Beets and their related effects

**Disclaimer. There is TMI in this post. You are forewarned.

Recently I visited my dad's farm in North Georgia with my sister Karrie and her husband. Dad's farm is pretty huge, and some of that is because he is growing things he wants to eat, some of it is because Karrie is growing things she wants to eat, and some of it is because they know working together means they can grow all kinds of vegetables and work together to freeze and can them. 

One thing that they have a ton of (in my opinion) is beets. They also have a crazy amount of green beans in tons of varieties. Rows upon rows upon rows of green beans. Ugh. I dislike green beans much to my family's continual surprise, but hey if they like beans, go ahead and have fifteen rows and ten varieties. I digress. 

So there are a lot of beets, just one row, but the row is jam-packed. Beets are pretty easy to identify because the greens have purplish ribs and you can see the red tops of the beets.While I was visiting, harvesting the beets was a top priority, and if you know these Jancaiti, planning dinner around breakfast is also top priority (a concept that mystifies Aaron who can barely consider planning dinner at 4:30pm when I am already hungry).

As a conscious adult I cannot recall ever eating beets. Dad assures me that as a kid I ate plenty of them, but I don't remember that and really does that count? I have vague recollections of the odd smell of canned unreal-fuchsia colored beets, but I cannot even remember eating those. Do I like beets, who knows? James unprompted proclaimed that beets were his favorite vegetable. Seems like an odd choice to me, but my favorite vegetable is lima beans.

To try and sway me over to the beet camp, I was told about mystical beet poop. Not about the flavor or the texture or the delicious way to prepare them - about the mystical poop (another important Jancaiti topic). This is how it was described to me: "The purple just oozes from your poop staining the water like dye so that when you flush the toilet it makes a cool purple swirl. Unless you eat A LOT of beets and then it just stains the whole bowl purple." 

I'm hooked. Feed me beets, I want purple poop! How many beets does one have to eat, unsure. Knowing Karrie and Dad they probably consume beets by the bushel rather than by the pound or by normal portion size. I am not sure I am up for that sort of beet consumption, but I have to try beets now. One to see if I like them and Two to see if I have purple poop.

For dinner that evening, I had beets two ways. Karrie makes the best vegetables. I'm sure it's not hard, but I don't know how to cook vegetables properly I guess. We had beet greens sautéed with onions and a mixed medley of roasted potatoes, beets and turnips (which I also did not know if I liked). And yes I do like beets and turnips too. The beets were tasty and unexpectedly sweet with a distinct flavor. My favorite? Not sure, but I'll eat them again. 

Now to await the beet poop. Did I consume enough beets? I didn't think so, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to check. I posted a facebook status about it and obviously got some likes, but the comments were fascinating (Names obscured to protect identities (lol)). 

Green poop? Pink pee? It seems this is not an unknown phenomena, though it was to me, and that it is clearly easier to see in small children. I never doubted the validity of the mystical purple poop claims, especially coming from my sister Karrie, who in her adult life I accused of putting self-tanner on other people because her palms were so orange (and her skin still white) from eating so many carrots and sweet potatoes. 

Turns out a quick google search of "beet poop color" has many scientific hits (mostly for people who are concerned about bloody stools and certainly if your poop looks weird you should be concerned, especially if you haven't been eating mass quantities of all sorts of vegetables).  Which led me to this interesting article about foods that change the color of your poop... how did I not know this? Beets are on the list, but I'll leave you to discover some of the other magical poop-color-changing foods.

Your poop or pee is tinted because of beeturia, undigested beet juice. Between 5-15% of US adults will see a reddening of urine due to beeturia, so like "asparagus pee," you may never sense the effects. Betanin, a pigment in beets, is not digested and will continue to color your pee or poop for up to four days after your beet consumption. Interestingly, betanin is a natural red dye used to flavor all sorts of things from jams to candy. 

I did not really want to google beet-poop, but I did. A quick search yields only one gross fuchsia-tinted photo and its not that mystical.

So did I get it? Sort of. My poop was dark green with the faintest swirling of mystical purple haze (I did not take a photo). Neat, but apparently I did not eat enough beets for full blown mystical. For the full effect, you have to leave that to the vegetable-eating pros. Perhaps next time, she'll take a video of the purple swirl that happens when you flush ;)