“We’ve got the BEET to put more Go in your Go Go “

SAF’s researchers believe there’s a whole lot of good going on in BEETS for your performance, recovery and well-being needs, making BEETS a worthy, functional food ingredient. By reformulating SAF's ingredients then adding Organic Beet Root Juice Powder they created BeetSmartAthleteFuel to help up your game!  

Most Beet press is centered around BEET’s high Nitrate content. Once Nitrate is converted to Nitric Oxide in your body, (not Nitrous Oxide gas, a rogue Dentist’s favorite party gas)  it is an  amazing vasodilator (improved blood flow) supporting performance, recovery, and well-being (@51,53,54,59,60,61,62,65).

SAF doesn’t just add elemental Sodium Nitrate to our formula like so many energy products, even though it would be cheaper and easier. Why? They cite these research findings as their reason for using BEETS not Sodium Nitrate:  At equal levels of exercise and dosages of Nitrate, participants that consumed beet juice used 4% Less Oxygen than those that consumed an elemental Sodium Nitrate supplement (@64)! Why? BEETS contain a solid cast of pedigree phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals along with Nitrate. They work synergistically together to address your Performance, Recovery and Well-being needs. Mother Nature’s whole food, plant concentrates outperformed man’s simplistic, elemental Sodium Nitrate supplement. Man vs Nature and Nature wins again. All SmartAthleteFuel products use the knowledge and power of Nature, through her whole food, plant concentrates, rather than man’s ultra-refined, simplistic, elemental ingredients to best serve your performance, recovery and well-being needs for a life time. 

BEET’S NUTRIENTS

Beets are a good source of vitamins: C, B6 and Folate; minerals: Magnesium, Copper, Potassium, Phosphorus, Manganese, Iron, and Boron; a pedigree of phytonutrients: Kaempferol, Quercetin, Caffeic Acid, Flavonoids, Phenolic acids, Carotenoids and the amazing, yet poorly absorbed, Betalains that give beets their red color; carbohydrates and proteins (@48,49,58,59). No empty calories in BEETS!

SAF uses organic beet root JUICE powder not heat dried beet root powder for compelling reasons. To Maximize nutrient content and bioactivity. According to Clifford’s and colleagues 2017 paper: Beet JUICE phytonutrient content (polyphenols) was 1606.9 & Beets MINCED only 1.67 mg/GAE/L (@50). Beet JUICE antioxidant capacity 11.4 & Beets MINCED  3.4 mmol/L TEAC units (@50). 

Now dry that beet root juice and the nutrient content goes up logarithmically. That’s the math that compelled SAF to use organic beet root JUICE powder instead of beet ROOT powder!

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BSAF’s BEETS are organically grown in the USA, cold pressed, then the juice is Bioactively dehydrated (akin to freeze drying) not heat dried. One gram of beet juice is pressed from 20 grams of beets. This leaves the relatively nutrient poor, beet pulp fiber behind. Beet root powder contains BOTH the nutrient poor, pulp fiber and juice.  Gram for gram, it seems beet ROOT powder contains fewer of the all-important Phytonutrients than Beet root JUICE powder. Like all other SmartAthleteFuel ingredients, extortionary thought, effort and innovation has gone into the growing, harvesting, processing and packaging of their Beets to maximize nutrient content and their bio-activity that best help support your performance, recovery, and well-being needs for a lifetime.

 

How do BEETS simultaneously address your Performance, Recovery and Well-being needs naturally? Here’s what research suggests: 

PERFORMANCE:

Vasodilatation effect:

   HOW >

More blood flow to heart, lungs, muscles and brain via the Nitrate-Nitrite-Nitric Oxide pathway (@51). Improved blood flow allows more blood to your heart, muscles and lungs to deliver oxygen and nutrients in, and waste products out.
The body’s ability to produce its own Nitric Oxide for vasodilatation DECREASES with age (like so many processes in our body), but foods rich in Nitrates appear to compensate for this loss (@61)!

Decrease oxygen consumption, lactic acid production & increase time to exhaustion: 

   HOW >

During sub-maximal exercise, oxygen consumption decreased 6% and lactic acid production was less with Beets than just dietary Nitrate supplementation according to these studies (@62, 61). This suggests beets are doing more than just helping blood flow. Nitrates may be working synergistically with other phytonutrients, helping increasing the efficiency of the body. In Shannon’s 2017 paper, they propose that nitrates help the efficacy of muscle contraction, mitochondrial respiration, glucose uptake & calcium handling (@65). In this study, Nitrates in a dose dependent fashion, decreased oxygen consumption at moderate intensity exercise up to 3%, and increase the time to failure (exhaustion) by up to 14% (@54). Additionally, Intense exercise produces excess free radicals, oxidative stress, and elevated inflammation, which eventually disrupt cell membrane and mitochondrial function, along with a host of other nasties that blow the wheels off your performance bus. Metabolized nitrate, and abundant phytonutrients within Beets are felt to have strong anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties to combat these performance vampires and keep the wheels on your performance bus (@48,49, 50,53,58,14,15,16). 

RECOVERY: 

Improve blood flow, Decrease oxidative stress and inflammation:  

   HOW >

Optimizing recovery starts before your event, according to SAF. Loading your body with SAF or BSAF before, then during and after the event could help elevate plasma antioxidant and anti-inflammatory levels and cue your body to turn up its own antioxidant and anti-inflammatory defense mechanisms. This may help minimize the micro-trauma that oxidative stress and inflammation imparts that ultimately impedes your performance and recovery (@48, 49, 53, 59, 60). Additionally, improved blood flow could help lessen the microtrauma during the event, and improve recovery post event. Calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals also help muscles recover and rebuild. SAF thoroughly discusses this in the performance, and recovery pages of their website.

WELL-BEING: 

Phytonutrients, Nitrates, Vitamins & Minerals all address your well-being:

   HOW >

Beets contain a unique phytonutrient class Betalains, giving beets their color. They are strong antioxidants protecting cell membranes (@49, 56, 59). They are believed to help prevent fatty infiltration of the liver, help the body’s detoxifying process, and have an anti-cancer effect in vitro, in the test tube (@49, 56, 59). Unfortunately, Betalains seem to be poorly absorbed into the body (@49, 50, 56, 58). However, beets contain other highly absorbable phytonutrients: Flavonoids, Phenols, Saponins, Glycosides and Carotenoids. Many of these have antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties and a host of other benefits similar to the tart cherries (@49, 50, 58, 59). They could help disrupt chronic oxidative stress and elevated inflammation which many researchers believe are common pathways to many chronic human diseases and premature aging (@6, 15, 16, 26, 27, 28). Nitrate/Nitrite/Nitric-Oxide are felt to be involved in endothelial health (lining of blood vessels), vascular tone (dilating vessels & lowering blood pressure), and helping prevent blood clots (@49, 51, 52, 59, 63). They also may have properties preventing oxidative damage to DNA & cell membranes and turn up the body’s own anti-oxidants defense mechanism (@49). Nitrates may increase blood flow to the brain, decreasing reaction times and inhibit an enzyme involved with Parkinson’s disease (@55). Finally, Beets are rich in Folate, vitamin C, Potassium and Magnesium which are felt to be heart healthy nutrients.

OTHER PURPORTED USES OF BEETS, NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME:

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Ancient Romans considered Beets an aphrodisiac.  In Greek mythology, Aphrodite consumed Beets to enhance her appeal. Beets contain tryptophan and Betalain, both substances that are felt to promote the feeling of well-being. In addition, Beets are abundant in boron, a trace mineral affiliated with sex hormone regulation. That, along with the vasodilatory effects of nitrates, might have male logic heading UP the ED pathway. You’re on your own to research that further.
Beets are rich in Quercetin, as are cherries. DeRosa and colleagues found that  Quercetin inhibits 3CL pro & Pl pro and postulated that it could interfere with SARS-COV-2 replication (@57). Ming, in a paper presented in 2018 at the 255th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, found that Betanin (found in beets) could interfere with the formation of beta amyloid plaques, the plaques found in Alzheimer’s disease, in vitro. It seems Beets and their constituent nutrients have some thought provoking uses!

 

Beet root JUICE powder is indeed a worthy, Natural, Evidence Based, Functional Food Ingredient.

BEETS added to SmartAthleteFuel synergistically bolsters its phytonutrient repertoire. That, in turn, helps YOU optimize your Performance, Recovery, & Well-Being as a lifelong athlete.