PureClean Beet vs. Beet It Sport: What's Inside Your Beet Juice?
Why beet juice powder may be the smarter everyday choice—and why nitrate content, storage, and source matter more than the form you drink, or even pill you pop.
Beet juice has become one of the most researched foods in sports and health nutrition. Athletes use it for endurance and exercise performance. Health-conscious consumers use it to support nitric oxide production and healthy circulation.
But there is a fundamental problem with much of the beet market: the amount of beetroot in a product tells you surprisingly little about how much dietary nitrate you're getting.
A beautifully colored beet drink could deliver a meaningful nitrate dose—or very little. An expensive concentrated shot could be effective, but its quality depends on more than the concentration of juice. And a beet powder is only as good as its source and drying method.
This is where the comparison between PureClean Beet™ and Beet It Sport becomes interesting.
The nitrate is not the color, weight, or bottle
Dietary nitrate (NO₃⁻) participates in the body's nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway. Depending on the individual and the dose, nitrate-rich foods can support aspects of vascular function and exercise performance.
Research commonly uses approximately 300–400 mg of nitrate, or roughly 5–6.5 mmol, as a starting range for performance investigations. Some protocols use larger amounts.
But the nitrate content of beets is remarkably variable. So not all beet seeds and their ending root juice is the same nutrition by default. You must also consider if the nitrates powder you may want to buy is further artificially enhanced with unhealthy chemical nitrates or are naturally existing.
Beet It Sport: A legitimate concentrate, but with a major concern
Beet It Sport Nitrate 400 is not an ordinary supermarket beet drink.
The product contains 98% beetroot juice and 2% lemon juice, with an advertised 400 mg of dietary nitrate per 70 mL shot.
A published result dated March 2021, provides several revealing details:
- A 15-month product shelf life.
- Ambient storage before opening.
- A finished juice concentration of 20–23° Brix.
- A product pH below 4.5.
- Approximately 400 mg of nitrate per shot.
Beet It Sport does not require refrigeration before opening. But this is highly concerning when held up against current studies on nitrate degradation (i.e. the loss of nutrients and potency).
Current retail instructions also explicitly permit room-temperature storage and advise consuming the shot immediately after opening.
That distinction matters. Shelf-stable juice is not automatically degraded juice. Nitrate is a comparatively stable ion, and properly manufactured, acidic, microbiologically controlled products could still retain meaningful nitrate content without refrigeration.
However, the published storage specification does not independently demonstrate that nitrate potency is unchanged throughout 15 months. Nor does it disclose the complete storage history of harvested beets, intermediate concentrates, or raw-material batches before bottling.
Those are separate questions.
What happens after beet juice is actually stored at room temperature?
In 2023, when researchers stored opened samples beet concentrates at 20°C, nitrate concentration declined approximately 24% after three days and 46% after seven days.
Freshly prepared, unacidified beet juice showed even faster changes, with nitrate declining to nearly zero after three days at room temperature! That's not good!
Refrigeration and freezing slowed the loss in freshly prepared juice. Adding lemon juice also helped.
These findings demonstrate that nitrate loss can be substantial in stored liquid beet products. They do not prove comparable losses in unopened, commercially sealed Beet It shots.
The practical distinction is clear: fresh juice needs careful handling, opened juice should be consumed promptly, and a shelf-stable juice liquid should be evaluated on actual stability data rather than assumptions.
The Brix problem: Concentrated does not necessarily mean high-nitrate
Beet concentrate manufacturers frequently describe their products using degrees Brix.
Brix is a measure of soluble solids. In beet juice, these include sugars and other soluble constituents. It is useful for manufacturing consistency, concentration, and process control.
But Brix is not a measurement of nitrate concentration.
Consider two hypothetical beet juices processed to the same 21° Brix.
Both may have similar concentrations of total soluble solids, yet one can contain substantially more nitrate than the other.
Why? Because the nitrate content of the original beet material is influenced by cultivar, soil conditions, nitrogen availability, growing environment, harvest timing, and postharvest handling.
Concentrating an initially low-nitrate juice does not automatically make it a high-nitrate juice.
The same problem can arise when suppliers combine different beet harvests, varieties, or ingredient lots.
Blending is not inherently poor manufacturing. It can be a useful method for achieving a standardized formulation. But if a manufacturer does not measure nitrate after blending, it cannot establish the actual nitrate dose in the finished product simply from ingredient specifications or Brix.
For both powdered and liquid concentrates, a laboratory result must also identify whether it refers to the original juice, a diluted sample, an intermediate concentrate, or the finished product.
Without that information, even a seemingly precise certificate of analysis can be misleading.
The laboratory problem: Not all nitrate tests measure the same thing
A further complication is analytical methodology.
Nitrate can be measured using ion chromatography, UV light, appropriate HPLC methods, ion-selective electrodes, or validated colorimetric procedures.
These techniques are not automatically interchangeable. Some are more susceptible than others to matrix effects, sample preparation problems, chemical interference, and operator-dependent variability.
A 2025 comparison of vegetable nitrate testing methods found that chromatographic and spectrophotometric techniques generally correlated, but also demonstrated matrix-dependent differences and methodological limitations.
Even the reporting units matter.
A laboratory may report nitrate as nitrate ion (NO₃⁻) or nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃-N), while ingredient suppliers may declare the total weight of nitrate-containing compounds such as sodium nitrate (NaNO₃), potassium nitrate (KNO₃), or betaine nitrate. These measurements are not interchangeable.
The reference standard for comparing dietary nitrate potency is the actual mass of nitrate ion (NO₃⁻), expressed in milligrams per gram or per finished serving.
The differences are substantial. One milligram of nitrate-nitrogen represents 4.43 mg of NO₃⁻, while sodium nitrate contains approximately 73% NO₃⁻ by weight. Betaine nitrate contains both betaine and nitrate, so its total ingredient weight must not be mistaken for its actual nitrate-ion content.
Without converting every result to the same NO₃⁻ basis, comparisons between beet powders, concentrated juices, and nitrate-containing supplements can be dramatically misleading.
For meaningful quality control, manufacturers should report milligrams of actual NO₃⁻ in the finished product, supported by a validated analytical method—not simply the weight of the nitrate-containing ingredient.
Why high-nitrate beet juice powder has a practical advantage
A quality beet juice powder removes much of the water that makes liquid products bulky and creates opportunities for microbial activity after opening.
With appropriate drying, moisture control, packaging, and storage, nitrate-rich powders can offer substantial shelf-life and handling advantages.
A 2024 investigation of infrared-dehydrated beetroot powder found no statistically significant change in measured nitrate/nitrite-related content after 12 months of dry room-temperature storage.
Powders also allow a user to adjust the amount consumed, mix with water only when needed, and avoid carrying liquid bottles.
And they can deliver physiologically meaningful nitrate. A 2026 randomized trial using nitrate-rich beetroot powder demonstrated increases in circulating nitrate and nitrite, alongside dose-dependent effects on selected vascular measurements.
The important point is not that dry powder is biologically superior to liquid juice. Both can provide dietary nitrate.
The advantage of powder is that it can preserve a concentrated ingredient in a convenient format until the moment of consumption.
PureClean Beet versus Beet It Sport: The numbers
PureClean Beet is an organic beet juice powder rather than a conventional dried whole-root powder.
Its current product literature describes a 10 g serving, with a target nitrate concentration of approximately 3%, equivalent to 300 mg dietary nitrate.
Beet It Sport Nitrate 400 declares 400 mg per 70 mL shot.
That makes the current advertised comparison:
| PureClean Beet | Beet It Sport Nitrate 400 | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Organic beet juice powder | Concentrated beet juice shot |
| Serving | 10 g | 70 mL |
| Advertised nitrate | Approximately 300 mg, based on 3% | 400 mg |
| Nitrate in mmol | Approximately 4.84 | Approximately 6.45 |
| Storage | Dry, sealed | Ambient, sealed |
| Ingredients | Organic beet juice powder | Beet juice concentrate, lemon juice |
| Dose flexibility | Adjustable | Primarily single-shot |
The daily cost difference can be substantial
Using US website prices checked in November 2026, PureClean Beet is listed at $49.95 for 30 servings, compared with $55.50 for 15 Beet It Sport shots.
If PureClean Beet delivers its stated 300 mg target, that represents approximately $0.56 per 100 mg nitrate, compared with approximately $0.93 for Beet It Sport.
On that advertised-dose basis, PureClean could deliver an equivalent nitrate quantity for roughly 40% less money.
What about fresh or frozen beet juice?
Fresh beet juice offers an appealing whole-food option, particularly when prepared immediately before consumption.
Freezing promptly after preparation can reduce the deterioration seen in freshly prepared liquid juice during storage.
But fresh or frozen does not automatically mean higher nitrate.
The starting beet material may be naturally low in nitrate, and without testing, the dose remains uncertain.
Similarly, processing affects different beet compounds differently. The conditions that preserve nitrate do not necessarily preserve betalain pigments, polyphenols, and other constituents to the same degree.
For consumers interested in the complete beet phytochemical profile, production quality and storage deserve attention beyond nitrate alone.
The verdict: The best beet product is the one that actually delivers
Beet It Sport has helped establish dietary nitrate as a legitimate subject of sports-nutrition research. Its concentrated shots offer a meaningful declared nitrate dose, have been used in scientific investigations, and are designed for convenient single-dose use.
PureClean Beet takes a different approach: providing naturally nitrate-rich organic beet juice in a dry, flexible, concentrated format suitable for regular use for many years to come.
For everyday supplementation, a genuinely high-nitrate, beet juice powder can be the more practical, routine-friendly, and economical choice.
It avoids unnecessary liquid weight, simplifies storage, provides flexible serving sizes, and can preserve nitrate potency when manufactured and stored correctly.
To your best health!