Ive spent some time looking with no clear answer, does anyone know if the pasteurizing process that bottled beetroot juice goes through has any effect on the nitrate level vs. fresh juice?
Sure would be a lot handier to just buy the bottles rather than juicing beets.
Thanks!
Should check out this big multipart series on our fav root! Lots to think about and listed sources to dive into Doping with Beet Juice | NutritionFacts.org
Whole Beets vs. Juice for Improving Athletic Performance
Never forget whole beets come packaged with so many other phytonutrient goodies too. The mess is part of the fun and its cheaper after all!
I takes me a mere 30secs to chop a beet, throw into my blender with other greens and fruit. Sorted and done.
Nitrate levels in unprocessed beet produce is highly variable (beet varieties, agronomic practices … especially fertilizer use, timing of harvest, weather conditions). This can range from almost none to quite a lot. To have a positive effect you actually need quite a lot nitrate.
If you’re really after the benefits for performance there is no alternative to a standardized product. Wether unprocessed beets are healthier or not is a totally different story.
With regards to juice, no, nitrate is quite stable. However, as alluded to before, the bigger uncertainty is natural variability of the content.
What I find sort of funny, I have a background in “molecular quality of vegetables” … let’s put it this way … at uni I learned how bad nitrate is zillions of $ were spent on research projects to reduce the content. And now we seek maximum content to ride a bike faster … and perhaps all the fuss then was just a fuss. Like most things diet related …
Reviving this thread to put this study in here for future searchers:
TLDR: Lakewood and Knudsen juices have the highest nitrate content per serving of all commercial beet products. Nitrate content in powders and shots is generally lower than the minimum effective dose aside from BeetIt brand shots.
You’d need to drink a tonne of bottles to get the same nitrate load as the BeetIt concentrate shots.
If you look at the chart I linked, you’ll get over 5mmol of nitrates from 140mL (5oz) of Lakewood beet juice. Seems good to me and the value “beets” all of the other products too.