Sugar beets are the latest in a long line of plants found to produce haemoglobin.
Haemoglobin is best known as red blood cells’ superstar protein — carrying oxygen and other gases on the erythrocytes as they zip throughout the bodies of nearly all vertebrates. Less well known is its presence in vegetables, including the sugar beet … In fact, many land plants — from barley to tomatoes — contain the protein … Scientists first discovered them in the bright-red nodules of soybean roots in 1939 but have yet to determine the proteins’ role in plants in most cases … Plant haemoglobins might … serve as a blood substitute for humans someday … Or they could be exploited to trick our senses … as an ingredient in veggie burgers to make them taste more like bloody steaks.
From Scientific American; February 2015