The Best Beetroot Powders for a Science-Backed Health Boost
Beetroot powder may boost exercise performance, brain function, your body’s inflammatory response, and a whole lot more.
Beetroot powder may boost exercise performance, brain function, your body’s inflammatory response, and a whole lot more.
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By this point, everyone should know beets are really, really good for you. Eating beets, though? Well, most folks don’t exactly get excited about the “tastes-like-dirt” prospect. Hence the popularity of beetroot powder supplements, which nearly every Tom, Dick, and Jane supplement brand sells nowadays.
Some are straight beetroot, others come with workout-boosting add-ons, and others still target your circulatory health. Which is the best? Here’s what you need to know about the best beetroot powders you can buy, from benefits to picking the right ones.
Best overall: Live It Up Feel the Beet
Best budget pick: Bulk Supplements Beet Powder
Best for workouts: HumanN Sports Pre-Workout Powder
Hone Health is a team of health-obsessed journalists, editors, fitness junkies, medical reviewers, and product testers. Before writing this guide to beetroot powder, I sifted through dozens of published, peer-reviewed research articles on the substance’s potential benefits, recommended dosages, and any adverse side effects it may provoke. In selecting products, I sought out companies that prioritize ingredient transparency, fair pricing, and third-party testing whenever possible. I’ve spent nearly 10 years reviewing tech, wellness, and health products and pride myself on identifying products that deliver value and utility to people. As with any health product or supplement, though, you should absolutely speak to your physician or a registered dietician nutritionist before taking.
Cesar Sauza is a registered dietitian nutritionist with EHProject, an outlet dedicated to sharing accurate, authoritative information on nutrition, digestive health, and more. Sauza has more than a decade of experience as an outpatient dietitian on top of years of experience as a clinical nutrition manager and a decade-plus working in food safety. Sauza’s dietetic expertise lies in pediatrics, maternal nutrition, sustainable weight loss, metabolic health, obesity, and diabetes.
The data on nitrate supplementation—largely via beetroot juice or powder —generally, it amounts to this: supplementing with a beetroot source will provide a boost to endurance performance in some populations, and has no known negative effects on fitness (1).
In the groups it works for, it makes the body more efficiently use oxygen (2), which has a knock-on effect with nearly all forms of exercise.
“Beetroot powder contains nitrates that dilate blood vessels and should result in decreased blood pressure. Since beetroot powder helps dilate blood vessels, it makes it a good natural option for a pre-workout to have more blood flow before intense exercise,” Sauza says.
If you’re supplementing specifically for athletic performance, research says your body’s peak use of the substance occurs 2-3 hours after supplementing, so take your dose approximately 90 minutes before activity.
In a systematic review of research conducted on nitrate from beetroot juice as a tool to combat hypertension (or high blood pressure), researchers found “[beetroot juice] supplementation has a great potential to reduce the [systolic blood pressure] and [diastolic blood pressure] values in both healthy subjects and those with cardiovascular risk.” (3) Researchers also added that because it’s a relatively cost-friendly product, it may be of particular benefit to pre-hypertensive people who may not yet need a full pharmaceutical solution. Researchers behind the review stated a consistent two-week period of use was needed for this effect to come about.
Not to mention, beetroot supplements boost nitric oxide production in the body. Healthy nitric oxide levels lower the risks of circulatory issues (4), further helping to fight hypertension.
The search for natural anti-inflammatory has led to more research into plant-based options (5), such as beetroot supplementation.
There are several ways researchers believe beetroot may work as an anti-inflammatory agent, but it seems like betalain, the pigment that colors beets (and a scant few other vegetables like Swiss chard or cactus pear) is a powerful bioactive antioxidant that mediates the inflammatory response (6).
Other potential benefits (6)
Live it Up’s punny Feel the Beet powder is a beetroot powder taken to another level. The base of the blend is beetroot juice powder, which is what we’re all here for, but it’s the rest of the blend that makes it stand apart. Lion’s mane mushroom supports cognitive function and healthy brain aging. Cordyceps, another functional mushroom, is an adaptogen full of antioxidants, vitamins, and enzymes. Ashwagandha can reduce cortisol levels in the body, and potentially boost testosterone naturally. The list goes on and on. The total effect of the blend is a noticeable boost to energy, focus, and endurance.
We also like how it tastes—slightly beety, but not the dirt-heavy flavor you get with straight beetroot powders. And more importantly, we like that the brand is committed to the National Sanitation Foundation’s GMP Certification for dietary supplement safety. One thing we don’t love: though the company states the product is third-party tested, it does not share what test it has gone through. We’d like to see the product with an NSF certification, for example.
This means Live it Up’s beetroot powder is more of a general longevity and health supplement than something you might begin supplementing specifically for the effects of beetroot, so if you’re new to beetroot powder and curious what it can do for you, you might consider trying something more pure before diving into this blend.
SuperBeets is our pick for beetroot powder supplements for pre-workout purposes. The reason is simple: the dose of beetroot powder per serving is high. Though not listed on the label (which is admittedly frustrating), each serving contains roughly 9g of beetroot powder, according to an email conversation with one of HumanN’s customer service agents. That is a hefty load of beetroot powder, and almost certainly higher than any other beetroot powder supplements on this list (and beetroot powders generally). The remainder of the blend is largely coconut water and flavoring.
It’s also NSF Sport certified and third-party tested to ensure it contains no banned substances, for anyone considering a beetroot powder for competitive athletics. We recommend mixing SuperBeets into a drink about two to three hours before whatever workout you’ve got planned.
Bulk Supplements is the brand for people who don’t give a damn about brands. You get what the label says—in this case, nearly 300 servings of straight beetroot powder for around $30. After shipping, that comes out to just more than 10 cents a serving, making it the best value beetroot powder on the market.
Each serving brings 3.5g of beetroot powder, and only beetroot powder (the label’s ingredient list, apart from the beetroot, literally just says “None”). The 2.2-pound bag of powder is free of added yeast, soy, gluten, dairy, additives, and any other potential allergy concern. It’s also free of added sugar and other ingredients that might improve the taste of the powder, which is as beet-forward as you’d expect it to be. This is a powder better suited for a smoothie blend than mixing in a glass of water, which is a small price to pay for what is a very, very fairly priced supplement.
It could be better, though, especially if the brand put its product through a third-party testing certification and earned their seal of approval. That kind of transparency is valuable, especially in an industry as precarious as supplements.
Force Factor’s selling angle is that it’s almost a 50-50 mix of traditional non-stim pre-workout powder and beetroot powder. This means you get a nice portion of beetroot—5g per serving—along with ingredients commonly found in pre-workouts like L-citrulline and arginine. This makes it a supplement best served specifically as pre-workout, rather than something you’d mix in your water every morning regardless of fitness plans for the day. We also appreciate the vitamin and nutrient load present in this blend, which includes significant amounts of the following items:
The taste isn’t ideal, as the powder is sweetened with sucralose and still has a fairly artificial flavor to it, but nearly all beetroot powders fall flat on flavors unless you genuinely enjoy the raw beet taste most are dominated by.
There is a lot of noise in the supplement world, but Complete Natural Products, or CNP, is generally reliable for selling simple supplements at good prices. Its organic beetroot powder supplement is $15 for 60 servings—about $0.25 a serving, depending on shipping cost—making it among the lowest on the market (especially for those claiming organic sourcing). Servings amount to 2g of beetroot per serving, which is about in the middle in terms of beetroot volume, making CNP’s offering a good place to start if you’re looking to dip your toes into beetroot supplementation ($15 for a container is pretty hard to beat, too).
Like most beetroot powders with no flavoring agents or additives, expect CNP’s beetroot powder to be potently beet-forward, and plan accordingly.
“Beetroot powder studies are limited and there is no established dosing,” Sauza says.
His recommendation is to start small, usually with one-third of the recommended serving on whichever beetroot supplement you buy. So, if the recommended serving size on the supplement is 1 tablespoon, begin by supplementing with 1 teaspoon for a few weeks before increasing the dose. This way you get a sense of how your body reacts to the substance, and how much you really need.
A natural solution to high blood pressure—and a potentially effective pre-workout supplement, among other things—is great, but if you have naturally low blood pressure, beetroot powder may not be for you.
“Beetroot powders can lower blood pressure, therefore patients with low blood pressure, to begin with, should avoid taking beetroot. There is also a possibility of beetroot interacting with blood pressure medications or even anticoagulants like warfarin,” Sauza says.
Note: Not all drug or supplement interactions may be addressed here, so it’s important to follow up with your physician, pharmacist, or a registered dietitian nutritionist before taking beetroot powders if you’re on medications.