Gardening Activity

Huddled Masses Food

One crop that has been growing well in spite of there being no sunlight is the beets. Weve eaten a few of the Bulls Blood (on the left) and there are enough Lutz (right) to see us through until spring and then some.
The beetroot looks set to be in fashion this year, a superfood even, topping Dr. Jonny Bowdens list of 11 best foods you arent eating. While he stipulates that beets should be eaten fresh for maximum antioxidant power, it is frozen blueberries and canned pumpkin which finish in 10th and 11th places respectively. Ms. Parker-Pope who writes the column (and has never cooked a beet) dug deeper in a follow up article. She asked a Leading Beet Expert Irwin L. Goldman, point blank, why it is that the beet is getting no respect. "They are a huddled masses sort of food. They are thought of as peasant food and old-fashioned," said the Beet-Believer,[but] "They really are wonderful, and there are a lot of good things that you can do with them." (?)
Yeah, anyway, I really like them, most especially baked. But Ive only just found out (and not in that vacuous bit of reportage) that not everyones pee is pink the next day. The ability to metabolize the betacyanin is controlled by a single genetic locus and people (like me) with two recessive genes will pass the pigment in their urine.