Beets

The Harris Teeter canned goods aisle yesterday had me thinking about my experiences with beets a while back.

Not too long ago an article came out in the Journal of Applied Physiology about how beet juice boosts stamina. A few friends of mine read the claims that beet juice can lower your blood pressure and increase your ability to exercise by up to 16%. Next thing you know, everyone is out buying beets and pouring over craigslist ads to find secondhand Jack LaLanne juicers.

Amateur endurance athletes are a funny bunch. Generally the trend goes something like this --

1) Athlete reads an article about vegetable x or juice of vegetable y increases recovery/boosts endurance/lactate capacity etc.

2) Athlete goes to grocery store and buys a large quantity of vegetable.

3) Athlete over consumes vegetable.

4) Athlete experiences either no gains, or marginal gains that are most likely due to placebo effect.

5) Athlete gets sick of vegetable and goes back to their normal diet.

I'm not immune to this sort of behavior. I'll admit that I did go to the grocery store and purchased a few 99 cent cans of red beets in water.

I also realized why I never liked beets -- they smell like dirt. Cleaned, cooked, or canned, beets smell like dirt when they're being prepared.

If I wanted to get a healthy taste of dirt, I would have ridden in the Poolesville Road Race yesterday. In the meantime, I'm ok with suffering 16% more if it means avoiding a diet of beets.

Want to offer a beet recipe to change my mind? Try me.