Beetroot - a unique healing root

Beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.) is a root crop of the Marevy family, one of the oldest and most important vegetable crops in the human diet.

Of the fifteen species of plants of the genus of beet, only two species are cultivated: beet leaf (chard) and beet root. They were grown even before our era in ancient Assyria and Babylon.

Root beet root is divided into three groups, which many consider beet cultivars: fodder, sugar and table. We will talk about the table beet - the same one, without which you will not brew borscht and you will not cook vinaigrette ...

Chemical composition and useful properties of beets

The chemical composition of beets is extremely rich. First of all, these are sugars (sucrose, glucose and fructose) and mineral salts (magnesium, calcium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, cobalt, phosphorus, but most potassium - about 3.3%). Organic acids are represented by apple, citric, tartaric and oxalic acid. Proteins in beets 1.7%; carbohydrates - 10,8%; cellulose - 0,7%; pectin substances -1.2%. Among vitamins, vitamins C, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, U, P, PP and carotene (provitamin A) are present in these roots.

Characterization of beet improves the presence in its composition of iodine, pantothenic, folic and oleanolic acids, as well as at least a dozen different amino acids, including lysine, valine, arginine and histidine.

Now that we have an idea of what is included in the chemical composition of beets, we can give a more detailed answer to the frequently asked question: what is useful for beets? The use of beets, even in ancient times, was not limited to eating. Long since healers have treated poorly healing wounds with lotions with beet juice or beet leaves. The famous ancient Greek physician Hippocrates healed the patients with the help of beets and left to the descendants more than a dozen "beetroot" recipes for the treatment of various diseases.

Sausage beet was considered an effective remedy for scurvy. And with cold and anemia, village grandmothers drank their grandchildren with beet juice.

Useful properties of beets - "merit" of the substances that make up its composition. With vitamins and mineral salts - all more or less clear. But the amino acid arsenal of beets is truly unique and helps with many pathologies. So, valine is necessary to maintain a normal exchange of nitrogen in the body, regulate the nervous processes, stabilize the hormonal background. Lysine promotes the absorption of calcium, without which the formation and growth of bones is impossible. From the effects of radiation, the human body is protected by histidine, which takes part in the hematopoiesis and supports immunity. Arginine is not only necessary for metabolism in muscle tissues, it also stimulates immunity and slows the growth of tumor growths.

In the chemical composition of beet, even vitamin U (methylmethionine sulfonium), which is involved in the production of histamine, is found. This helps normalize the acidity of the gastric juice, as well as reduce allergic reactions of the body. And oleanolic acid is known to specialists for its hepatoprotective activity (it helps to purify the liver of toxins), the ability to stimulate the heart muscle, resist atherosclerotic processes and increase the intensity of lipid metabolism (violation of which threatens to damage the coronary vessels of the heart and leads to a heart attack).

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Beet juice treatment: affordable and effective

The simplest thing a beetroot juice can cope with is a rhinitis with a cold. Beets from the common cold are used in the form of drops, for the preparation of which you need to clean the raw beetroot rubbed on a fine grater and strain the juice through a strainer. It should be buried in the nose up to four times a day: 3 drops to children, 5-6 drops to adults. To enhance the bactericidal effect of this alternative, honey can be put into the juice.

With sore throat, rinsing with raw beet juice helps, but for this it must be diluted with boiled water and add a teaspoon of 9% vinegar.

Beetroot with constipation is a proven remedy. Thanks to fiber and organic acids, the boiled beet activates the intestinal peristalsis. To forget about constipation and get rid of atony of the intestine, it is recommended to eat 100-150 g of cooked beet - daily. Particularly useful beetroot in pancreatitis - to eliminate the same constipation, as well as to enrich the body with potassium, which reduces the permeability of the walls of blood vessels and helps reduce the pathological sensitivity of the body (desensitization).

As the studies of Hungarian pharmacologists show, ordinary beetroot in oncology is quite effective. Such patients are recommended to take up to 600 ml of juice from fresh beets during the day - 100-200 ml at regular intervals, 10-15 minutes before meals. The juice should be drunk in warm, small sips. It is contraindicated to eat yeast bread or drink sour juices. Specialists note that beet juice for cancer should be drunk without interruption, and it is especially recommended for patients who underwent radiation therapy. After a month of beet juice treatment, the general condition of many cancer patients improves.

And in the alternative medicine of China, beets are used in the treatment of benign tumors in women (fibromiomas, fibroadenomas and mastopathy). According to the popular recipe, not the juice is used, but the pulp of raw root crops, rubbed together with the peel (for which the beets are soaked in running water for three hours). The juice is removed, and the compress of chopped pulp for the entire night is applied to the chest and lower abdomen. Treatment lasts 20 days according to this scheme: two nights - compress, night - break. Then the treatment is interrupted for a month, and after this period the course is repeated.

Beetroot treatment does not lose its popularity in a variety of diseases. Thanks to the content of potassium and magnesium compounds, beets are recommended for the prevention and treatment of hypertension, atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular pathologies. In this case, the juice of raw beets is mixed with honey in a ratio of 1: 1 and taken 7 times a day - one tablespoon per reception. The same composition is advised to drink with menopause - to relieve the tides (you need 2 times a day to take a third of the glass). And with hepatitis, beetroot juice (100 ml), diluted with water (100 ml) - helps twice a day during the day, after eating.

Treatment of beet juice is carried out at an elevated level of cholesterol, thrombophlebitis, hemorrhoids. The content in the beet of the biologically active substance betaine promotes the synthesis in the body of choline ("vitamin B4"). This allows using beet juice to regulate in the body the process of protein assimilation, to prevent fatty degeneration of the liver, to activate its work and to protect against various acute and chronic lesions. Betaine is part of a number of drugs to improve liver function.

Iron, copper and manganese, which are in sufficient quantities in the chemical composition of beet, are the main participants in the process of hematopoiesis. Therefore, beet and hemoglobin - the concepts are inseparable, because the use of beets is the most accessible and effective way to combat anemia.

And thanks to the presence of zinc in the beet, which helps regulate metabolism and is able to increase the duration of action of the hormone of the pancreas - insulin, beet in diabetes is simply irreplaceable. The systematic use of its juice - 50 g three times a day - helps people with diabetes to reduce blood sugar.

By the way, urine after beet, in terms of its color after a while after drinking beet juice, can serve as an indicator of the state of the human immune system. If the urine is pink, then, as doctors say, it means that the intestines do not have enough healthy microflora. And without it, the intestinal mucosa is defenseless against pathogenic and putrid microbes. And when in 7-10 days after the beginning of "sugar therapy" the natural color of urine will be restored, you can be calm: the intestines, bile ducts and kidneys become cleaner.

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To curative properties of beets brought only benefit

Unique properties of beet juice strengthen the body and thereby help fight infection. However, one must bear in mind that the harm of beet juice is in its overdose. The maximum daily dose of pure (i.e., undiluted) beet juice is only 0.5 cup, while drinking it is not necessary at one time, but in 3-4 meals.

In addition, it should be emphasized that harm beets - in freshly squeezed juice, which contains some harmful volatile compounds. But when they come into contact with air, they are naturally destroyed. It is for this reason, before drinking juice from raw beets, it must be kept for at least three hours - in an open dish in the refrigerator.

It has beets and contraindications: in some its juice causes nausea, vomiting, dizziness, palpitations and general weakness.

Contraindicated beetroot in osteoporosis, as its use reduces the ability of the body to absorb calcium. Because of the content of oxalic acid, you do not need to get carried away by beetroot in gastritis with high acidity, urolithiasis, as well as with a tendency to diarrhea.

Beet on your table: "wasteless" dietary vegetable

Useful properties of boiled beets are almost the same as raw. For example, boiled beets contain the same fiber and vitamin U that we need, which activate the digestive system and gastrointestinal tract, and help to release the body from toxins and toxins.

But the raw root crop is not liked by everyone - because of a peculiar taste. Therefore, cooked beets are used for food, and most often it is one of the ingredients of various dishes.

On the question of how to properly cook beetroot answer is unambiguous - only whole, without cutting into parts. So, buying this vegetable for the future of vinaigrette or herring "under the fur coat", choose smaller root crops: they cook faster. After washing the raw beet carefully, without cutting off the "tail", put it in a saucepan, pour cold water (so that it covers vegetables 1-2 cm) and bring to a boil. After this, drain the boiling water and pour it again with cold water. After re-boiling, enough to cook 20-25 minutes (instead of 45 minutes according to the traditional technology of our grandmothers). We remind you that you do not need to salt water! It is also good to bake beets in the oven, wrapping each in food foil. This way of cooking preserves more useful substances.

Recipes with beets are used in the kitchens of different peoples. The simplest and fastest beet salad is familiar in every home. For its preparation you will need: 2 pcs. Boiled beets, 2 cloves of garlic, 5 peeled and crushed walnuts, mayonnaise, salt and black ground pepper to taste. Beetroot rubs on a large grater, mixed with chopped garlic and nuts, salt-peppered and dressed with mayonnaise (which can be replaced with any vegetable oil).

But the recipe for cooking beet salad in Chinese: boiled beets (1 pc.), Cooked "in uniform" potatoes (2 pcs.), Pickled cucumbers (2 pcs.), Sour apples (2 pcs.), Sunflower oil ( 3 items of a spoon), sesame oil (3 items of a spoon), cumin. All cut into small cubes, mix and pour a mixture of oils, which add crushed cumin. This salad must be steep for 1 hour before serving.

Borsch with beets in recommendations does not need. According to the proverb, "Without a borsch dinner is not a dinner, and without beets there is no borsch". By the way, before the appearance of tomatoes in Russia borsch was cooked only with beetroot. Cook this borscht and now. To make it, you need to peel the beetroot from the peel, cut into thin strips and put it in a frying pan with fat, drizzle the beetroot with vinegar and let it (warm well), stirring constantly. Then pour a little broth or water (if borsch is lean) and simmer until softened beets. Onions cut and lightly fry in another pan, add the same carrots cut into strips. In a boiling broth or water, put shredded cabbage, stewed beets, fried carrots, spices and divorced flour pastry. Cook for 15-20 minutes, at the end of cooking add pounded lard with garlic.

You can make soup from beets for this recipe. This will require: meat broth, beets, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, pickles, vegetable oil, spices (black pepper peas, bay leaf, thyme), herbs, salt, sugar.

Add the onions in sunflower oil to a golden color, add the peeled tomatoes and grated raw beets. All put out. In the boiling broth, put the small potatoes into small cubes, add bay leaf and pepper. After 5 minutes cook, send the onion-tomato-beet mixture into the pan and cook for another 5 minutes after boiling. Then put the salted cucumber, grated on a large grater, and boil 5 minutes after boiling. Salt, add sugar, salt and thyme. When serving, sprinkle with herbs.

Cabbage with beets is a recipe from the Caucasus, where it is called "Cabbage in Guria". For 2 kg of white cabbage it is necessary to take: beetroot (1 piece), garlic (3-4 teeth), red bitter capsicum (1 pc.). For marinade: for 1 glass of water - 1 tbsp. Salt, 3 tbsp. Spoonfuls of sugar and 0.5 cups of 6% vinegar (vinegar is added at the very end of the marinade cooking).

Cabbage is not shredded, but cut into plates with a thickness of 2 cm. The raw beet is cut into medium strips, the garlic is crushed, the pepper is cleaned of seeds and cut into long strips. All mixed, laid in a jar or enameled dishes and poured hot marinade. Before cooling, the container is without a lid, and then closes. Within two days, the lid should be removed several times, and then closed again. On the third day, cabbage and beets can be sent to the refrigerator. And, of course, there is.

We not for nothing have called a beetroot "wasteless" vegetable. According to research, a lot of carotene and folic acid are in the young tops (that is, the leaves) of beet. Therefore, when buying in spring the first young beets, do not neglect its "tops". What to cook from the beetroot leaves, experienced landladies know perfectly, adding tops to borscht, soups, okroshki and salads.

The recipe for a salad from a beet top is very simple. It is necessary to sort out and wash well 500 g of leaves, cut it and fizzle for 5 minutes with a small amount of salted water. Let the water drain, the tops to cool and add 1 onion cut into half rings, half a teaspoon of sugar and salt to taste. To fill with vegetable oil (2 items of a spoon).

Cooked beetroot is almost 100% carbohydrate, and the caloric content of beet - based on a portion of 100 grams - is only 44 calories. So beets for weight loss are recommended by many nutritionists. Cooked beets are usually rubbed on a grater or cut with straw. Salt is better not to add, but sprinkle with vegetable oil will not hurt. If you want to diversify this dietary salad, add boiled carrots, fresh apple and greens.

On the benefits of beets for children, pregnant women and nursing mothers

Include beets in the diet of pregnant women and young children are advised by nutritionists. And not for nothing, because beets are a real storehouse of vitamins and many other valuable substances for the body.

In addition, beet during pregnancy is particularly useful, as contained in this root betaine maintains the optimal level of blood pressure and prevents its leaps. Also, this substance actively participates in the regulation of fat metabolism and prevents the appearance of excess deposits in the liver.

The ban on "red vegetables" and breastfeeding does not apply to beets. But to use a beetroot with a beet it is necessary with the mind: little by little and constantly watching how the child reacts to this product. And in order to be absolutely sure that after a mother-eaten beetroot salad is eaten by an allergy, it is recommended to include beetroot (and only boiled!) Gradually in the diet. The same recommendations concern the question: when a child can beetroot. All individually, and when you introduce a new product in baby food - in particular.

And in conclusion - one more answer. This time on a rather unexpected question: what does a beet dream? So, the dream beet: to see in the dream growing beets in the garden - to a good harvest and peace. If you dream that eating beets together with other people, then this is considered to be an omen of pleasant news. A dream in which you see a cooked beet lying on a dirty plate is considered unfavorable and portends troubles and troubles. But the dream that you cut beetroot, alas, to parting ...