Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumWhat's the difference between beets and sugar beets?
Or are they one and the same?
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Although both are members of the species Beta Vulgaris. It's like the difference between Russet potatoes and Yukon Golds.
pinto
(106,886 posts)It was and is bred for size and sugar content. USDA estimates ~ 1/3 of the world's sugar is derived from sugar beets. (The rest comes from sugar cane.) Pulp that remains after processing is used as livestock feed. Big crop staple in CA.
no_hypocrisy
(46,122 posts)Having nothing to compare, I plead ignorance until now.
Plus seeing (or rather, tasting) that beets are sweet, it was hard to differentiate with that criteria.
BTW, this summer I had a breakthrough: I used to hate beets; now I love them.
Warpy
(111,276 posts)until I discovered what grilling and roasting did for them.
Even nasty turnips are tamed by roasting them with a little tamari.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)....are genetically modified, aren't they?
I only buy cane sugar for that reason.
pinto
(106,886 posts)But GMO? Could be wrong, but I don't think so.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)7. SUGAR BEETS
GM since: 2005
How widespread: 95 percent of the US sugar-beet crop was genetically modified in 2009, according to the USDA. Around half of the sugar produced in the US comes from sugar beets.
What to watch for: If a non-organic bag of sugar or a product containing conventional sugar as an ingredient does not specify pure cane sugar, the sugar is likely a combination of cane sugar and GM sugar beets.
pinto
(106,886 posts)Does the USDA mean artificially modified or basic natural genetic breeding?
grasswire
(50,130 posts)I don't. I was pissed recently to find out that pineapples from Costa Rica are GMO.
pinto
(106,886 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)...and got to www.greenamerica.org which has a list of the top 9 GMO foods.
I'm sure there are many web sites with more detail.
pinto
(106,886 posts)Major commodity at the time. Apparently we (US) banned exports to Europe as a political / economic move. What I've read is brief and mentioned in passing.
locks
(2,012 posts)We're getting a lot of light pink almost colorless beets in the organic stores. They're really good and taste just like red beets. Maybe everybody but me has had them?