Which is Better: Cooked or Raw Beets? (Free Recipe Included!)
I’m going to preface this by saying I don’t like beets. I know they are packed with nutrients (including nitrates), may improve cardiovascular health, and may even increase athletic performance by boosting nitric oxide levels, but I’ve never enjoyed eating beets. So when I reached out to CTS Athlete and renowned chef Matthew Accarrino, from SPQR in San Francisco, with a request for a recipe that featured an ingredient that was in season in late summer and fall, I was legitimately sad when he came back with beets. Now, if I’m going to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it come to making beets taste good, it’s Matt, so I gave his Beet Pesto a try.
The first thing you need to know about making beet pesto is that it’s stunningly easy. Peel and cut up the beets, cook in foil packet, throw everything in a food processor, hit the button. When it’s done you have a beautiful red pesto with a slightly coarse texture, not as smooth as a hummus, and a rich flavor highlighted by a kick of garlic. If you want to mellow out that garlic kick, Matthew pointed out you do so by using roasted garlic instead of raw. I mixed it into pasta for dinner, and ate the rest with cut up vegetables over the next few days.
Why Should Normal People Eat Beets?
Beets are low in calories and high in fiber, which helps make them filling and can contribute to weight management goals. They are a good source of minerals, especially potassium, magnesium, manganese, and (to a lesser extent) iron. And while those attributes are good, they are not all that unique. From a health perspective what draws people to beets is the potential connection to improved cardiovascular health.
Beets are a very good source of folate (Vitamin B9), and people who consume diets rich in folate from green leafy vegetables or foods fortified with folic acid have lower levels of homocysteine in the blood. Homocysteine levels are associated with heart disease, but research is divided on whether increased homocysteine levels actually increase the risk of heart and artery disease. Either way, there is no apparent benefit to elevated homocysteine levels, so keep eating foods rich in B Vitamins for their wide-ranging benefits, including lower homocysteine levels!
Why Should Athletes Consume Beets?
Inorganic nitrates are the biggest reason athletes are drawn to beets. When you eat foods rich in inorganic nitrate your body converts it to nitric oxide (NO), which acts as a powerful vasodilator. (There is also organic nitrate, which is used in drugs like nitroglycerin (for angina) to increase NO production and cause vasodilation.) Nitric oxide may also have a protective effect on your entire cardiovascular system because it relaxes the smooth muscle of your blood vessels and may inhibit the development of atherosclerosis (stiffening of the arteries) and arterial plaques. Athletes are drawn to beets for the inorganic nitrate that increases nitric oxide production and leads to vasodilation, because vasodilation means increased blood flow and improved oxygen delivery to working muscles.
Raw Beets Vs. Cooked Beets?
To achieve the cardiovascular health benefits of consuming dietary nitrate, you can eat cooked or raw beets as well as getting dietary nitrate from other green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, and lettuce. Cooking beets decreases the bioavailability of dietary nitrate from the food, meaning raw beets deliver more dietary nitrate. To potentially experience an ergogenic effect from dietary nitrate you have to consume about 5-7 mmol of dietary nitrate, which is difficult to achieve eating actual beets but is the amount found in about 500ml of beetroot juice made from raw beets. Concentrated beetroot juice shots and powders can further reduce the volume of fluid you have to consume.
Does Beet Juice Really Improve Endurance Performance?
The best answer is: Maybe. Studies have come down on both sides of that question, and a review from Andrew Jones (GSSI #156) suggests that performance improvements from consuming beetroot juice may depend on your level of fitness, your age, and how much you consume. Relatively untrained athletes appear to experience greater performance improvement than highly-trained athletes.
Middle-aged and older athletes may benefit more than younger athletes because nitric oxide availability may decrease with age and baseline vascular function may diminish with age. Put these findings together, and essentially it means that the further you are from optimal performance, the more you may achieve by increasing NO production and availability. But if you are younger and/or performing at a high level already it is less likely that beetroot juice will further improve performance, especially if you only consume it occasionally. High-level athletes may be able to achieve improved performance from consuming beetroot juice consistently over the period of at least a week.
Not everyone responds equally. Anecdotally from a CTS Coaching Roundtable discussion, results from beet juice supplementation vary widely and are highly individual. What seems clear, however, is that there is no detriment to either health or performance from consuming beets or beetroot juice, so there’s no harm in trying them. Even if improved athletic performance turns out to be due to the placebo effect, who cares? You still end up with improved performance just from training and consuming more vegetables!
The Recipe
Since the only practical way to consume enough dietary nitrate from beets to improve athletic performance is from drinking juice from raw beets, this isn’t a performance-enhancing recipe. But it’s still by far the best way I’ve ever eaten beets. The texture and flavor are wonderful, you can adjust the garlic to give it a mellow flavor or more bite, and the color is a beautiful and vibrant red. Add as a sauce for pasta or risotto, a dip for vegetables or crackers, or even a dressing for a chicken or grain salad. It keeps well and can be frozen, too, so the recipe is sized up to yield about 3 cups of pesto.
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Red Beet Pesto, by Chef Matthew Accarrino of SPQR
Ingredients
1 ¾ Cups roasted red beet, peeled and cut into 1” pieces, about 3-4 medium beets
One Garlic clove, crushed (mellow roasted garlic works well here)
1 Tsp Red Wine Vinegar
½ Cup slivered almonds, skinless, toasted
1/3 – ½ Cup Olive oil
1 ¼ Tsp Salt
Black Pepper (to personal preference)
1 Tbsp Parsley leaves (optional)
¼ Cup Parmesan or pecorino cheese, grated
Instructions:
To roast the beets:
- Create a foil packet (pull a length of foil and fold over in half, seal the edges by folding together in ¼” folds) you should have a pocket with an opening on one side.
- Place washed beets in a bowl. Sprinkle with a tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add a teaspoon of red wine vinegar and transfer beets and juices to the foil packet. Seal and transfer to a baking tray. Transfer to a 350-degree oven and roast for 35 to 50 minutes. The beets are done when a skewer or paring knife inserted in the beets comes out easily. Let cool in the packet.
To make the pesto:
- Transfer the beets, garlic, almonds and olive oil to a food processor. Pulse to chop finely.
- Season with salt and pepper. If you are using parsley, pulse it in now until finely cut.
- Lastly, pulse in the cheese. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt or a few drops of red wine vinegar if desired.
Nutrition Data (based on 3 Cup yield and 2 Tablespoon serving)
| Calories | Carbohydrate (g) | Protein (g) | Fat (g) | Sodium (mg) | Fiber (g) |
| 61 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 180 | .5 |
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Comments 57
I understood many years ago from a naturopathic practitioner that you should sip beetroot juice. If you glug it down quickly, I believe she said it overloaded the liver and you may collapse
Thank you for your info and very interesting
nice site
Take the oil and salt out and your looking far healthier.
Umm-no! Olive oil is one of the healthiest things you can put into your body. Please educate yourself before you comment.
You are correct!!!!
Olive oil is a processed food. It is the healthiest oil, but relatively, not a healthy food.
If you ate natural whole foods you would never get so much oil in your body. It also leads to weight gain.
Please educate yourself. Can’t say it enough. Extra-virgin olive oil NOT processed. It is derived from the first COLD PRESS of the season. Extra-virgin olive oil is the healthiest oil you can put in or on your body. Best source of information I have ever found is at cold pressed olive oil club.com. When you go through with your own research, you will find the information on this website is irrefutable. You will be amazed at the proven beneficial effects attributed to extra-virgin olive oil.
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The author fails to mention that raw beets are very hard on the kidneys. You should limit intake of raw and mostly eat cooked.
How do you know that raw beets are hard on the kidneys. In what way and why? Making a statement like that is not convincing unless you back it up with some evidence.
I love beets and want the raw ones for the most nitrates. But I don’t always have the time to be juicing them (quite messy too). The beet juices in the store taste great but I wonder how much their nitrate content has been reducing by cooking and sterilization. Is there a percent more of store-bought/processed beet juice one needs to drink compared to freshly-juiced?
Thank you!
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I eat raw beets with slices of pineapple (raw also).
The pineapple helps me get used to the taste of the beets.
Nice idea
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I used to juice beets, and my cookbook included a warning about ingesting too much raw beet juice at a time. Any info on that?
Hello All,
Can anyone advise in terms of weight how many gram mes of raw beet can consumed daily?
Alternatively Is IT ADVISABLE to BLEND THE RAW BEET with some added honey, peeled almond and some cinnamon powder turned into a smoothie)
Many many thanks.
You recommend raw beets, not cooked (or steamed), yet your recipe suggests roasting them. Isn’t that the same as cooking them, thus lowering the dietary nitrate?
You ruined the recipe by adding oil and animal products, they are known to significantly decrase vascular function.
Thanks for adding that. I was going to but you beet me too it
Do you mean decrease.
Olive oil is super healthy and cheese is a “neutral” food, it’s not healthy or unhealthy.
But if you want vegan,I would suggest miso and brewers yeast, instead of parmesan for that umami taste.
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I really don’t understand what u mean by roasted beet.
You MUST know what a roasted POTATO is????
Well a roasted beet is the same as a roasted potato…
Except that it’s a beet, not a potato!!!
NOW, do you understand???
Haha well explained!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Interesting recipe which I’ll try but I’m wondering how it will be with raw beetroots rather than roasted. The greens from the beetroot are delicious wilted with olive oil and cherry tomatoes. Do you realize how bad aluminium foil is for health? Rather line the foil with baking paper first or roast in a closed glass dish such as a Pyrex dish, but do not let the foil come in contact with the food, it is a known carcinogen. BTW “normal people”, what sort of command of language is that?
Thanks for spelling that out. Many people are still obvious to dangers of aluminium foil as they are to cooking in non stick pots.
You don’t mention whether you’re peeling the skin…when you roast the beets, you are leaving the skin on, then you peel the cooked skins off simpler, CORRECT????
I eat a package (8.8 oz) of Love Beets (cooked and package in vacuum plastic) every day; my normally 140/95 BP is consistently 122/78. When I don’t eat the beets (like when I went on vacation recently), my BP returns to the 140’s / 90’s in just a couple of days. Fortunately, I love beets, so I don’t mind eating them the rest of my life if necessary. Better than taking meds.
Really
Thank you for the tip on aluminum and lining it with paper and Terry I’m with you in eating beets instead of meds for blood pressure 😊.. God’s medicine..all natural too.
Which type of beets /growth , seeds ,beet species ,give the best flavor and the most nutrition? Bill , gardener in Kauai
It is stated in the article on beets above, that one could also eat green leafy veggies such as kale, spinach and lettuce….doh…why are you not suggesting that we eat the beet greens themselves??? They are absolutely delicious when steamed, tossed with a little garlic, a dash of grapeseed oil, a hit of pure apple cider vinegar, black pepper and if you are not worried about high blood pressure, add some of that nice pink Himalayan sea salt. Another version is just steam the beet greens, toss in lemon juice and sea salt..easy but so, so good!!! I cannot believe no one mentions eating the beet greens! They’re the best!
Kelsey you’re right, beet green are delicious sautéed and also in a smoothie, most people throw them away unfortunately.
What does that mean “beets turn toxic when cooked?
I have never heard that; and we eat lots of beets fresh from the garden.
I have been shredding raw beets for salads; delicious!!
I understand raw one are healthier than cooked. What is the difference; in terms of
vitamins and minerals?
An answer would be appreciates.
Delinda..who told you that???? No. You have been misled. Beets are not toxic after cooking. Period.
Raw fruits and vegetables give you enzymes. Cooking destroys the enzymes completely. Vitamins and minerals should be the same, cooked or raw. But the vitamins and minerals in cooked beets are better absorbed into your body.
Any vegetable or whole food you cook, in any liquid,. leeches a large volume of their “goodness” into the liquid, ie: vitamins and minerals, and don’t forget digestive enzymes! All of these things are needed by your body at the second level of digestion. To recoup whatever has not been killed by the heat of cooking, must be ingested in order to retrieve them for your body to use.
Raw beets, like spinach, are best raw. Beets cleanse the blood. They’re just a few molecules away from being haemoglobin. Beets turn toxic when cooked
https://youtu.be/ahoTIE9kBUY
Jeff primack. He’ll change your life
This is wrong. Beets are not toxic when cooked.
I used to hate beets but love fresh roasted beets with little more than olive oil, sea salt and aged balsamic vinegar! Now we grow our own and the leafs are good too!
https://youtu.be/ahoTIE9kBUY
Jeff primack. He’ll change your life
How long does the vasodilation effect last after consuming beets?
I’ve been drinking beet juice daily and it lowers my blood pressure a few points (say 10). You have to keep it up daily from what I can see.
Thank you so much for confirming that beets can lower blood pressure. Because that’s one of the main reasons that I eat them. Are canned beets the same as raw?
No, canned have lower nitrates
You need to consume them 2h before exercise.
It last around 4h
The evening before I go hiking in the mountains, I press about 350 ml raw beet juice. I add fresh lemon juice and fresh ginger if I have it, for flavour and maybe added benefits. I leave it in the fridge overnight, and it’s ready to go before daylight. I sip it through the morning. I notice a definite benefit in ability. I’m very fit. And 67 years old.
How much nitrate in a serving of the pesto?
Author
We’re not sure about the exact amount, but it will be significantly lower than either beetroot juice, beetroot shots or concentrated powder. Since the beets in this recipe are roasted, the amount of nitrate will be lower than the amount in the same weight of raw beets. Juicing raw beets concentrates the nitrates as well, because you’re taking away the bulk and fiber of the vegetable. The lower nitrate content is why we said this recipe may contribute to the health benefits of consuming nitrate-rich vegetables, but is not a performance-enhancing recipe. It won’t deliver the nitrates necessary to achieve an ergogenic effect. – Jim Rutberg, CTS Pro Coach