Red beetroot (beetroot)

A biennial herbaceous plant, shortly pubescent, often with a dark purple hue. Root – a root crop, thick, turnip-like, red, less often – yellow or white. In the first year it produces a rosette of long-petiolate, blunt, ovoid leaves and a root crop. The stem of the second year is straight, branched. Stem leaves alternate, small, oblong or lanceolate. The flowers are small, inconspicuous, regular, five-membered. Perianth simple, greenish. The flowers are collected in balls, later – in long leafy spikes. The fruits are trifoliate. Blooms from July to September.

It is traditionally bred in gardens in the middle zone of the European part of Russia, especially in the black earth zone.

Medicinal raw materials are roots and leaves, mostly consumed fresh. Root crops contain sugar, vitamin C, pigments, oxalic and malic acids. Red beets are rich in manganese and potassium salts. Beet tops are much richer in vitamin C (20-50 mg%), folic acid (0.2 mg%) and poorer in fiber than root crops.

In folk medicine, beets have long been used to treat various diseases. The juice of freshly grated root crops is used to treat lung diseases (inflammation, pleurisy, etc.), and mixed in half with honey is used in the treatment of hypertension. Beets are used for anemia, chronic rhinitis, persistent long-term constipation, lung cancer, anemia.

 

In case of external inflammatory processes and ulcers, it is recommended, in addition to the internal use of beetroot juice, to apply gruel from beet root crops to the affected area for a long time (it is changed as it dries).

Raw and pickled beets have long been considered a good remedy in the treatment of scurvy.

Application

Boiled beets and its decoction have a laxative and diuretic effect.

With persistent long-term constipation, a decoction (15-20 g per 200 ml) is used in enemas.

Boiled beet juice in the form of nose drops is recommended for chronic rhinitis, grated (raw) root can be put in the form of small tampons in the nostrils for several minutes. In this case, there is a sharp individual reaction: for some, a chronic runny nose can quickly worsen. In such cases, beetroot tampons should be used less often or beetroot should be replaced with some other remedy.

Another folk method of medicinal use of beets for the treatment of chronic rhinitis: they are taken orally and used for washing the nostrils with a decoction of the root, which has been infused for some time and a little fermented.

For the treatment of anemia, the following mixture is prepared: juice is squeezed from the roots of beets, black radish and carrots (from grated cake) and poured into a dark bottle in equal parts, then the bottle is rolled into the dough and put to languish in the oven for 3 hours; use 1 tbsp. spoon 3 times every day.

Freshly prepared root juice is drunk 1/2 cup 3-4 times every day for colds of the lungs and cancer, while feeling better, appetite, swelling is reduced, they drink juice for anemia, diabetes, anemia, etc.

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