Finally, an acceptable use for beets...

As you travel the roads this holiday season, perhaps you may be so lucky as to wander upon the remains of one of childhood's most distasteful threats, the beet. During the extraction process of removing sugar from sugar beets it was noticed that the left over material had a very low freezing point.

Someone thought that this would make a handy de-icing material for roadways and so viola, beet juice road de-icing mixture which has already been tested in Akron may find its way onto more Ohio roads.

Supporters say that the beet mixture is less harmful on cars than straight Calcium Chloride (road salt) which is corrosive to metals (ie. bridges and cars)and deadly to vegetation (ie. roadside lawns and farm fields). All sugar has been removed from the solution before it can be used for roads, otherwise it may attract animals (or small children).

Questions remain. Will the roads appear purplish? Will liver and onions find an acceptable use as housing insulation? Will Dwight Schrute's beet farm reap the rewards it has deserved lo these many years?