Rejoice; part 2 of the great beetroot / wee experiment is in! Any n00bs who have yet to work out what this means, the Poorhouse suggests reading part 1 first. In a suspense-filled ending rivalled only by Eastenders Christmas specials, we last left experimental subject-volunteer X chowing down on an oversized pack of vinegary beetroot. Yum.

With slight stomach troubles brewing, the eating stopped for a while, and in time the liqui-output started. Take a look right,

Time index: 19:12.

Orangey no? The wonderful light-as-day transparency of previous samples has now evidently gone, replaced by a darker, more menacing shade of orange - looking worryingly like slightly-too concentrated orange squash. This seems to be a sign of success. It certainly isn't the colour of normal Poorhouse output. It's a whole new world of intense colour and did indeed look slightly unusual in the toilet bowl itself - apologies for there being no pictures of that particular sight.

But, never satisfied to remain just at the boundary of experimental success, more beetroot ingestion was required. Enough of the vinegary nonsense, let's consume some real, 100% genuine "fresh" as much as any vegetable you get from a shop is fresh beetroots. For those that don't know, a quick google revealed that one can cook them by shoving them in a pan of boiling water for half an hour or so, then chop the stalks off and peel, then consume. Mmmm. It was slightly less harsh on the stomach, probably due to the lack of pickling, but the mouth sensation by the point was not exactly filled with tasty delight. You can have too much of anything (except Green and Blacks chocolate maybe).

Time index: 20:25.

What next? Well, perhaps the monotony of the occasion can be relieved with some beetrooty soup with a couple of extra ingredients in. It's not too cheating is it? The Poorhouse thought not, and hence set off a-slurping some less than gorgeous beetroot and apricot (apricot??? Why?? Why would that ever taste nice with beetroot?) soup after a 4 minute microwave session. It tasted a bit like beetroots and apricots unsurprisingly, which made it horrible. Never mind, at least there was no chewing involved and it was relatively easy on the stomach.

Time index: 20:43.

Half an hour later, all that liquidy intake was having an effect and the toiletry facilities - or more accurately plastic tube and a good aim - were required. Whilst not purple, the royal colour of the beets, see right for some true orangeness. It's at least as orange as Sunny Delight, and probably contains about as much natural orange juice in it too. That is intense, man. Assuming the Poor-wee doesn't naturally oscillate between normal and weirdly orange, this may be acting as confirmation that beetroot does indeed have the effect on urine that everyone already thinks they know. Oh well, it's good to seek confirmation one imagines.

Time index: 21:47.

The stomach by this time was really not feeling so well. The mouth was monotonised to incapacity due to eating beetroot, beetroot, beetroot and tummy felt like a weird combination of being (illegitimately) starving hungry and slight acid reflux. Bear in mind here that the Poorhouse is well known for exaggerating the most minor of symptoms so really there was no need for medical attention, but suffice to say this experiment reveals that eating (mostly) nothing but beetroot everyday is probably not the way to a happy healthy tummy and a pain and misery free existence. Amazing, but true.

Ever the intrepid explorer, there was a need to test if the boundaries of dark urination colouration could be pushed further. Sick to the stomach of taking pure beetroot doses, the Poorhouse subject decided to have a microwave ready meal with a beetrooty nature. Specifically, a nice dish of "Roast beetroot with quinoa & feta". Clearly most of the words in the foody title were not comprehendable by mere mortal food-eaters, but the quick identification of the letters b, e, e, t, r, o, o and t led to its hasty selection. That, and the fact it was on sale for 60p off.

Look right if you dare for a photograph of said meal. Yes, dear readers, no mistake has been made. This is an illustration of the meal before it was eaten, not the filthy remnants of any post-consumption vomiting. However, it did taste more like the latter than anything fitting the description on the packet of "Naturally good food". Uurgh. This was by far the least nice thing eaten all day.

The smattering of beetroot was a) tasteless and b) encased in a mass of small slimy soggy little beads of who-knows-what. Orange lumps, indistinguishable in taste from the bland-beyond-belief beetroot but perhaps fitting the description of quinoa (?) slid lumpily down the throat - with difficulty. Something resembling seeds was also discovered up top. Especial effort was made to fully consume these on the basis that dropping them may result in a unwanted Roast beetroot with quinoa & feta plant growing, usurping the natural eco-system and creating huge rogue plantations of soggy filth throughout the country.

Time index: 22:08.

Still, eventually, after 2 stamina-filled sessions, the food was consumed, and washed down with a couple of the remaining freshly-boiled beets. That was about all the beetroot the research subject could consume with even the remotest relish that day.

The system, being counter-intuitively rather dried out from the soggy mess-in-a-box, was not forthcoming with further bodily fluids. A couple of hours later some was squeezed out. Highly disappointingly, considering the pain vs reward component of the last ingestion, whilst still abnormally orange the dark intensity was fading. The liquid looked weak, see-through and just slightly odd.

Time index: 00:12.

Further readings were taken at 05:45 and 09:50 showing perhaps a slight darkening vs the norm, but nothing reaching the giddy heights of the 21:47 extravaganza the day before.

The next day, a normal - very beetroot-free - diet was on the cards. It probably contained beans on toast, the rest is rather hard to recall. But it most certainly did not involve any of the spare beetroot. Nor will it for a long, long time. By the afternoon, the urine was near enough back to its initial pre-beetroot colouration.

Time index: 14:37

In the interests of scientific accuracy, the experiment, sans beetroot, was continued on until the evening, just to be sure that no paranormal phenomena existed within the Poorhouse research subject such that evening-time always brought orange-juice type wee. Sure enough, the photographic evidence proves otherwise.

The end. Ta da!

What have we learnt?

• Beetroot does make urine change colour - but very much more to dark orange than purple.
• Peak beetroot-colouration occurred just under 8 hours since the beginning of the beetroot eating session under the regime described above.
• Beetroot urine colouration is not a permanent artefact, having largely vanished 16 hours after the last beet was eaten. It may have occurred rather sooner but the research subject was in bed all morning so no test results could be taken.
• Eating beetroot and nothing else all day is not fun.

For those that like pictures better than words, there's a photo gallery version of the experimental images to allow easy comparison between samples, not to mention a slideshow feature to alleviate potential RSI concerns.