The garden beet -- botanically known as Beta vulgaris -- has a brilliant ruby color, a mild, slightly sweet flavor, and a tender consistency when cooked. A nutritional powerhouse, the beet is low in calories but rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and beneficial phytonutrients. You can steam beets, pickle them or shred them raw into salads for extra visual appeal. Sodium -- an essential mineral for maintaining your body fluid volume -- may cause health problems in some people if consumed in excessive quantities. Although sodium is present in beets, it appears in modest amounts.
Sodium
Sodium -- commonly known as salt -- is responsible not only for fluid balance but for helping to transmit nerve impulses and for influencing muscle contraction and relaxation. MayoClinic.com reports that most people consume too much salt, rather than too little. Not only is salt naturally present in foods, but it is often added during processing, as well as at the table by way of the salt shaker. A single teaspoon of table salt contains 2,325 mg of sodium; MayoClinic.com recommends keeping your intake under 2,300 mg a day. If you're over 51, are African-American, or have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, you should try to keep your sodium intake under 1,500 mg a day.
Specifics
A 100-g serving of beets -- about 3 1/2 oz. -- contains 44 calories, 1.68 g of protein, 9.96 g of carbohydrates, 2 g of dietary fiber and 7. 6 g of sugars. It also contains 77 mg of sodium, or 5 percent of the recommended daily allowance. By way of comparison, a 3 1/2-oz. serving of cooked carrots weighs in at 58 mg of sodium; the same amount of stewed tomatoes packs 460 mg. Vegetables are generally low in sodium compared to other foods. A 4-inch oat-bran bagel contains a surprisingly high 532 mg of salt, while a 3 1/2-oz. serving of barbecue potato chips contains a whopping 750 mg.
Minerals, Vitamins and Phytonutrients
Beets are rich in beneficial minerals, with a 3 1/2-oz. serving containing 0.79 mg iron -- essential to the production of adenosine triphosphate, an energy source -- and 0.326 mg manganese, a component in the potent antioxidant superoxide dismutase, which scavenges free radicals in the body. Beets are also a good source of folate, with 80 mcg per 3 1/2-oz. serving; this B-vitamin can hep prevent rare neural tube defects in newborns. Betalain pigments -- responsible for giving beets their color -- are potent antioxidants that can help protect against coronary artery disease, lower cholesterol levels and battle the effects of aging.
The phytonutrient glycine betain helps lower levels of homocysteine -- a substance that contributes to atherosclerotic plaque formation -- in the blood.
Considerations
Look for beets that are intense and vibrant in color, with a firm texture and no cuts or bruises. To safeguard their nutrients, store them in the refrigerator and eat them within a few days of purchase. Passing red or pink urine after eating beets is a harmless -- but startling -- condition that results from being unable to break down the betacyanin pigment. Nutrition and You reports that this phenomenon -- called beeturia -- affects 10 to 15 percent of the population. Beeturia can be a tip-off to iron deficiency anemia and other absorption problems; consult your doctor. Beet greens -- the leafy tops of beets -- are high in oxalic acid, which may crystallize as oxalate stones in the urinary tract. If you have oxalate urinary tract stones, you should limit your consumption of beet greens.
Member Comments