Beetroot
Beetroot powder: what it is and how it compares to juice
Beetroot powder is cheap, keeps for a year and goes in anything. Those are real advantages. The catch is that almost nobody selling it can tell you how much of the active part is in a scoop.
What is beetroot powder?
Beetroot powder is beetroot with the water taken out. Beets are washed, sliced, dried and milled. That's the whole process.
It isn't the same thing as beetroot capsules or beetroot extract. An extract is one compound pulled out and standardised. A capsule is that extract packed into a shell with binders. Plain beetroot powder is closer to a dried herb. It's still food.
So the real comparison with cold-pressed beetroot juice is dried beetroot against pressed beetroot. Two questions decide it: what the drying does and what the label tells you.
A 5g scoop is about half a beetroot
Raw beetroot is roughly 87 percent water. Take that out and 100g of fresh beetroot leaves around 12g of powder. Run it backwards and the 5g serving on most tubs is about 40g of fresh beetroot.
There are two ways to dry it. Spray and drum drying use heat, which is fast and cheap. Freeze drying uses cold and a vacuum, which is slow and expensive. Both look identical in the tub and most labels don't say which was used.
In powder's favour: nitrate is fairly heat stable, so drying doesn't wipe out the part most of the research is about. Vitamin C fares worse. Powder is a legitimate format, not a con.
We flash-freeze at the press rather than apply heat and the reasoning is set out in what cold-pressed juice actually means.
Powder is sold by weight. The research was done on nitrate
This is the bit that decides everything.
Beetroot research is nitrate research. The trials used a concentrated juice shot with a stated nitrate content, typically 70ml delivering around 400mg and the published trials on beetroot juice and blood pressure repeat that figure. A dose-response study comparing 70ml, 140ml and 280ml found more nitrate produced a bigger change in plasma nitrite. The research runs on a number.
Now look at a tub of beetroot powder. It states a weight and a serving size. It almost never states nitrate. So you can't do the sum.
Nitrate in beetroot also swings hugely with variety, soil and season. Two identical-looking tubs can differ by a wide margin and neither label would show it.
That variability is one reason we press whole beetroot rather than buy in powder. Our beetroot juice range is made from the vegetable itself and frozen at the press.
That's why we print what's in ours. Pure beetroot juice from us is 98 percent beetroot with a squeeze of lemon in a 125ml bottle. That doesn't make it a medicine and we're not claiming it does anything to you. You just know what you drank. More on the research sits in the beetroot hub.
Nobody has to prove the dose does anything
Most people assume supplements clear some approval process before they hit a shelf. They don't.
UK food supplements are regulated as food, not medicines. NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service guidance is blunt: food products can reach the market without a regulator being notified or evidence of quality being supplied, manufacturers aren't required to prove safety or efficacy first and products aren't proactively monitored afterwards.
The same guidance adds the point that matters here. Because supplements aren't held to medicines manufacturing standards, ingredient quantities can vary significantly between batches and even within one batch.
This isn't a claim that supplements are unsafe. It's about what the label tells you. No regulator required that tub to state its nitrate content and nobody had to show the scoop matches the trials.
The same food law applies to us, by the way. Juice is food, not medicine. The difference is that a bottle of pressed beetroot has one ingredient in it.
Four things powder does better
Cost. Per serving it is a fraction of the price of any fresh pressed juice. If budget decides it, powder wins.
Shelf life. A sealed tub keeps a year in a cupboard. Our juice needs a freezer and wants drinking within 48 to 72 hours once thawed.
Flexibility. Stir it into porridge, yoghurt, a smoothie or a protein shake. If you can't stand the earthy taste, hiding a teaspoon in something else is easier than drinking it neat.
If it's the earthiness you're dodging, that's solvable in a bottle too. Beetroot and ginger juice uses carrot and apple to round it off, with ginger for warmth.
Travel. Powder goes in a bag. Frozen juice doesn't.
Worth a mention though, if it's the bulk of a bottle putting you off rather than the taste, cold-pressed beetroot shots are 60ml. Ginger Beets is beetroot with ginger, lemon and green apple, from £16.95 for seven.
The case for pressed juice isn't that powder is useless. It's that the format you can verify tends to be the one worth paying for.
How much beetroot powder per day
Most UK tubs suggest 5g to 10g a day, or one to two teaspoons. Concentration varies between products, so follow your tub rather than a general figure.
It dissolves better in cold liquid and better still if you whisk it into a splash first then top up. Straight into a full glass it clumps. No such faff with pure beetroot juice, which thaws and pours.
Expect pink or red urine for a day or two. That's beeturia, it's harmless and it happens with juice too.
Beetroot is high in oxalates, so anyone with a history of kidney stones should ask their GP first. Same if you take blood pressure medication, which we cover in who should avoid beetroot juice.
Where to buy beetroot powder in the UK and what to check
It turns up in Holland and Barrett, the health aisle at Tesco and Asda, independent health shops and all over Amazon. Prices vary far more than the product does.
Four things to check on the tub, in order of how much they tell you.
Does it state nitrate content? Almost none do. If one does, that supplier has gone further than the rest.
Is it beetroot, or beetroot plus? Plenty of tubs are blends with maltodextrin as a carrier, or added flavourings and acids. Read the ingredients, not the front.
Juice powder or root powder? Beetroot juice powder is dried juice, so the fibre is already gone. Root powder is the whole beet dried and milled. Similar names, similar prices, different products.
Does it say how it was dried? Freeze dried usually says so, because it costs more. Silence normally means heat.
Beetroot powder vs cold-pressed beetroot juice
| Beetroot powder | Cold-pressed beetroot juice | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Whole beetroot dried and milled | Whole beetroot pressed, frozen at the press |
| Heat | Usually, unless freeze dried | None |
| Nitrate stated | Rarely | No, but the ingredient list is one item |
| Cost per serving | Low | Higher |
| Storage | Cupboard, around a year | Freezer, 48 to 72 hours thawed |
| Serving | 5g to 10g, roughly half a beet | 125ml of pressed beetroot |
| Best for | Budget, travel, hiding the taste | Knowing what you drank |
If you would rather drink the vegetable
All pressed from whole vegetables and flash-frozen straight after pressing. Never heated, never from concentrate. See the full range of beetroot juice delivered frozen.
Frequently Asked
Is beetroot powder as good as beetroot juice?
Depends what you mean by good. Powder is cheaper, keeps longer and travels. Pressed juice tells you exactly what is in it and has not been dried by an undisclosed method. The research runs on stated nitrate doses and powder tubs almost never state nitrate, so you can't check whether your scoop resembles what was studied.
How much beetroot powder should I take per day?
Most UK tubs say 5g to 10g, or one to two teaspoons. Concentration varies between products, so follow the tub you bought. Speak to your GP first if you take blood pressure medication or have had kidney stones.
What is the difference between beetroot powder and beetroot juice powder?
Beetroot powder, sometimes labelled root powder, is the whole beet dried and milled, so the fibre is still there. Beetroot juice powder is dried juice, so the fibre was removed first. They sell under similar names at similar prices, so check the ingredient list.
Does drying destroy the nitrate in beetroot?
No. Nitrate is fairly heat stable, so drying doesn't eliminate it. Heat-sensitive components like vitamin C fare worse. The bigger issue is disclosure, since nitrate varies widely with variety, soil and season and almost no tub prints the figure.
Are beetroot supplements tested before they go on sale in the UK?
Not the way most people assume. UK food supplements are regulated as food, not medicines. NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service guidance notes that food products can be marketed without a regulator being notified or evidence of quality supplied and that manufacturers aren't required to prove safety or efficacy first. Medicines need a licence before sale. Supplements don't.
Will beetroot powder turn my urine red?
Quite possibly. It's called beeturia, it's harmless and cold-pressed beetroot juice does it too. It usually shows up within a day and settles as your body adjusts. Red urine with no beetroot in your diet is worth a GP appointment.
The Bottom Line
Beetroot powder isn't a scam. It's dried beetroot, it's cheap, it lasts and it goes in anything. If that's what matters to you, buy it.
Our position is simpler than a format argument. If you would rather not take another pill or measure another scoop of something whose active content nobody printed on the tub, eat the vegetable. Or drink it.
Everyday beetroot juice from us is beetroot with apple, carrot, celery, cucumber, spinach, red pepper and lemon. Six vegetables and two fruits, pressed and frozen, in one bottle. Want beetroot and nothing else? Pure beetroot juice is two ingredients in 125ml.
Not sure which suits you? The beetroot juice bundle puts the bottles and the shots in one box from £34.95.
Nutrients pulled out of a plant and reassembled in a tub solve a problem vegetables don't have. The whole thing already exists. It grows in the ground.
Related reading
- Beetroot juice benefits
- Is juicing good for you
- Beetroot juice and blood pressure
- Beetroot juice and energy
- Which beetroot blend for your goal
- What is cold-pressed juice
- How to make beetroot juice at home
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