Beetroot Shock: This Is What Raw Beetroot REALLY Does To Your Blood — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Scientists gave healthy volunteers a
2. 0:02single dose of beetroot and measured
3. 0:04what was happening inside their blood
4. 0:06vessels 3 hours later. Blood pressure
5. 0:08had dropped by more than 10 points.
6. 0:11Their platelets, the cells that make
7. 0:13blood clot, had gone quiet.
8. 0:15Then the researchers ran it again with
9. 0:17one change. They told the volunteers not
10. 0:20to swallow their own saliva. Every
11. 0:22effect vanished. Stay until the end of
12. 0:26this video because I'm going to show you
13. 0:28which compound does this, why your own
14. 0:31body physically cannot process it
15. 0:33without outside help, and why the
16. 0:36beetroot in your kitchen right now is
17. 0:37almost certainly being prepared in a way
18. 0:40that removes the one thing you were
19. 0:43eating it for. You can check this one
20. 0:45tonight with make nothing but a pot and
21. 0:47your own eyes. What you're about to hear
22. 0:50is not on the label. It is not in the
23. 0:53cooking column of your magazine, and
24. 0:55your doctor has almost certainly never
25. 0:57mentioned it because this isn't about
26. 1:00calories. It isn't about iron. Almost no
27. 1:02nutritionist raises this in a
28. 1:04consultation, and the food industry has
29. 1:06never had much interest in telling you
30. 1:08because the part that matters cannot be
31. 1:11sold to you in a bottle. Think about the
32. 1:14last time you cooked beetroot. You
33. 1:16probably scrubbed them under the tap,
34. 1:17dropped them whole into a pot, covered
35. 1:19them with water, and boiled them for 40
36. 1:22minutes until a knife slid through. Then
37. 1:24you carried that pot to the sink and
38. 1:26poured the water down the drain. Maybe
39. 1:29you noticed how dark it was, deep red,
40. 1:31almost black at the edges. Maybe you
41. 1:33thought that was just color. You rinsed
42. 1:35the pot, sliced the beets, put a little
43. 1:37butter and salt on them, and sat down.
44. 1:40It tasted good.
45. 1:42You felt fine about it. But here's what
46. 1:44nobody told you standing in that
47. 1:45kitchen.
48. 1:46The thing you were cooking those beets
49. 1:48for had already gone down the drain.
50. 1:51The compound is nitrate.
51. 1:55Nitrate with an A.
52. 1:58Not the kind added to processed meat in
53. 2:00the kind of plant pulls from the soil
54. 2:01and stores. Beetroot holds more of it
55. 2:03than almost anything in the produce
56. 2:05aisle. One medium beet carries between
57. 2:07120 and 190 mg. And here's the strange
58. 2:11part. Nitrate on its own does nothing
59. 2:14for you. It has to become a second
60. 2:16molecule called nitrite with an I. And
61. 2:19your body cannot do that. Human cells do
62. 2:21not carry the enzyme. Not one of them.
63. 2:23So, your body does something that sounds
64. 2:25invented. It absorbs the nitrate through
65. 2:28your intestines, sends it into your
66. 2:30blood, and then your salivary glands
67. 2:32pull about a quarter of it back out of
68. 2:34your bloodstream and into your mouth
69. 2:35deliberately. Back to where it came
70. 2:37from. Because living on the back third
71. 2:39of your tongue is a colony of bacteria
72. 2:41called Veillonella. V O N E L L A. And
73. 2:44it carries the exact enzyme your own
74. 2:46cells lack. It does the conversion for
75. 2:49you. You swallow the result, your
76. 2:51stomach acid finishes it, and what
77. 2:54reaches your bloodstream is nitric
78. 2:57oxide.
79. 2:58Picture a garden hose with a kink folded
80. 3:01into it. You can turn the tap up all the
81. 3:03way and almost nothing comes out. The
82. 3:06problem was never the tap. Nitric oxide
83. 3:09is what unfolds the kink. And you do not
84. 3:11manufacture that tool. You rent it from
85. 3:14tenants living on your tongue. That
86. 3:16first experiment, the one where
87. 3:18swallowing saliva decided everything,
88. 3:21ran in the journal Hypertension in 2008.
89. 3:25Seven years later, the same journal
90. 3:27published something longer. 68 adults
91. 3:30with high blood pressure drank a small
92. 3:31glass of beetroot every day for 4 weeks.
93. 3:34The comparison group drank the identical
94. 3:37beetroot with the nitrate stripped out.
95. 3:39Same taste, same color. After 4 weeks,
96. 3:42the real group was down about nine
97. 3:43points. The stripped group was down 1/10
98. 3:46of a point. If you're finding this
99. 3:47valuable, take a second right now to
100. 3:49like this video and subscribe to Food
101. 3:51Scoop. Because what I'm about to show
102. 3:53you next has nothing to do with your
103. 3:55blood at all. There is a second compound
104. 3:57inside that same beetroot, and what it
105. 3:59does happens inside your liver. It's
106. 4:01called betaine betaine, and it carries
107. 4:03that name for a reason. Chemists first
108. 4:05pulled it out of the beet Beta vulgaris
109. 4:07and named it after the plant. Think of
110. 4:09your liver as the mailroom of the entire
111. 4:12body. Nothing leaves that room without a
112. 4:14stamp on it, and betaine is the drawer
113. 4:17where the stamps are kept. Here's what
114. 4:19that means. Your liver runs something
115. 4:21called the methionine cycle. Every day
116. 4:23it takes a substance called homocysteine
117. 4:26and converts it into something your body
118. 4:28can use. To do that, it has to attach a
119. 4:31small chemical tag, a methyl group. That
120. 4:34tag is the stamp, and your liver cannot
121. 4:38manufacture those tags out of nothing.
122. 4:40Betaine is what carries them in. So,
123. 4:43when the drawer runs low, the mail does
124. 4:44not disappear, it piles up on the desk.
125. 4:47Homocysteine builds up in your
126. 4:49circulation. And your liver's ability to
127. 4:52handle fat draws on that very same
128. 4:54supply of tags, so it slows down, which
129. 4:57is how fat starts collecting in an organ
130. 4:59that was never built to store it. In
131. 5:012003, researchers publishing in the
132. 5:03Journal of Nutrition gave healthy men
133. 5:05and women betaine every day for 6 weeks.
134. 5:09Fasting homocysteine came down 12%
135. 5:11against placebo. That was more betaine
136. 5:14than one beetroot gives you, I'll be
137. 5:16straight about that, but it proves the
138. 5:18machinery is real, and beetroot is one
139. 5:21of the densest sources of it in an
140. 5:23ordinary kitchen, which means what
141. 5:26happens in your liver does not stay in
142. 5:29your liver. It comes straight back out
143. 5:31into your blood. Here is the part most
144. 5:33people completely miss, and it matters
145. 5:35more to you at 60 than it would have at
146. 5:3720. When researchers ran this on two age
147. 5:39groups, older adults in their 70s saw
148. 5:42their blood pressure fall, and adults in
149. 5:45their 20s did not.
150. 5:48Same beetroot, two different bodies.
151. 5:50Yours is the one this was built for. And
152. 5:52that same beetroot has two different
153. 5:55fates depending on one decision at the
154. 5:57stove. Nitrate is water soluble. Heat
155. 6:01does not destroy it. Water carries it
156. 6:03away. A report for the European Food
157. 6:05Safety Authority in 2013 found boiling
158. 6:08stripped out roughly 10 to 23% of it
159. 6:11while steaming barely touched it. So,
160. 6:14the dark red water in your pot is not
161. 6:17color.
162. 6:19It is a receipt. And here is the part
163. 6:21that surprises people. In the European
164. 6:23Journal of Nutrition, researchers put a
165. 6:25glass of beetroot juice against 300 g of
166. 6:29whole beetroot eaten as food. Both
167. 6:33raised nitric oxide in the blood. The
168. 6:35whole root peaked higher. The juice
169. 6:38simply lasted longer. The bottle was
170. 6:40never the upgrade. It was the shortcut.
171. 6:42So, what do you do with this
172. 6:44information? Three steps. Simple,
173. 6:47specific. Step one. Stop draining your
174. 6:50beetroot. Roast them in their skins,
175. 6:52steam them, or grate them raw into a
176. 6:54salad because there is no drain in an
177. 6:56oven, and steam never leaves the root
178. 6:58sitting in water. If you do boil them,
179. 7:01use the water. Put it in the soup, put
180. 7:03it in the stock, use it as a base. That
181. 7:05water is the product. You have been
182. 7:07throwing away the product and eating the
183. 7:09packaging. Step two, and this is the one
184. 7:12nobody expects. Leave your tongue alone
185. 7:14around
186. 7:15Antiseptic mouthwash kills bacteria, and
187. 7:18it does not know which ones. In 2013,
188. 7:21researchers publishing in Free Radical
189. 7:24Biology and Medicine put 19 healthy
190. 7:26volunteers on an antiseptic mouthwash
191. 7:29for 1 week. Their oral nitrite
192. 7:32production dropped by 90%. Their blood
193. 7:34pressure rose, and it happened within a
194. 7:37single day. That is the same result as
195. 7:40the volunteers who spat out their
196. 7:41saliva. You can eat a perfect plate of
197. 7:43beetroot and erase the whole thing in
198. 7:45the bathroom
199. 7:472 minutes later.
200. 7:48If your dentist has prescribed a rinse,
201. 7:51do not stop it. Move it away from the
202. 7:53meal and ask them about the timing.
203. 7:55Step three,
204. 7:57keep the leaves. The leafy tops run
205. 7:59higher in nitrate than the root
206. 8:00underneath because leaves are where the
207. 8:03plant does its work.
208. 8:05And they are the exact part left in a
209. 8:08bin at the supermarket.
210. 8:11Cook them down like spinach.
211. 8:13Two vegetables, one price, and most
212. 8:16people carry only one home. After today,
213. 8:19you are no longer someone who boils
214. 8:21beetroot and pours the pot into the
215. 8:22sink. You are someone who knows what
216. 8:25nitrate does to your blood, why a colony
217. 8:27of bacteria on your tongue is the reason
218. 8:30it works at all, what betaine does
219. 8:33inside your liver, and why the color of
220. 8:35that water tells you exactly how much
221. 8:39you just lost. And that changes every
222. 8:41decision you make in the produce aisle.
223. 8:43I want to ask you something specific.
224. 8:46Not what you think about beetroot. What
225. 8:48is actually in your house right now? Is
226. 8:50it raw, boiled, or from a jar? One word.
227. 8:54Tell me in the comments, and I read
228. 8:55every single one. In the next video, I'm
229. 8:58going to show you what a specific
230. 9:00compound inside raw cabbage does to your
231. 9:02gut, not your blood, not your liver,
232. 9:05your gut. And the science behind it will
233. 9:08change the way you look at the cheapest
234. 9:09vegetable in the entire store.