Beet greens and Beet Root Chutney ( Spicy & Sweet with Indian spices)

By Dr.Sirisha Potluri:

Ingredients:

2 medium sized beets washed, peeled and diced!

Beet greens also washed thoroughly and chopped!

6 green chili

5-6 dry red chili

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

10-12 garlic cloves

1 -2 inches tamarind rib

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

3-4 pitted dates

Procedure:

Sauté green chili, dry red chili, coriander seeds on low to medium flame for 3-4 minutes, then add tamarind after removing seeds and hard ribs, Sauté for a minute, then add sesame seeds, continually stir for 1-2 minutes, then add garlic cloves and ofc the stove! Stir this mix few more times, so that garlic cloves also get some heat from rest of the ingredients. Let this mixture cool and add to a blender and grind to a coarse mixture!

In a thick bottom pan, Sauté diced beets for 2 minutes, then add diced greens, sauté all this for 2-3 minutes and off the stove. Let this cool down, then add beets, greens and pitted dates to coarsely ground mixture of spices and grind it all together to a coarse chutney consistency!

Serve this a chutney, dip etc!

Ever noticed that your urine turns a bit pink after you eat beets? Though the color looks a little unnatural, it’s a completely harmless and temporary condition called beeturia. It’s a vivid reminder of an important fact: When you eat plant foods, many of the pigment phytonutrients that act as antioxidants in your body (such as lycopene and beta-carotene) are absorbed into the bloodstream and bathe your organs, tissues, and cells. In other words, beet pigments find their way into your urine because they are absorbed through the gut and then travel into the bloodstream, where they circulate throughout the body until eventually being filtered out by the kidneys. During this trip through the body, even your blood becomes a bit pinker too!

Beets also bind to carcinogenic bile acids and remove them from the body!