Talk:Beetroot

Known only as beetroot in the UK
Almost exclusively eaten cooked and cold in salads here. Can often be bought ready cooked (and cold), often sealed in plastic, or pickled in jars. 78.149.172.237 (talk) 12:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I am in Canada, I have never heard it called "Garden beet" ... only Beetroot 66.183.96.74 (talk) 07:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)


 * English beetroot is rounder (moe globular) than the roots in the current picture - see http://www.deliaonline.com/ingredients/ingredients-a-z/ingredients-a-c/Beetroot.html for illustration. Not quite sure if that's worth mentioning, but the shape of the roots just looked wrong to me. --94.212.2.245 (talk) 20:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

It's the usual problem of American editors refusing to accept that their local naming conventions aren't used anywhere else. See the rutabaga talk page as a further example. Even now the article still claims beetroot is also known as the table beet, garden beet, red beet or informally simply as beet. Not outside the US it isn't. --Ef80 (talk) 11:46, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm Canadian and I've never heard it referred to as beetroot, always and only beet. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * How dare a people from another country an ocean away and on a different continent come up with a name for a damned vegetable that isn't the same as that used by the knowitall British. Americans don't mind that the British say beetroot while they use beet, but it sure seems to put British knickers in a twist. BTW, I already knew we (Americans) said beet and the British used beetroot while you Ef apparently didn't. With more than six and a half (6.5) thousand million (billion to Americans, whoops we did it again) people outside the U.S. it takes a special arrogance to claim to know what name they'll use or not use for a certain item. My name is Al Cook and I live in the U.S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.32.20.114 (talk) 14:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Name change to beetroot
My understanding of article naming is that the most common name will generally be used unless other factors are involved. Google gives: Beetroot - 1,440,000 hits Garden beet - 49,600 hits

"Beetroot" is 30 times more common than "Garden beet"

Unless the existence of "other factors" can be shown here then the name of this article needs to be changed.
 * I've moved it. Sanity prevails. Bazonka (talk) 22:32, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * 5 years later. Beetroot:  2,300,000; Beet:  8.960.000; Beets: 4.500.000.  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 18:51, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Just Googling it isn't a helpful gauge of commonality, Richardson mcphillips, as 'beet' is also used in relation to sugar beet, sea beet and various other plants. Furthermore, the plant from which beetroot is cultivated is called beet; it's specifically the root vegetable which is referred to as beetroot (outside of the U.S.). So more hits for 'beet' is to be expected, but cannot be used as proof of 'beet' being the common term for the root vegetable. It's a better idea to look at what different dictionaries for English dialects include, and use the one most universally understood, as per Wiki guidelines.148.64.8.60 (talk) 17:31, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Baked beetroot
My mother (in the UK) was very fond of beets as a baked/roast vegetable. FWIW a Google search on baked beetroot give around 270,000 hits, boiled beetroot give approx. 160,000. Should it be added? 122.107.58.27 (talk) 06:48, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Beta vulgaris
The articles Beet, Beetroot and Chard should be merged into a single article under the title "Beta vulgaris". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.125.14.161 (talk) 20:59, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No. They may be related, but they're not the same. Bazonka (talk) 18:38, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

..."The green, leafy portion of the beet is also edible. "
The next sentence talks about cooking it. However, here in Oztralia young beetroot leaves are served raw in a salad, b oth for taste and for colour. May I go ahead and include that in the article? Old_Wombat (talk) 08:44, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Betaine
In the section on effects it says that betaine "is important for cardiovascular health" and that homocysteine "can be harmful to blood vessels and thus contribute to the development of heart disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease".

There's a citation for this and I looked it up (http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/betaine-000287.htm). It says "researchers don't yet know exactly how high levels of homocysteine and heart disease are related" and "scientists don't yet know whether homocysteine itself is harmful, or whether it is just an indicator of increased risk for heart disease". I don't think this citation actually supports the claims I refer to. It doesn't say whether homocysteine is a risk factor or a marker of risk burden. It actually says they don't know either way.

I've seen a paper that concluded that adjusting for renal function "eliminates the relationship between tHcy and markers of vascular risk in subjects with proven cerebrovascular disease" and that "Our data are thus consistent with the hypothesis that mild renal impairment is an independent risk factor for vascular disease and elevated tHcy simply a marker for reduced GFR. The underlying relationship between tHcy and renal function is not altered by long-term B-vitamin supplementation and it is possible that, by treating homocysteine, we may be shooting the messenger rather than attacking the true risk factor." http://atvb.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/28/6/1158

I think that those claims I've highlighted are controversial at best (from the various scientific papers I've seen, I get the impression they have actually been disproved) and that they were never supported by the reference cited. Prak Mann (talk) 19:32, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Moving current beet article to Beta vulgaris, redirect beet here
I've proposed moving Beet to the scientific name, Beta vulgaris, and redirecting Beet to this article. Please comment here: Talk:BeetPlantdrew (talk) 21:08, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

possible error
I apologize if this is the wrong place to say this i am new to the wiki community. I believe the information from Source: USDA Nutrient Database(http://ndb.nal.usda.gov) is incorrect due to a typo. the value size is per 100g. should this be per 10g? According to nutritional facts from many other sites would suggest this to be the case.

SynthSyn (talk) 09:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Although 10 g may seem like a more practical serving size for meal consumption, it is standard in science, nutrition and the USDA nutrient tables to express individual nutrient content per 100 g, as displayed in the Article table. One company, Conde Nast, publishes a detailed analysis of Nutrition Facts which can be displayed for different serving sizes via the pick list under the food title, shown here. --Zefr (talk) 18:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

How to show cultivar names
Before we start an edit war, I'd like to better understand the WP:CULTIVAR standard. My take on it is enclosing the cultivar name in quotes is only needed if the genus, or genus x species, is specified with it. Since the cultivar names are given by themselves, I don't see the need for quotes. There's lots of articles listing variety names that don't use quotes, for example List of sweetcorn varieties. n2xjk (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've just added a citation to the ICNCP to WP:CULTIVAR, to make it easier to check. This convention is rather new, as can be seen in the code of nomenclature, which mentions earlier use of cv. and var. A lot of otherwise quite authoritative literature still says "variety" when "cultivar" is meant, thus continuing the confusion with Variety (botany). I'd say that in this case the species name is implicit from the topic of the page, so that it's okay to list Beta vulgaris 'Crosby's Egyptian' as simply 'Crosby's Egyptian', but the quotes make it clear that it is a cultivar and not an informal designation. By that reasoning, List of sweetcorn varieties is poorly named and not well typeset for an encyclopedia; it's quite informal and could be polished. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:30, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

"Beetroot dye may also be used in ink"
A google search for "is beetroot dye used in ink" returns a result from fountainpennetwork.com, giving recipes for beetroot-based ink. Is this an acceptable source, and should I cite it? Benjamaster1 (talk) 15:04, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 06:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Beetroot → Beet – In American English, the root of the plant is called beet, and no part of it is called beetroot. In the UK, to the besdt of my knoledge, the leaves are refered to as "beet". Since this article is about the whole plant, I think that beet is a better name for it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:49, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't the first 6 words indicate this article is about the taproot, not the plant as a whole? Stickee (talk) 11:09, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Here in England "beetroot" means the root, or the whole plant, of the magenta-colored variety used in salad, not sugar beet or fodder beet etc, including in uses such as "beetroot seedlings" where the rootstock has not developed yet. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:20, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that the suggested move would also cause confusion with the likes of Beta vulgaris also called beet. See also Beet (disambiguation) and Beets (disambiguation).  I don't think that an American spelling related to this topic comes any where close to a justification of WP:primary and think that the WP:natural disambiguation works best.  Gregkaye  ✍ ♪  13:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:TITLECHANGES. Beetroot was originally a redirect to Beet, then changed to redirect to Garden beet, and was eventually overwritten with the content of that article, all apparently unilaterally without ever achieving community consensus support.  Now that the article about the plant has been moved from Beet to Beta vulgaris, it makes sense to have this article be at Beet.  --В²C ☎ 20:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. No, the article is only about the root. It says that in the first line. So under WP:ENGVAR it should stay as is. Yes, it was originally a redirect, but since it's been stable for over five years and nobody has worried about it I don't think that's a problem. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:58, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The topic of this article (the root of the beet) is referred to as "beet" in all variants of English; it is referred to as "beetroot" in only some variants. Therefore, we should use the more common name.  --В²C ☎ 17:44, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This is patently untrue. In British English, we never refer to the plant as a "beet". When I hear "beet", I think of the sugar beet. RGloucester  — ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose to avoid a source of confusion. In both US and British English, "beet" can mean any variety of Beta vulgaris, while "beetroot" means the red-rooted variant or the root thereof, unfortunately only in British English. The following table is distilled from Oxford university press on-line dictionaries:
 * Olli Niemitalo (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. To avoid a source of confusion. The article say:-The beetroot is the taproot portion of the beet plant, - so it is quite right title. Hafspajen (talk) 02:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Per the above mentions of "confusion", but also per MOS:RETAIN and WP:TITLECHANGES. There is no good reason for a change, here. The present title is correct, and it avoids the ambiguity of "beet". When I hear "beet", I think of the sugar beet. I've never heard beetroot called a "beet". Leave this alone. RGloucester  — ☎ 03:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Exactly - it is what it is - beet is Beta vulgaris. Hafspajen (talk) 04:53, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose – Per the above mention of the clarity of that first sentence "The beetroot is the taproot portion of the beet plant" and because statements above about British English also apply to Australian English, where "beetroot" is a pickled item found in sandwiches (derived from a crop grown in cooler climates), and silver beet grows in the garden. Thus "beet" would bring non-understanding, followed by "Do you mean silver beet?" Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Recent research on exercise benefits
There is plenty of recent research supporting the idea that the nitrates in beetroot improve exercise performance in the order of 16%. --Penbat (talk) 08:23, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * This would be considered WP:PRIMARY work, not yet defining a specific mechanism in vivo or an effective dose. IMO, it's insufficiently established scientifically and would not meet WP:MEDRS requirements to say anything certain in the article. WP:NOTJOURNAL also applies. --Zefr (talk) 13:20, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * A recent meta-analysis (the highest value in the hierarchy of evidence in evidence-based medicine) proved that it improves endurance exercise performance. That's 46 studies spanning over 10 years. Please do not remove the edit and it is scientifically proven to improve performance. If a meta-analysis doesn't "sufficiently establish the requirements" then what does? Please read the article if you are confused. Nitrate10 (talk) 22:48, 10 September 2016 (UTC)Nitrate10

--Nitrate10 (talk) 08:48, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Solved ., you are right. But please, read and respect Wikipedia policies to avoid future problems. You must wait to achieve a consensus on talk pages. It is a good idea to ask for opinions of other users or admins, as for example raising the issue on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, do not enter edit war. Best regards. --BallenaBlanca (talk) 08:54, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It is not solved. We have access only to the abstract which does not reveal the nitrate source is beets or beet juice, and certainly gives no evidence about an effective nitrate dose or consumed beet amount that would pertain to the article. The systematic review is vague in its own conclusions: "likely to elicit a positive outcome when testing endurance exercise capacity, whereas dietary NO3− supplementation is less likely to be effective for time-trial performance." We are adopting a lenient stance on preliminary research using small subject numbers, vague experimental designs with little knowledge of the subjects or the applicable physical performance conditions. The source and content are not encyclopedic. -- (talk) 14:34, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Easy to get access to the whole thing. The paper found mild to moderate increase in endurance with vegetables including beetroot.. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 15:23, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

76% of the trials used Beetroot juice as the form of supplementation. 581 subjects (mean : 10.8). PEDro score of 8.8. Zefr please read the article before you criticise the paper - it does a disservice to the authors of the paper and all of the studies selected. The trials have been systematically broken down 1 by 1 with all of the characteristics listed. Therefore, your point on "vague experimental designs, knowledge of the subjects or the applicable physical performance conditions" carries no weight. The authors listed all performance measures and the subject's fitness level (VO2max/peak). 61 of 76 trials improved performance (91% of those testing endurance exercise capacity). These are significant numbers especially when you take into account that the authors only used trials that used a crossover single/double blinded randomized protocol (subjects taking part in nitrate and placebo trials). As for the conclusion - that is typical wording used because guaranteeing something 100% is negligent and very rarely the case in any form of research. The authors also evaluated the studies using the PEDro scale so please do not criticize the individual studies as it is disrespectful to the authors that carried out those studies. If the studies were not good enough the author would have omitted them along with the 10 not selected in the study selection phase. Sports Medicine is one of the best journals in the field with an impact factor of 5.579 (they don't publish articles just for fun) so if they have selected it there should not be an issue.

Why are you not voicing concern for the previous sentence? They have 12 trials using beetroot juice and had a significant decrease in SBP but not DBP. 254 subjects (less than half of the study above). The journal has a lower impact factor (3.3). The only difference is the authors in that study used different wording ("associated with a significant") and said it decreased BP. It significantly decreased SBP and decreased DBP (not significantly). The McMahon et al. study had the same outcome (significantly improving endurance capacity (significantly). Improving time-trial and graded exercise performance (slightly non-significant). Please read the article in its entirety before making continual edits. Nitrate10 (talk) 23:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)Nitrate10
 * Nitrate10: place the URL to the full report into the reference template or here so anyone can read and assess it. The encyclopedia is not a journal where dubious results are debated about whether they are to be included in a fact-based article on beets per WP:NOTJOURNAL and WP:SPECULATION. If the results are vague as conspicuous in this discussion to date, similar to the rest of the article topics in "Preliminary research", the entire section is open for further revision or removal. --Zefr (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

--Zefr: The article can be accessed by anyone with library/database access and I have no interest in risking a copyright breach. You could contact the author. Doc James agrees that it should be included. I am a researcher in a related field and feel it should. That should be enough. Before you continue I think you should do some research on what statistically significant means and what a meta-analysis represents. Based on your reasoning of what constitutes "dubious" the encyclopedia would have to strip most of its articles (head over to the caffeine page because they have comparable results. Creatine too). Nitrate10 (talk) 21:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Nitrate10

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"Beet" refers to all of the plant, while "beetroot" refers only to the root.
Yep. It already mentioned this, but I slightly rearranged it to where in the first sentence it talked about the beet in general. Somebody reverted it.

Oh, why?

APPARENTLY, I didn’t cite any sources... Wait, why would I need to cite any sources for merely rearranging the terms?

Oh, and also, when it talked about "beet juice", I assumed it meant from the root and not the greens, so I clarified this.

I also added commas where they needed to be added (I did some typo fixes). Do I have to cite a grammar site to prove that they were proper grammar?

Some cuisines and dishes with "beets" in them—you could tell they were talking about specifically the root, so I again clarified.

“Harvested earlier for use as greens”, or “Harvested earlier for use of beet greens”. Which sounds better? You gonna "use" the ROOT AS greens?

One part said they were "deep purple", and as it mentions this in another part and shows YELLOW AND WHITE ONES, I figured I should remove that (as, in a way, you could say it was being "racist", stereotyping most beetroot to be only purple-colored, which is false).

The stems are considered part of the leaves (which are edible) too, but some plants have edible leaves with poisonous stems, so I clarified that the stems are edible as well, and that collectively, the leaves and stems may be called the "beet greens".

One part mentioned beetroot is able to be peeled. Pretty obvious, right? Not a necessity.

One part mentioned they could be steamed, and in the main part where it talks about how they can be cooked, it didn’t mention that, so I went ahead and added it.

It talks about beetroot nutrition, but didn’t the link provided refer to both the beet greens and the beetroot?

By the way, what is a "frozen novelty"? :/ SaltySemanticSchmuck (talk) 08:18, 30 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The title of this section may be true where you live. It's not true where I live. Don't expect the English language to be either logical or consistent all around the world. HiLo48 (talk) 08:20, 30 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Then maybe add that info, then? Mention it somewhere? Before I edited, the article already only stated "beetroot" only referred to the root; “Beetroot is the taproot portion of the beet plant”. SaltySemanticSchmuck (talk) 13:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Everything in Wikipedia should be based on what reliable sources say. Follow them. HiLo48 (talk) 22:06, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Or just slap a template here and there, simple as that. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 16:34, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Beet kvass
Not even mentioned on page. 2601:647:CB02:5034:7C8B:A4EE:D641:4A30 (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Agreed, also, the beet borscht wasn't originally made of raw beets 81.89.66.133 (talk) 16:34, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Taste
The leaves are compared to spinach but no mention is made of the (to me) unique flavour of beetroot. To me it is an 'earthy' taste reminiscent of petrichor. Should something be added? Stub Mandrel (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Who needs leaves when you can grab the beetroot and turn it into something sweet? 81.89.66.133 (talk) 16:33, 27 May 2023 (UTC)