, roots are used in soups, snacks, salads, drinks (kvas), and desserts. It can be eaten both raw and heat treated. But the most important thing is that beet is the main component for such popular dish as borsch – a national soup in Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Romania, Belarus, Lithuania, and Moldavia.
The beetroot is packed with useful components, the set of which can not be found in other veggies. The most useful is the root. It includes:
– vitamins В, РР, С
– carotinoids
– bioflavonoids
– amino acids
– minerals (ferrum, magnesium, calcium, potassium, iodine, zink, and more)
– acids (pantothenic, folic, apple, citric, and oxalic)
– high content of fiber.
The leaves and stalks are rich in vitamin A.
Compared to other vegetables, the boiled root of the beet preserves many useful components. This can be explained by the low heat sensitivity of mineral salts and B vitamins.
This vegetable has a lot of carbos. Not all vegetable crops can “boast” a high content level (up to 25%) of fructose, sucrose, and glucose.
The healing properties of the beetroot were identified a long time ago. Modern researchers approved that antique writers mentioned beet as a vegetable with curative properties. In ancient times people cured skin inflammation and infective diseases using beetroot. Thanks to its unique biochemical composition, this vegetable contributes to health improvement.
Beet juice is considered to be one of the most useful ones. It helps cleanse the body from toxins and harmful substances.
Interesting fact
If you combine beetroot juice with a carrot one, then it’ll become even more useful. Such juice helps improve memory and blood vessel work as well as recover from insomnia.
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