About Beets

[luckitri]

What is proper treatment of beets?

I scrubbed outside with metal scrubber to get off all dead leaf stuff and dirt.

I just ate 1 little one and my whole throat is having bad reaction.

Are we supposed to peel them?

Is my reaction normal? Is there known pesticide that makes them inedible by themselves? Or is that just the way beets are?

[mattsonfamily]

Sounds like you did everything right. I just trim, scrub and prepare. If this is the first time that you have eaten beets, you might have a food allergy...not a good thing if you throat closes down. Usually my food allergies affect my ears, throat, eyes - everything starts to swell. If your game, and think it was a pesticide you could try organic----just be careful. Food allergen reactions tend to increase each time your exposed

[luckitri]

Yes other times I have shredded or sliced them and mixed them with other things so am not sure. Thanks.

They are just little. I will try cutting the whole outside off and eat the other 2 and see what happens.

OH. Hi! I am in Glendale!

[RowanC]

If not you could be reacting to pesticide, not the beets.
I'd peel them and try another piece.

There is an old something called the "rule of thumb"... you try a piece as big as the TIP of your thumb and wait an hour.. if no reaction, try a piece twice that size... etc. If no reaction the third time, you're probably fine to eat it.

We use this a lot with wild edibles.

[luckitri]

I cut and peeled whole outside but got same reaction from next one. Oh well!

[Veganforlife]

The ONLY way I can handle beets is to juice them. Not add to a smoothie, but actually juice them.

[Tirza]

That's too bad! Beets are so high in cancer-preventing nutrients. I make a sort of raw borscht savory smoothie with beets. I peel them first though. Do you react the same to cooked beets?

[luckitri]

No problem with cooked. Hmmm. Maybe I will go for organic and see what happens.

[Lady Green Jeans]

Luckitri,

I have found beets to be very cleansing for me. I adore them, but have had to moderate my intake to avoid problems. As I have not been doing juices lately, I have shredded them on top of salads with positive results. Found organic beets and they were less than the regular--even told a few people who were puchasing the regulars--and got a "thank you" for the effort.

[learningrawways]

I tried eating raw beets a couple of times and they burned my throat. After that, I would juice them with other vegeatables and had no reaction from beets that way.

[luckitri]

Someone had posted a lovely "magenta salad" recipe that included apples, raisins and cinnamon and lemon with the beets. It was delish! But the beets were cut up and mixed up so I noticed no reaction. Yes, these were just little ones but even 2 days later I am shocked when I go to the you know where. I love beets. . . so I was disappointed to have this happen.