Back in April we reported on a couple of papers that had found drinking a glass of beetroot juice a day can lower your blood pressure and that it was the nitrates in the beetroot that were responsible for the effect.
Well, if you can’t stomach a glass of juice but could manage to eat some very purple bread then you are in luck. The idea is simple, only 4.5% of the UK population eat beetroot whereas almost everyone eats bread, therefore put it in the bread.
The bread contained 50% beetroot as its weight before baking, which was the maximium that could be incorporated before the bread lost structure. Despite the strong colouration of the bread the volunteers happily ate it with a serving of cheese spread for breakfast. Eating the bread seemed to have the desired effect on blood pressure. One slightly disturbing side effect that afflicted a few of the volunteers was red urine known as Beeturia but you can’t have everything can you.