FIVE WAYS TO PREPARE...BEETROOT

HOW to get the most nutrients out of your food.

COMBINE with spinach. Both of the vegetables contain nitrates, which help reduce blood pressure by dilating blood vessels.

BAKE, rather than boil, fresh beetroot: nitrates are soluble and leach into the cooking water.

EAT sweet pickled beetroot slices with Camembert. Pickling beetroot destroys much of its folic acid — needed for blood cells — but the folic acid-rich Camembert makes up for this. MIX grated raw beetroot, carrot and apple for a sweet-tasting slaw that counts as three of your five-a-day if you have 80g of each. ADD pureed beetroot to chocolate brownies to cut the fat and sugar by 25 per cent. For example, if the recipe calls for 200g sugar and 100g butter, use 150g sugar, 75g butter and 75g beetroot.