Beet

BEET  (Beta vulgaris ruba) have been cultivated as a table vegetable in all temperate climes for many thousands of years. Who has not experienced the deep red-purple color of the broth after boiling beets? In traditional processing, the beets are prepared by blanching, cutting, hydraulic pressing of the root and vacuum concentrating the filtered expressed liquid to 60-65% total solids. The juice can be spray-dried to a free-flowing pink-red powder with maltodextrin added as a carrier to obviate the stickiness one usually gets with high sucrose containing liquids. The pigments extracted are made up of yellow fractions and a red fraction chemically called betanin, representing 75-95% of the total color present. Beet juice powder (the spray-dried product) should not be confused with beet powder, which is simply dehydrated beets ground into a fine powder. Beet juice powder is completely water-soluble, delivers little flavor, and is completely homogenous in surface shade as a powder. Beet powder on the other hand is only partially soluble in water, delivers the strong hay-like flavor of beets, and is not uniform in color as a powder.