{"id":12251,"date":"2012-07-18T13:13:33","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T20:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=12251"},"modified":"2012-07-18T13:47:09","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T20:47:09","slug":"why-are-beets-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/why-are-beets-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are Beets Red?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\"><div class=\"highlighter\">Sharon S asks: Why are beets red?<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/now-you-know-answers1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-10271\" title=\"Now You Know - Answers\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/now-you-know-answers1-340x286.jpg\" alt=\"Now You Know\" width=\"340\" height=\"286\" \/><\/a>Beets contain a pigment known as betalain, which incidentally is Latin for a certain type of common beet (Beta vulgaris).\u00a0 It was this type of beet that the betalain pigment was first extracted from. (It is contained in many different types of plants)<\/p>\n<p>Depending on which type of betalain pigment and the concentration that is in a particular type of beet, it can vary in color from red to purple or even yellow to orange.\u00a0 In the former case, these are known as betacyanins betalain pigments; for the yellow to orange, these are known as betaxanthins betalain pigments.<\/p>\n<p>Besides occasionally turning people&#8217;s urine and poop a different color (for those whose body can&#8217;t break down the pigment, so it passes through), betanins are thought to act as a natural fungicide, which helps protect the plant.\u00a0 In addition to this, they also are natural antioxidants and often used as a food dye.<\/p>\n<p>If you liked this post, you might also like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Why Garlic Makes Your Breath Smell Bad\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/why-garlic-makes-your-breath-smell-bad\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why Garlic Makes Your Breath Smell Bad<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Why Asparagus Makes Pee Smell\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/why-asparagus-makes-pee-smell\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why Asparagus Makes Pee Smell<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Etymology of the color orange\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/the-color-orange-was-named-after-the-fruit\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Color Orange Was Named After the Fruit<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Why leaves change color in the fall\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/why-leaves-change-color-in-the-fall\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why Leaves Change Color in the Fall<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Banana Facts\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/15-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-bananas\/\" target=\"_blank\">15 Facts You Probably Didn&#8217;t Know About Bananas<\/a> [Infographic]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sharon S asks: Why are beets red? Beets contain a pigment known as betalain, which incidentally is Latin for a certain type of common beet (Beta vulgaris).\u00a0 It was this type of beet that the betalain pigment was first extracted from. (It is contained in many different types of plants) Depending on which type of betalain pigment and the concentration [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2308],"tags":[2839,2840,647],"class_list":["post-12251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-answers","tag-beet-facts","tag-beets","tag-food-facts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12253,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12251\/revisions\/12253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}