Are beets high in carbs or sugar?

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Learning to manage your consumption of carbohydrates means looking at the things you eat in a new light, balancing their carbohydrate content against their overall nutritional value. Beets offer a prime example of this calculation: They're high in sugars, which are generally thought of as "bad" carbs, but they're nutritious enough to still form a valuable part of your diet.

Beets and Carbohydrates

Beets are relatively high in carbohydrates for a non-starchy vegetable. A half-cup portion of sliced beets has 8.5 grams of total carbohydrates – which come from 1.7 grams of dietary fiber and 6.8 grams of sugar. Fiber is a "good" carb, because it helps maintain healthy digestion and has numerous other health benefits. Sugars are generally considered to be a "bad" carbohydrate, because they can cause a sharp rise in your blood glucose levels after a meal. In a real-world setting the truth is rather more complex, and has a lot to do with the balance between good and bad carbs.

Your Body Needs Carbohydrates

Carbs are essential fuels your body uses to carry out its daily activities. A person eating 2,000 calories per day – and getting 45 to 65 percent from carbohydrates as per the Dietary Guidelines – would need 225 to 325 grams of carbs each day. So the carbs in a half-cup portion of beets account for only three percent of your day's total carbohydrate intake.

It's All About Balance

At the end of the day, what makes a food healthy or unhealthy is its overall nutrition profile. With beets, the relatively high sugar content is well balanced by their fiber content: While their total carbs account for three percent of your day's total, their 1.7 grams of dietary fiber make up seven percent of your daily value. That high fiber content slows your body's absorption of the beet's sugars, minimizing their impact on your blood glucose levels and making them a useful source of fuel for your metabolism. Their glycemic index, a measure of how quickly foods raise your blood sugars, is a moderate 64. Any GI of 55 or less is considered low, and beets don't miss that mark by much.

Beets are Nutrient-Dense

The recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans go a long way toward explaining why beets count as good, rather than bad, carbs. First, the guidelines recommend limiting added sugars, while the sugars in beets are a natural part of their nutritive value. Second, the guidelines recommend eating foods that are "nutrient dense," meaning you get a lot of nutritional value for the calories in that food. Here again, beets score well. That half cup of cooked beets provides 17 percent of your daily value for folate, 14 percent of your daily value for manganese, and smaller but still useful amounts of numerous other vitamins and minerals. Even their distinctively vivid color has health properties. It's caused by pigments called anthocyanins, which – aside from their notorious ability to stain your clothes and fingers – may help protect against cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer.

Incorporating Beets Into your Diet

The sweet earthiness of beets lends itself to a surprising number of meal ideas. The most familiar beet dish in many households is Harvard beets, with its signature sweet-and-sour sauce, but that's high in added sugars and not the best bet if you're counting your carbs. Instead try them roasted, which caramelizes the beets and concentrates their natural flavors. Sliced or diced, the roasted beets make a fine vegetable side dish or a colorful accent in a salad.

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