Working at a grocery store I frequently have people asking if we can cut beet tops off for them (carrot tops too 😦 ). It’s one of those bitter sweet moments, I’m sad to see that they can’t find use for them and do not see the tops as food. On the plus side I get to take them home and experiment! I usually just add them to juice, such as my 9 Garden Vegetable Juice, but today I wanted to try to find some other uses that may not seem as obvious.

Beet tops are great sauteéd or grilled (dehydrated with a little olive oil, garlic, onion, and your preferred spices if you are rawtastic), in salads, slaws, curry dishes, veggie burgers, chips (follow any kale chip recipe and replace kale with beet tops) add them to your pasta dishes (raw zucchini or root vegetable pasta sauce or just in mixed with the pasta), and when juiced it’s great to use instead of artificial coloring!

This morning I tried a recipe from Raw on $10 a Day (or less!) called the Breakfast Beet Strawberry Lemon Smoothie. I love her posts, recipes, website, the cute photos and the whole idea of having a raw blog where one’s spending is documented. Most people seem to be surprised at how cheap it can be to eat raw. I think it helps that it is easier to use every part of a vegetable when eating raw, like how I use juice pulp for veggie burgers and soups.

The Breakfast Beet Strawberry Lemon Smoothie tastes mostly like strawberry & lemon with beet tops and banana in the background. The drink has a beautiful balance of sweet, savory, and citrus flavors. This smoothie will be made in my kitchen again soon!

I shredded my beet tops and filled my blender to the 2 cups line and added 5 tablespoons of water to make the beet tops into a liquid.

I blended this up several times until it was a liquid, then added; lemon, lemon zest, strawberries and my chopped banana. When using frozen bananas for a smoothie I let the bananas sit on the counter for a few minutes before cutting. This way the banana is easy to peel and cut.

With beet tops I also made a salad with a curry creamy tomato sauce. I added seaweed flakes, curry, garlic, lemon, olive oil, red onion, half a tomato, and carrots. It has a little spice to it, the tomato really brings out the curry and the carrot helps sweeten it up.

I had half of this for my lunch and the other half I put in the dehydrator for 4 hours and made beet top chips. They were crunchy and tasted extra spicy! I left the stems on them, unlike kale stems beet stems are not very hard and actually have an easy texture to chew on.

Besides not being wasteful with food beet tops are extremely benefical to eat. Beet tops may not sound nutritious but the antioxidants present in beet roots, as well as beet tops, offer protection against coronary artery disease and stroke, lower cholesterol levels and have anti-aging effects. They are an excellent source of carotenoids, flavonoids (protect against certain cancers), and vitamin A (great for vision health). Also, it is completely normal if your urine is a pink/red color after consuming beets (tops and roots included), most people are unable to breakdown the pigment in beets.

Don’t beet hating 😉 the tops are versatile, add beautiful colors to your dish and will make your insides smile.

Raw Beet Top News Find:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/recipe-of-the-day-raw-beet-salad/

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