Beet You Bloody

photo by rob. steal it and i shall beet youWhen you get to be my age, you keep you eye out for signs you are about to die. Looking into the toilet and finding what appears to be blood is one of those signs.

Unless you’ve been eating beets.

Beets are arguably the hottest vegetable around right now and you can’t open a newspaper or look at a food blog without finding beet recipes. Roasted beets, beet salad, sauteed beets… they’re everywhere.

But back to the amusing side effects. When many people eat beets, their stool takes on a bright red bloody color. It may also turn your urine red, which is hilarious — unless you’re not expecting it, then it’s not so funny.

Very few items about beets mention this amazing phenomena, focusing mainly on the beets healthful benefits and unique earthy flavor. I urge you to take the plunge with the humble beet. Serve it to someone unfamiliar with their magical properties and watch them run screaming from the bathroom the next day.

14 thoughts on “Beet You Bloody

  1. Gotta admit, the first time I ate a big plate of beets I wasn’t prepared for the after effects. I thought my colon had disintegrated and I’d be dead in an hour.

  2. At Earth Foods in Hudson I discovered they had REAL juices…I had an apple beet ginger juice one day that was to die for. The next morning I was quite shocked in the bathroom but I didn’t call the doctor or anything…around lunch time I was craving one of those juices again…it wasn’t until I was sucking it down that I realized what had happened.

      1. I, too, am easily amused and my husband and I can both smell the asparagus effect. We have an open door and have observed the other’s eau de asparagus.

        What goes in must come out…and with all of the food blogs out there, I don’t know why people get so bent out of shape about what comes out…I find it just as interesting/entertaining. Then again with a dog and two cats, I feel like I clean up poop for a living, so the ‘what comes out’ does consume a good portion of my life.

  3. Tom Robbins’ best novel, “Jitterbug Perfume,” dwells heavily on this phenomenon, which stuck with me . . . so I was prepared the first time I ate a plate of those delicious tubers . . .

    1. Sounds like my kind of book… I gave up on Robbins after not being able to get into the copy of Cowgirls I found in my older brother’s room in high school. Much of my taste in music and literature has its origins in that room.

  4. Agreed on “Cowgirls” . . . I had the same reaction. I only picked up “Jitterbug” from finding it in the wardroom while doing a trans-Atlantic crossing in the Navy, and running out of anything else to read. Katelin doesn’t like Robbins as a general rule, either, and she read it this past holiday break and loved it. The other one of his that I really like (I have tried all of them, and have generally been disappointed or given up) is his first: “Another Roadside Attraction.”

  5. I don’t feel the same way about beets since a large (way-past-the-eat-by-date) can of them detonated in our kitchen while opening. I had to use about a gallon of BIN Primer-Sealer and two gallons of paint to cover up the stains. I swear there is a spot on the ceiling that mocks me right now. Had to replace the floor.

  6. Truthfully, that’s never happened to me. But if you wanna talk a vile veggie, asparagus is Public Enemy #1, as Valerae suggests. Not to get overly graphic, but one’s urine just isn’t the same after eating it.

  7. Here’s another – drink a couple cans of grape soda and the next day watch for the GREEN results. You may want to give this a try on March 16th for an extra special celebration of St. Patrick’s Day!

    1. In the extensive research I did for this item, I did see blue food dye mentioned once or twice — but I overlooked that it would produce green results. Ah, science.

Leave a Reply to Rob Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *