8 BULLETIN 503, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The ways in which these and other vegetables may be prepared 
for the table are very numerous and have been discussed in an earlier 
bulletin of the department. 
The various vegetables included in the table of composition have 
each some special characteristics which merit discussion, so the more 
important will be taken up separately. 
BEETS. 
Although the greater part of the total crop of beets is used for the 
production of sugar or for the feeding of farm animals, beets are 
used in such large quantities as a human food that they rank as one 
of the most common table vegetables. White or yellow table beets 
are occasionally seen, but the red ones are the most usual. The flavor 
is more delicate in the summer varieties than in the later maturing 
sorts. Each year the southern-grown beets are becoming more com- 
mon in our .winter market and are superseding the large, fully 
matured roots which were formerly so often stored as winter vege- 
tables and which, late in the season, often develop a rather bitter and 
unpleasant flavor. It is sometimes said that beets are more nutritious 
than turnips, carrots, etc., but a comparison of the values for average 
composition given in the table (p. 3) does not substantiate this 
statement, all these vegetables being very much alike as regards the 
proportion of nutritive material present. 
Cane sugar constitutes a considerable portion of the total carbo- 
hydrates of beets, as high as 10 per cent or more having been often 
reported. Some reducing sugar is also present. In the varieties of 
beets grown for sugar making the percentage of cane sugar is con- 
siderably higher, sometimes 20 per cent or more, though such high 
values are the exception. Beets are sometimes said to be very rich 
in cellulose, but this does not seem to be the case with American 
varieties whose average composition has been quoted. When beets 
are cooked, a part of the sugar and other soluble nutrients which 
they contain is extracted, but how much material is removed can 
not be stated, as no cooking experiments with beets have been found 
on record. 
Beets are frequently canned at home for winter use, and the com- 
mercial canned article is a very well known product. The canned 
goods have practically the same chemical composition as freshly 
cooked beets. Some of the girls’ canning clubs, which the State and 
county organizations and the United States Department of Agri- 
culture are conducting in cooperation, have put up young beets with 
the tops left on, or have canned both beets and tops together—an 
excellent way of providing iron-rich greens in the winter diet, as 
beet tops make a very palatable potherb. 
~ — 
1U. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers’ Bul. 256 (1906). 
