Roasted Beets

As a child the only way I had ever seen beets served was in pickled beet eggs.  That tradition is from an old Pennsylvania dutch recipe where boiled eggs are refrigerated in pickled beet liquid along with the pickled beets and allowed to marinate until the eggs turn a deep red color, they are then both served together.  As a child these red eggs with the yolk sections stained pink and their accompanying beets were less than appetizing.  As it turns out beets are rich in natural nitrates, which your body uses to make nitric oxide (NO).  Nitric Oxide is important for your body because it helps dilate your arteries, delivering more oxygenated blood to your organs.  My husband carries a small bottle of nitroglycerin to take if he begins to experience chest pains,  nitroglycerin is converted by the body into NO and dilates the coronary arteries, allowing more blood to flow to the heart muscle  Recently it was discovered that NO actually enables your body to extract MORE energy from that oxygen.  A recent study quoted in Dr. Gregor’s “How Not to Die”, states that men and women eating one and a half cups of baked beets seventy-five minutes before running a 5K race improved their running performance while maintaining the same heart rate and they even reported less exertion.  While I haven’t tried that out for myself, it is good to have a little extra blood flow to the most important organ of the body, the brain.  Studies also show that researchers have been able to get a 10 point systolic blood pressure drop in volunteers within hours of their consuming beet juice – an effect that lasted throughout the day.  Roasted beets are so easy to make and keep easily in the refrigerator to be chopped up and added to salads, budda bowls, stir-fries, or just plain throughout the week.  As a grown up I have now aquired a taste for these roasted beets.