Beetroot juice is considered to be an extremely beneficial beverage for you and your body. This plant that comes from the coasts of Africa, Asia, and Europe, has been used as food and drink for millennia.
In ancient times it was consumed solely by its leaves, since it was believed that its best nutrients were there. It was not until ancient Rome that the greatest benefits were discovered in its form as juice.
A considerable amount of sugar can be extracted from the beet; this was known during the nineteenth century, thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte, which brought the beet to become a plant with commercial value. Even in our days, it is still very precious in its cultivation.
How often do you eat beets?
Many are the reasons why you should start drinking beetroot juice and even beet itself in your meals. They are an excellent source of vitamins and minerals, and they will make you feel well fed and taken care of as if nature wanted it.
With all these benefits, there are still people who do not consume as they should be this magnificent plant, but always in moderation, as a considerable source of carbohydrates, which can be detrimental to some people who are on a specific diet.
Know the benefits for yourself
The beets along with their sugar sources are a great bet for many benefits in your body that will thank them in a good state of health.
If you consume it with a salad will be good for you, but in the juice is where the highest contributions for your health, which made clear below:
- You can dramatically reduce your blood pressure: it can only be in a matter of hours for that to happen. This is presumably given by the nitrates present in their composition. These nitrates will then become nitrate oxide in your body, which will dilate the blood vessels, making it easier to flow into the blood.
- It gives a boost to your energy: recommended for athletes and people with a strong exercise routine. If you are weak to continue, you can take the juice to refill your stamina and carry out the next round of exercises.
- Helps eliminate “bad cholesterol”: well-taken beets do not allow LDL cholesterol to be lodged in the arteries, which is beneficial to your heart, preventing strokes and strokes.
- Reduces inflammation: beets have a large amount of a solid called betaine, typical of beets. This solid helps to regenerate the internal organs, as it decreases homocysteine in the blood, a compound that has an influential preponderance of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.
- Anti-cancer properties: Beetroot and its color, generated by phytonutrients, help fight many types of cancer. Also, the beet extracts taken do not allow cancerous tumors to form properly, so it is beneficial for cancers: pancreas, breasts, and prostate.
- Very rich in fiber: beetroot juice stimulates your immune system with vitamin C, fiber and with potassium and manganese.
- It detoxifies your body: beetroot substances and toxins (yes, it also has toxins) will attach to other toxins in your body to be expelled. It will also help you heal your blood by purifying it next to the liver.
- Good for preventing osteoporosis: beets bring a good amount of mineral silica, which will help your body work better with its calcium incorporated. This is beneficial because calcium is one of the essential constituents of bones, so you will not have brittle bones and much less osteoporosis.
- Help control diabetes: people who suffer from diabetes can satisfy their sweet cravings by adding a beetroot juice to their diets. Being a vegetable with a low glycemic index (which means that it releases sugar slowly in the blood), it helps to keep your blood sugar levels low while satisfying your sugar craving. Also, this vegetable is low in calories and free of fats, making it the perfect vegetable for diabetics.
- Improve your health and sexual performance: also known as the “natural Viagra”, beetroot juice has been commonly used in many ancient customs to improve one’s sexual health. Because the plant is a rich source of nitrates, it helps release nitric oxide in the body, expanding blood vessels and increasing blood flow to the genitals – a mechanism that drugs like Viagra seek to replicate.
- Perfect for you not to suffer from constipation: again thanks to high concentrations of fiber, beetroot juice is perfect to use as a laxative, softening the stool, cleaning the colon and thus easily expelling toxins and impurities from the stomach.
But beets can also be harmful.
But not everything is good news, because although we have listed many benefits, you also have to be aware that taking it very often, could cause some other problems to your health, but nothing as serious as the problems caused by definitively removing beets from your diet. Among these problems we can highlight:
- It contributes to the appearance of kidney stones.
- It exacerbates the symptoms of those individuals afflicted by stomach upset and diarrhea.
- It produces the accumulation of iron and copper in our body, thus aggravating Wilson’s Disease and Hemochromatosis.
- It has a negative effect on fetal growth when consumed in high amounts.
- It lowers blood pressure, good for some but harmful to others.
Not only in juice, but you can also try another form
We can conclude that beet juice brings more benefits than the side effects, but we must also be moderate in their consumption because man shall not live on bread alone, there are also other drinks that can be supplemented for better diet and health.
Besides it is not mandatory that it is only consumed as juice, because you can also eat the leaves of the beet alone, or also eat with salads with the vegetables that you frequently consume.