Are Beets Keto friendly? - Macros | Benefits | Facts | Cooking
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Beetroots, or beets, are vegetables that are packed with healthy nutrients for your body, in the middle ages, they were even used to heal digestive and blood diseases.
Even if beets contain a fair amount of carbohydrates they can be consumed while on Ketogenic diet. However, there are several things you need to be aware of to avoid slowing down your progress.
In this post we're going over the right way to consume beets on keto, what is the right amount of beets you can have while on the keto diet, and we will discuss some interesting facts about the benefits of beets on health. So Keep reading
Table of Content:
Are Beetroots Keto Friendly?
When you are on Keto Diet, you want to keep your net carbs intake low ( less than 20-30 g a day). A serving 100 g of Beetroots contains 9.6 grams of Carbohydrates. Knowing that one beetroot weight on average 150 grams if you include 1 beet into a meal, it's an additional 14.4 grams of carbs, and that's quite a lot.
However, it doesn't mean that you can't have beets when you are on keto, you just need to adjust your portion size.
For example, you can have half of a beetroot on a meal to stay within the safe range of 4 to 8 g of carbs per meal.
However, it doesn't mean that you can't have beets when you are on keto, you just need to adjust your portion size.
For example, you can have half of a beetroot on a meal to stay within the safe range of 4 to 8 g of carbs per meal.
I know that you may find in the web people telling you that you can take your cabs limits to 30 or even 50 g a day on a keto diet but if your main goal from the ketogenic diet is to lose weight you really need to stick to the 20 grams limits if you want to see some satisfying results.
20 g a day is what I found working the best for most of the people I've coached, DietDoctor who is one of the most popular figures when it comes to the keto diet also makes the same Recommendation.
Why Limit your carbs intake on Keto Diet?
The whole idea behind the Keto diet is to reach and maintain Ketosis if you're not vigilant with those sneaky carbs you risk to slow down your results. to put it simply, the human body uses carbs as its principal source of energy when you are on a ketogenic diet, you limit your carbs intake on purpose so your body starts looking for a new source of energy and triggers the ketosis state in which your organism produces chemicals called ketones that will allow your body to breakdown dietary and stocked fat cells to produce its energy instead of using carbohydrates.
To sum it up, even if beets contain carbs (9,6 g per 100 grams), you can still enyoy having it in small portion. While on keto, it's very important to monitor your carbs intake to keep it below 20 g per day.You can manage to include beets into your diet and still see good results, Consuming beetroots can have a good impact on your health, so let's jump to the next point of this post to see what can beets offer you.
Before going deeper into the benefits of beets on health, let's take a look at its nutritional Facts.
Beetroots Nutritional Facts
100 g of beets provide 43 calories, compared to other vegetables in quite a lot. If we take the example of turnips, there are only 28 calories in 100 g of turnips. However, beets are vitamins-rich and contain a fair amount of micronutrients.
The table below shows the principal nutrient found in 100 g of beets.
| Nutrient | Amount | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 43.00 | KCAL |
| Fat | 0.17 | G |
| Protein | 1.61 | G |
| Carbohydrate | 9.56 | G |
| Folate, food | 109.00 | UG |
| Saturated fatty acids | 0.027 | G |
| Fiber | 2.8 | G |
| Vitamin A, RAE | 2.00 | UG |
| Vitamin A | 33.00 | IU |
| Choline | 6.0 | MG |
| Folate, DFE | 109.00 | UG |
| Betaine | 128.7 | MG |
| Hexadecanoic acid | 0.026 | G |
| Octadecenoic acid | 0.032 | G |
| Octadecadienoic acid | 0.055 | G |
| Octadecatrienoic acid | 0.005 | G |
| Monounsaturated fatty acids | 0.032 | G |
| Polyunsaturated fatty acids | 0.060 | G |
| Water | 87.58 | G |
| Calcium, Ca | 16.00 | MG |
| Potassium, K | 325.00 | MG |
| Zinc, Zn | 0.35 | MG |
| Isoleucine | 0.048 | G |
| Leucine | 0.068 | G |
| Lysine | 0.058 | G |
| Cystine | 0.019 | G |
| Valine | 0.056 | G |
| Arginine | 0.042 | G |
| Histidine | 0.021 | G |
| Aspartic acid | 0.116 | G |
| Serine | 0.059 | G |
| Niacin | 0.334 | MG |
| Pantothenic acid | 0.155 | MG |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.067 | MG |
| Vitamin C | 4.9 | MG |
| Thiamin | 0.031 | MG |
| Riboflavin | 0.040 | MG |
| Folate/Folic Acid | 109.00 | UG |
| Ash | 1.08 | G |
| Iron, Fe | 0.80 | MG |
| Magnesium, Mg | 23.00 | MG |
| Phosphorus, P | 40.00 | MG |
| Sodium, Na | 78.00 | MG |
| Copper, Cu | 0.075 | MG |
| Manganese, Mn | 0.329 | MG |
| Tryptophan | 0.019 | G |
| Threonine | 0.047 | G |
| Methionine | 0.018 | G |
| Phenylalanine | 0.046 | G |
| Tyrosine | 0.038 | G |
| Alanine | 0.060 | G |
| Glutamic acid | 0.428 | G |
| Glycine | 0.031 | G |
| Proline | 0.042 | G |
| Phytosterols | 25.00 | MG |
| Vitamin E | 0.04 | MG |
| Sugars | 6.76 | G |
| Carotene, beta | 20.00 | UG |
| Vitamin K | 0.2 | UG |
| Selenium, Se | 0.7 | UG |
| Tocopherol, alpha | 0.04 | MG |
To can find the Daily Recommended intake for these Nutriments, Vitamins, and mineral Visit Nutritional Goals.
Copyright 2020 This content Have been created by DietsCoach.com
Benefits of Beets on Health
Beets improve your endurance and help you recover faster from your workouts
Beetroots contain a molecule called (NO3) dietary Nitrates which is known to enhance the physical capability of your muscles, besides this compound, helps your muscle recover faster after intense physical activity, recent studies showed that taking beets before going to workout out can drastically increase your performances during training some of these studies ( ) even mentioned an increase of 20% in reps and weight lifted for people who took a 70 ml dose of beet juice before training.
Beetroots help you regulate your blood pressure
Several factors such as stress or too much unhealthy food have made blood pressure problems quite common in our societies, sometimes even from an early age, beets are rich in vitamins and minerals, as we have seen above, they contain significant amounts of Dietary nitrate but also vitamins C, magnesium and, the folic acids known to protect you from this type of health problems.
(Trusted source Study on the effects of Nitrate on hypertension Regulation.).Beetroots may help you Prevent Breast cancer
100 grams of Beets contains 109 mcg of Folate (Vitamin B9) which represent 25% of your recommended daily intake, Folate also called Vitamin B9 play a very important role in preventing breast cancer, serval studies showed that an intake of 150 - 400 mcg of Folate reduce risks of breast cancer these studies have been conducted on almost seven hundreds thousands participants, However, keep in mind that if your daily intake of folate/vitamin B9 exceeds the recommended daily intake of 400 mcg, it can be harmful to you.
(Trusted Sources Studies on the role of folate to reduce breast cancer, a study on the coloration found between folate and breast cancer )Beetroots help you preserve your mental and neuronal health
Due to its high folate contains beets may help protect from known mental issues like depression and protect your brain from diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's, but as we said before don't exceed the daily recommended doses of folate/Vitamin B9 without medical consultation.
(Trusted Sources Study on the effect of folate in reducing risks of Alzmeir, Study on the relation between folic acid and Depression ). Beets side effects
As I showed in nutriments Table Beets contain Betanin, this substance is basically a natural colorant and it's not processed by the human body so if you eat beets your urine can turn red but don't worry it's harmless, however, eating too many beetroots may have a bad impact on your kidneys.
Interesting Facts about Beetroots
before we dive deeper into the main health benefits of the beets, here are some interesting and funny facts about beetroots :
- You can use beets juice to test the PH of a liquid and see its degree of acidity or alkalinity, the more acid the liquid will be the more the beet juice will turn into pink in the other hand if you mixed it with an alkaline solution the liquid will tend to yellow color.
- Beets may have aphrodisiac properties, during ancient civilizations, particularly Roman and greek, people used to take it because they believed beetroots enhance their performances in bed and helped them in being more fertile, however, there is no serious study about this yet
- The creator of relativity theory Albert Einstein didn't like the taste of beets (source delifreshltd.co.uk)
- Beetroots were first cultivated by the Roman civilization ( Trusted Source Wikipedia )
- Beetroot is often used as an ingredient to prepare Burgers in Australia (Trusted Source theguardian.com)
Frequently Asked Question about Beetroots
How long do beetroots take to cook?
This depends on the way you're cooking your beets you can either boil, steam, cut and roast or whole roasting them the following table below shows how much time you need for every cooking method:
| Beets Cooking Method | Approximative Cooking Time | Commentary |
|---|---|---|
| Boiling | 30 minutes | Wash your beets and leave them with their peel then put them into boiling water for about 30 min until they become tender |
| Steaming | 30 minutes | Steaming your beets are the best method to keep the maximum of their nutriments, of course as the boiling method don't peel your beetroots this is the streamer I use |
| Cutting and roasting | 25-30 minutes | Pre-heat oven 400 F peel and cut your beets into small pieces the thinner the slice, the shorter the cooking time, add some olive oil, your favorites herbs, pepper and salt, then put them in the oven for about 25 min, try to make beets chips this way children love them |
| Whole roasting | 45-60 minutes | Pre-heat oven 400 F peel your beetroots and add some olive oil and salt |
How long for beetroot to grow?
If you have a backyard at home it could be a great idea to grow some beets, you don't need to much space and it's not very difficult, on average it takes you around 2 to 3 months to grow beets, check out this wiki how: how to grow beets for more info.
Can beetroots be eaten raw?
Yes you can eat beets raw, however, the taste is a little bit stronger than cooked beets, the best way to prepare raw beetroots is by grating them, here's a very easy recipe of Raw Beetroots.
| Raw Grated Beet | Serving for 2 |
|---|---|
Ingredients
|
Preparation 5 Minutes
|
| 1 beet | 1. Wash the beet and peel it |
| 1/2 teaspoon olive oil | 2. Grate the beet and put it into a boil. |
| lemon juice (half a lemon) | 3. add all the other ingredients to your boil and mix smoothly. |
| herbs of province | Bon appetit |
| salt and pepper |
Bottom line
Beets is one of the vegetables that contain the most of carbs 9.6 g per 100 g, however, it's still acceptable to consume them in keto in small quantities, they have a very good impact on the individual's health, Personally, I recommend to take them as pre-workouts the nitrate component present in beetroots is well known for increasing muscular and endurance performances, I usually take half of a raw beet (pressed or grated) before training. Thank you for reading our post if you enjoyed it please share it with your family and Friends.