Beetroot: Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits
What is Beetroot?
Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) is a root vegetable, packed with numerous essential nutrients like fiber, folate, manganese, Vitamin C, Protein, and Potassium. Beetroot has tremendous health benefit if eaten as whole or by squeezing its juice. It helps to improve blood pressure, boost heart health, athletics performance, and protect your body against cancer.
What Are The Types of Beetroot
There are four different types of beetroot, classified on the basis of its color.
Red Beets: (Bull's Red)
Red beets are most commonly used type. It has red color due to the presence of a pigment known as “Betalain”.
Best choice for Salad, Juices and soups.
Golden Beets (Burpee's Golder)
These are yellow beetroots. These types of beets have mild flavor as compare to the above red beets. Mostly used in stir fry veggies.
Chioggia (Candy Stripe)
Its specific name “Chioggia” comes from small fishing town of Venice, Italy; these are very tasty if eaten raw or cooked.
It has a specific sweet flavor, as it has unusual patterns which adds color to the salads. However, cooking fades the pink rings.
Baby Beets
These types of beets are excellent appetizers, can be eaten before dinner as we can consume them with leaves and mix with other dressings to make more appetizing dishes.
Beetroot Nutritional Facts
Major nutrients in beetroot include Water (86%), Carbohydrate (8-10%) and Fiber (3%)
Calories of Beetroot
1 small size beetroot (almost 2″ Diameter) 82 g contain 35 Calories. (1)
Beets contain high amount of fiber (2-3%) Vitamins C,D & A and mineral content. It is low calorie food, giving you essential nutrients and helping you with your weight balance goals.
In one small beet, you get 8% of your daily fiber, 4.5% of your daily Vitamin C, Iron 3% and almost Potassium 6% and 5%magnesium.
How Many Carbs Are in Beets
Raw or cooked beets contain around 8-10% Carbs. In which 70-80% sugars are Fructose & Glucose. which are categorized as simple sugars.
In terms of Glycemic index, beetroot contain medium glycemic index i.e. 61. while Glycemic load on beets is 5 which is relatively very low.
Due to the High fiber content and low glycemic index shows that beetroot has no major impact on sugar level if you consume it in moderate quantity.
Best Fiber supplement
Beetroots provides 2-3 g fiber per 100 g serving, means an excellent source of dietary fiber. Fiber is an essential part of a healthy diet and reduce risks of many diseases. (2)
Fat and Protein content in beetroot
Beets are not good in fat and Protein content. In terms of fat it doesn’t contain fat. Even a small number of polyunsaturated fat found but it is known as a good fat or healthy fat.
In terms of Proteins, they are not high protein food. 1 cup of beets gives you only 2 g of protein.
what vitamins and minerals are in beetroot
Beets are fully loaded with many essential vitamins and minerals like folate, manganese, potassium & Vitamins like C, A, D, B9 etc.
Folate (Vitamin B9)
Fresh beetroots contain almost 109 microgram folate (Vitamin B9) and gives you around 27% of an adult daily requirement.
Folate help in redblood cells formation and many essential cell functioning. In US, pregnant woman are at risk of insufficient folate risks. (3)
Manganese
Beets are good source of manganese, having 0.329 mg (contribute to 14% of RDA) it is a component of antioxidant enzyme which helps break down glucose and proteins. Manganese is also an essential nutrient for healthy heart and bone formation.
Potassium
These vegetables contain about 325g of Potassium which meets daily 7% requirement. Potassium help in regulating metabolism in cells by countering harmful effect of Sodium. Similarly food with high potassium is good for overall heart health and also support bone and muscle growth as per USDA Myplate guideline. (4)
Beside these minerals beets are also a good source of Copper, Iron, Sodium, Phosphorous, Zinc and Calcium.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is a well known antioxidant, which is helpful in
- boosting immune system
- Fighting against cancer cells
- Repair Skin
health benefits from beetroot
Beetroot has numerous health benefit. It contains many useful nutrients which improve blood pressure, boost heart health and regulate blood glucose level and much more.
Some of beetroot health benefit are described below
how to improve heart health and Blood Pressure
A study conducted in 2015, have found that drinking 250 ml of beetroot drink daily significantly lower blood pressure.
As this magical vegetable is abundant with nitrate and it is generally consider that vegetables high in nitrates are good for lowering blood pressure. (5)
It is also evident from research that nitrates helps to widen & dilate blood vessels which improve heart performance and reduce cardiovascular diseases. Beetroots have anti-inflammatory properties which are helpful to reduce the risk of heart disease. (6)
athletic performance improvement
An initial of the studies also show that as beetroot juice helps to improve athletic & exercise performance by improving amount of oxygen which muscle absorbed during the activity (7)
Similarly consumption of beetroots may improve cycling performance as well running by overall stamina improvement during high intensity activity of athletes. However there is need to have further detail studies to come up with more conclusive evidences.
cancer risk prevention
A study found that red beetroots contain anti-oxidants named “Betalains”, which are considered cancer chemo-preventive agents.
However, more intensive studies are underway to further explore such properties of beetroots.
Anti-oxidants properties of beetroots also help to reduce cell damage and help our body to remove free harmful radicals. If free radicals increase in our body it may damage our DNA & Cell structure due to oxidative stress.
natural viagra
Beetroot being associated with Viagra is as old as ancient research where it was considered that they used it to correct erectile dysfunction and still it is use for improving men & women sexual health issues.
As nitrates are considered to improve blood pressure by opening vessels which helps maintain blood pressure in corpus cavernosum (an erectile tissue).
prevention of anemia disease
Beetroots red color is associated with preventing anemia, as beetroots juice contains significant amount of Iron & Folic acid helps formation of red blood cells which carries oxygen to different parts of body to ensure healthy blood cells (RBC) count.
Generation of RBC is imperative to help in preventing menstrual disorders in women, anemia and symptoms of menopause by having considerable intake of beetroots. (8)
Facts about Beets
