Anybody know why my beets turned black?

[TreasonousBastard]

Sliced up a pile of golden beets today and they started to turn a little, as usual, before I cooked them up. From what I can find out, a boron deficiency in the soil causes blackening, and sulfur may have something to so with it.

But, threw them into the steamer and they turned completely black, except for some that turned just almost completely black. First time ever I saw that happen to anything from just steaming it.

Anyone have a clue?

[hippywife]

1. I've had that happen, too.

And there seems to be no good answer or remedy I can locate. :shrug:

[Warpy]

3. Sounds like an oxidation problem

shared to a lesser extent by apples and taters.

The solution is to roast them whole and peel and slice before serving.

If they turned black all the way through, there's something else going on. Eee-yuck.

[eridani]

4. Just thinking that if oxidation is the problem

--why not try ground up vitamin C tabs in some lemon juice? Soak, then dry and roast whole.

Protein biochemists keep sulfhydryl groups from oxidizing by adding mercaptoethanol or dithiothreitol to the preps at each step, but that particular cure would be WAY worse than the disease!

[hippywife]

5. In the discussion on Chowhound, I think,

someone said they tried that and it didn't work. :shrug:

[Tesha]

2. chowhound had a discussion

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/297076

the only happy answer was to roast them with the skins on wrapped in foil and refrigerate as-is until you need them. Hard to tell if this really works everytime.