My 6th CSA Harvest: Abundant Antioxidants of Beet Greens

What a great harvest this week! More greens, but I hear we will be getting some new potatoes and carrots soon! So excited to make fresh potato salad!

This week we have:

Beet Greens (some with bigger beets)
Swiss Chard (rainbow!)
Half a Green Cabbage
Sugar Snap Peas
Lettuce
Mizuna
A Beautiful Bouquet of Sweet Peas (they smell sooooo good, but only lasted 4 days!)

Beet Greens

What are they? Beet greens are the leaves of the beet root, and can be eaten along with the beet. They are green, with red, orange or purple veins and are usually found in the stores as just the greens. For the past two weeks, I was excited to find that I got the thinned beets, with mini beets on the bottom of the leaves!

What is the nutritional value? Beet greens are multifaceted because they contain both dark green leafy nutrients, AND bright red and purple nutrients from the stems. The baby beets attached provide even more nutrition, which is why I was so excited to find them. Paulo made a salad the other day with them, and he just plucked them off…. what a loss.

Beet greens are a good source of Folate, Manganese Beta Carotene, Vitamin K and Vitamin C. Leaving the baby beets on, along with the stems, provides even more nutrients such as betalain, a powerful antioxidant found in the red, purple or yellow veins and beet roots. Betalain has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer and decrease LDL cholesterol oxidation, which decreases the risk of plaques building up in your arteries.

What do I do with it? When I received a bag of beet greens last week, I just thought I was in for some more salad greens, but when I opened the bag, I found little bunches of leaves attached to super thin micro beets, that were clearly plucked to leave room for the other beets to grow nice and big. This week I also got a more mature bunch with larger beets!

You can definitely use the beet greens in a salad, but I chose to braise them on the stove with some balsamic vinegar, a little olive oil, salt and pepper. I topped them off with feta cheese, toasted walnuts and oven dried tomatoes to make a colourful side to my fig chicken and mushroom barley risotto.