BEET - Beta vulgaris

The beet is a Mediterranean plant, possibly from Italy, although some food historians think beets may have derived from a wild plant stock with a far broader reach.

People in Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece grew beets thousands of years ago. Then as now beets were used not only to eat but for their red dye. These days beets are used to give processed foods a natural pink color. People of the Ukraine dye their Easter eggs with beet juice.

Like carrots, beets are very high in sugar, so farmers around the world plant sugar beets which provide 40 percent of the world’s commercial sugar. Today France is the world’s top producer of sugar beets, with the Ukraine and Germany next in line.

Early "punning" postcard - "May we always Beetroot to each other!" Early 1920's American postcard

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