Yes, you can eat both raw and cooked beets. A delicious way to eat raw beets is grating beets into salads. When you cook beets, figuring out when they are "done" depends entirely on the texture you like. Simmering beets for a longer amount of time in this soup will make the texture very soft. If you like a harder, crunchier texture then simmer the beets for a shorter amount of time.