Whole Beets vs. Juice for Improving Athletic Performance

What is the latest science on the performance-enhancing qualities of nitrate-rich vegetables?

7-part video series? My videos were much shorter back then, but still! Here you go if you want to put the whole discovery in context and get the detailed mechanism:

• Doping with Beet Juice
• Priming the Proton Pump
• Don’t Use Antiseptic Mouthwash
• Out of the Lab onto the Track
• Asparagus Pee
• Pretty in Pee-nk
• Vegetables Rate by Nitrate
• Is Bacon Good or Is Spinach Bad?
• When Nitrites Go Bad        
• Hearts Shouldn’t Skip a Beet
• Bacon and Botulism          
• Are Nitrates Pollutants or Nutrients?
• Prevention Is Better than Cured Meat
• Carcinogens in the Smell of Frying Bacon
• Vitamin C-Enriched Bacon
• So Should We Drink Beet Juice or Not?

Wait, that’s only 16. I think at the time I was also including Meat Additives to Diminish Toxicity.

How else can we support athletic performance? See:

• Reducing Muscle Fatigue with Citrus
• Reducing Muscle Soreness with Berries
• Preventing Exercise-Induced Oxidative Stress with Watercress

On the other hand, Paleo Diets May Negate Benefits of Exercise.

It’s great that we can improve athletic performance eating a few beets, but what about people who could really benefit from a more efficient use of oxygen? That’s the subject of my next video, Oxygenating Blood with Nitrate-Rich Vegetables.

I recently did a series all about vegetarian athletes:

• The Gladiator Diet: How Vegetarian Athletes Stack Up
• The First Studies on Vegetarian Athletes
• Vegetarian Muscle Power, Strength, & Endurance

And what about the keto diet and athletes? Check out Keto Diets: Muscle Growth & Bone Density.

In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my free videos here and watch my live presentations:

• 2019: Evidence-Based Weight Loss
• 2016: How Not To Die: The Role of Diet in Preventing, Arresting, and Reversing Our Top 15 Killers
• 2015: Food as Medicine: Preventing and Treating the Most Dreaded Diseases with Diet
• 2014: From Table to Able: Combating Disabling Diseases with Food
• 2013: More Than an Apple a Day
• 2012: Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death