00:00:00
00:00:01
Jonathan Cartwright
120 Plays1 day ago
In this episode Michelle speaks with Jonathan Cartwright, brand manager for Beet-It Sport.
Michelle and Jonathan chat about:
- the science behind beetroot for endurance sports
- emerging studies that show nitrates in concentrated beetroot juice can be useful for intermittent sprinting too
- the best way to consume beetroot juice for optimal performance.
- beetroot's role in recovery.
Beet it sport Instagram
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Beat It Sports and Endurance Products
00:00:00
ukrunchat
Hello, welcome to this episode of the UK Run Chat podcast. Today, we're joined by Jonathan Cartwright, who's the brand manager for Beat It Sports. He's going to give us an overview of a product that can help you with your endurance. So hi, Jonathan. Thank you for joining us today. Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?
00:00:19
Jonathan
Hi, well, thank you for having me. It's ah it's nice to be on here. So um yeah, so my name's Jonathan, as you say, I'm the brand manager for BTIT Sports. And yeah, my background is is in the research using the products. So I kind of got in that way, I guess. And yeah, my role is involves meeting a lot of athletes around the world, really introducing the products to them to see how they can improve whatever sporting site they do and trying to kind of replicate what we've done in the UK and at the market as well.
00:00:51
Jonathan
um So yeah, that's kind of, in a nutshell, what I do at ah James Ward drinks. So yeah.
The Endurance Benefits of Beetroot Juice
00:01:01
ukrunchat
Yes, so what is your main product?
00:01:01
Jonathan
yeah
00:01:03
ukrunchat
It's a concentrated beetroot juice, is that right?
00:01:06
Jonathan
That's right. Yeah. So I've got the products here for those, if you have it as a video clip, but it's basically a concentrated shot. So it's made with 98% beetroot, 2% lemon juice. So there's no, nothing added in there. that's That's not needed as such.
00:01:22
Jonathan
We concentrate it so this would otherwise be about half a litre's worth of like regular beetroot juice or about six to eight sort of whole beets so there's a lot of product that goes in there. The reason why we concentrate it is that you've got to get a lot of beetroot to get enough nitrate in the system so we have 400 milligrams of nitrate in every product.
00:01:42
Jonathan
that's been shown to be the kind of minimal dose that you need to have a kind of performance benefit so rather than sort of trying to blend your own or get quite messy in the kitchen um we make things much easier and we standardize it as well so nitrate is quite variable you never know how much you're getting in any beetroot product so we go through a lot of effort to standardize every shot so you'd have to go um sort of you know guessing how much you're having or necking a point and maybe still not getting enough. So we make things a little bit easier. um And yeah, that's that's our sort of hero product, I guess, one that most people who understand the benefits of Beacheroot might be familiar with, um is that one.
00:02:27
ukrunchat
Yeah, so there's there's ah obviously a lot of beetroot in there. How much, as as an example, how much beetroot would you need to eat to kind of get that same benefit then?
00:02:35
Jonathan
So on average, it would be about six six to eight beats. Obviously depends how big the beat is, how much nitrous is in there.
00:02:39
ukrunchat
That's one, yeah.
00:02:42
Jonathan
But on average, it would be around about six to eight. so um Yeah, it will be a lot to consume before a run if you just want it to go that way.
00:02:50
ukrunchat
Yeah, that is a lot.
00:02:51
Jonathan
Obviously, people do have it on their salads. A lot of people eat beetroot anyway, but and that's great. But what comes with that is the fiber that you don't really want to have before you run. It's going to sit quite heavy in your stomach.
00:03:02
Jonathan
So there's no fiber in the juice. We press the beets. We separate the pulp from the juice. So it's really easily digested. um And yeah, you just get what you need from from the product in that sense.
00:03:15
ukrunchat
Yeah. Okay. So tell us about kind of how it
The Origin and Evolution of Beat It Products
00:03:18
ukrunchat
all started then. Where did the idea come from and how long has it been a product for?
00:03:23
Jonathan
Yeah, so so BETA is is part of a company called James White Drinks. We're based up in Ipswich. We've got our own pressing facility and shot line. So BETA is part of a bigger company and we've been pressing various fruits and vegetable juices for I think almost 40 years now. So we're quite experienced in in the kind of and that's and that sort of area.
00:03:47
Jonathan
um It really started back in, well, we've been pressing beetroot since 2005, so quite a number of years now, um sort of unknowingly to us that we know that it was actually going to be beneficial for health and performance. So it wasn't until 2008 when some researchers in Scandinavia, they found that nitrates can help to lower high blood pressure. So that's nitrate, you know, synthetic nitrate that you can make in a lab.
00:04:13
Jonathan
They then found that nitrates naturally found in the diet and beetroot just happened to be quite naturally rich in nitrate. So at the time we were the only beetroot juice pressing manufacturer in the UK so they contacted us. They wanted to use our products for their research. We said yeah sure we have no idea how or why that's going to help but sure you can use our product and then they found that it helped to low heart pressure.
00:04:38
Jonathan
That was through the nitrite nitric oxide pathway, helps to increase nitric oxide, which is a vasodilator. And then it was only a year or so later, really, where researchers in the sports world sort of prick their ears up and thought, well, hang on a minute. If it's helping to increase blood flow around the body, maybe that's useful for athletes with oxygen transport. So the first human study was done in 2009, down in the University of Exeter by Andy Jones and Stephen Bailey and the team.
00:05:07
Jonathan
That's where I did my my undergraduate as well and they found that it helped to reduce the oxygen cost of exercise and improve the performance on the bike. So that was a kind of a landmark study. I think it reduced it by something like 16%. So it's quite a large amount. It got a lot of attention at the time.
00:05:26
Jonathan
And ever since then, there's been a snowball effect of of research that have used our products to see what else it can do. So nitric oxide is linked to various different processes in the body. um Obviously, from a health perspective, you've got the blood pressure reducing properties. And then within the sports, the key effect of it is it's been shown to help what they call lower the energy demand of exercise or the oxygen cost.
00:05:52
Jonathan
So a good way to think about that is you can, on Beatred Juice, it's been shown you can run at the same pace or cycle at the same pace, but your body uses less energy to maintain that pace. So you have a bit more fuel left at the end of the race to push a bit longer until you reach exhaustion. So yeah, it kind of, lots of research was being done to try and prove the concept, you know, retest, retest. And there's the bulk of the research or the history of the brand and and the research is around that insurance. Can we run harder for longer until we reach exhaustion? so um Yeah, that's kind of a ah summary of of the kind of background of the brand. we've We've not funded any research, so we don't pay for the research to be done. We're just the manufacturer that can provide the research teams with a standardized dose from only two ingredients. And then we also do another shot, which is the placebo shot. And that's got no nitrogen, but everything else is the shame. so
00:06:47
Jonathan
you know, if you were to come to the lab and you were to be tested on the products, you might believe that you're going to have a performance benefit. So you do perform better. We wanted to eliminate that or the researchers did. Um, so they do a double blind. So they'll, they'll, let's say you're in the lab, you and I wouldn't know which one has nitrate in or not. So it kind of really isolated the the fact that it is nitrate within beetroot that's primarily responsible for it. Um,
00:07:14
Jonathan
And yeah, that's that's kind of helped the researchers have more robust studies, you know, so it's not just all in the head, I guess, in that sense. um And yeah, we we always tend to follow the research, so new papers are coming out every week almost, so with new new benefits. So um yeah, it's quite exciting and there's still lots that um can be can be researched and lots of new findings that they they're discovering. So um yeah, it's quite an exciting area of nutrition.
Recent Research on Beetroot and Exercise Performance
00:07:44
ukrunchat
Yeah, so talk us through some of the new findings recently then what's what's come up more recently for you with beetroot.
00:07:50
Jonathan
Yeah so I mean historically over the last 15 years the bulk of it has been on insurance and then it was in 2015 they looked at can it improve strength and force production and also things like intermittent sprinting.
00:08:04
Jonathan
and It was really based on the nitric oxide. it's It's linked to different processes in the body. So I think maybe it can help with other parts of sporting types. So there was research done looking at intermittent sprinting um that maybe mimics ah team sport play. So NFL, football, rugby, um strength and force production. They've looked at things like bench press, squatting as well. And although it's the same product, same dosing, the mechanism of action is different.
00:08:33
Jonathan
so For endurance, it's to do with reducing the energy demand of exercise, increasing blood flow around the body. For sprinting and um a sort of force production, it seems to be, for my understanding anyway, that it's more of a what's going on inside the muscle, is it causing adaptations that um but are more sort of muscular rather than to do with blood flow. So yeah, that in itself has um open doors, I guess, for us into different sort of sporting types. So we supply a lot of these elite teams and in America, football, the Premier League have the evidence now that shows that the products work. More recently, they've looked at can we get an added benefit from having nitrate again, but during exercise. So it's always been a pre-exercise drink. You take it two hours before a run. It takes that amount of time.
00:09:28
Jonathan
and I try to break down and typically it would last in the bloodstream for about six hours at rest. Now, the researchers said, well, what happens at exercise? And it turns out the body uses the nitrate as as like a substrate, they call it. So the levels of nitrate will decrease inside the body faster than they would do at rest. So they're thinking, what if they're going to decrease? What if we have a top up dose? Can we maintain the benefits of nitrate for longer to get like an added benefit? And yeah there's not been a huge amount of research, but
00:10:01
Jonathan
some research that was done in 2018 they found that they looked at comparing taking a beach route before and taking a beach route before and mid-exercise and what they found was that the the top of dose helped to reduce the rate of glycogen depletion so basically reduced the rate that your body's drawing energy from the muscle so what they did look at was what that means on a longer scale so if you're more efficient with the fuel that you've got on board, you'd think that you're about to run a little bit further into your res exhaustion. um That's over and above what you'd get just having the regular shots. So that that was a really fascinating study and what we found very quickly was that obviously drinking a shot mid-race is not that practical.
00:10:48
ukrunchat
I was gonna ask how that would work.
00:10:48
Jonathan
i see
00:10:49
ukrunchat
Yeah, that could get quite messy.
00:10:52
Jonathan
Yeah, so we wanted to develop a product that maybe isn't quite as intense as the Sharp, but it's obviously quite easy to consume mid-race.
00:10:52
ukrunchat
and
00:10:55
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:10:58
Jonathan
So days that if we do have this on a video, we've got this new product called the Energy Gel. It's a top-up product. So this was really off the back of that new research. It's more practical um and it's it's more of a functional energy gel.
00:11:11
Jonathan
So you've got all the points that you're getting and a regular gel you've got 30 grams of carbohydrates from a two to one glucose fructose mix. You've got 150 milligrams of sodium and you've also got 100 milligrams of nitrate from from beetroot. So something you consume once or twice per hour depending on how far you're running I guess and how hard you're running and yeah it's just gives you everything in that a normal gel does, but you're getting the added top of dose of nitrate, which you don't get from another product.
00:11:41
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:11:44
Jonathan
And it's only from, I think, four or five
Innovations in Energy and Recovery Products
00:11:46
Jonathan
ingredients. It's brown rice syrup, garbage syrup, beetroot, and lemon. So we like to keep things quite simple. it James White, we like to keep it natural.
00:11:55
Jonathan
So that's that's a key benefit as well. And the taste is genuinely great. I know you probably think I'm putting it on.
00:12:01
ukrunchat
I was going to ask, how does it taste? It's, yeah, concentrate, that beetroot is quite a strong flavour, isn't it actually? Is it, is it palatable?
00:12:07
Jonathan
it is yeah most people have this idea of what it's going to taste like before they try it and we know this because we go to loads of different shows and we meet thousands of people and it's quite funny seeing someone come to the stand and they have this idea of oh it's going to taste
00:12:13
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:12:23
Jonathan
disgusting, or I can't have beetroot, because they're used to having it, you know, as a beetroot, you know, in, you know, vinegar or something like that. But because we concentrate it, we take the fiber out, we have the lemon in. I mean, yes, it is intense. And yes, it is slightly earthy. That's the shots anyway. um But it's, it's, I'd say nine times out of 10, people are surprised that it's not as bad as they thought it was. And they can actually sort of get along with it. The gem on the other hand is actually quite surprisingly nice tasting.
00:12:52
Jonathan
um So a lot of feedback we've had is that it tastes great, which t whichitch which we thought it did. I mean, it is less intense because you've got less nitrates in there, but you do get the kind of brown rice syrup, the agave taste as well. so Yeah, it's not as intense, it's easy to consume as well but it's is something which I think just give it a go because if you're looking to improve your performance naturally it it's an evidence-based way of doing it.
00:13:20
Jonathan
It's natural, it's vegan, it's gluten-free um and the taste is often not as bad as what people think. It's just trying to overcome that barrier to start with.
00:13:28
ukrunchat
Yeah, and I must say it's appealing to hear that it's a very natural product rather than a synthetic one because some energy gels can taste just not very nice and can cause like GI distress in a lot of runners. So yeah, it's good to hear that you've taken the fiber out so that that doesn't have an impact actually.
00:13:48
Jonathan
Yeah, I mean, we did a lot of research, market research, before we launched the gel and we tested a lot of other competitive products.
00:13:52
ukrunchat
yeah
00:13:55
Jonathan
I won't name them, but some of them are pretty disgusting. um i just And you only have to look at ingredients and you see it's it's a long list. It's like start reading a paragraph and you don't understand what half of it is on there.
00:14:03
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:14:07
Jonathan
And we often thought, well, why why do you need so much in there? And we wanted to strip it right back and then he put in there what is really beneficial to people and One thing we won't do is move away from being natural and being, I guess, simple in ingredients, but the kind of benefits of it are a bit more complex than the kind of normal sports nutrition product.
00:14:28
Jonathan
So yeah, we like to keep things simple and but also know give people what's been shown to actually be beneficial. um So yeah, that's something that we don't want to steer away from.
00:14:38
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:14:42
ukrunchat
Yeah. So what kind of athletes have you been researching the products that but specifically the new energy gels with what kind of sports?
00:14:42
Jonathan
but
00:14:48
Jonathan
So the gels, yeah, it's not been launched for long. So it's only been around for a couple of months. um So we've just been getting out there to our yeah UK and export distributors. So I guess it might be a bit more in the circulation start next year when people maybe start to have more events coming up.
00:14:57
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:15:04
Jonathan
But yeah, the feedback you've had so far has been great. You've had mainly sort of ultra runners, marathon runners, those type of athletes who have trialled it.
00:15:09
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:15:13
Jonathan
um I probably sound a bit cheesy now, but a few of them have come back to say they've got a PB using it. That's not me just making it up. And I think a lot of people were surprised at the taste as well, because sometimes you never know how it's going to be having it mid-run. You can have it sat down at a tasting table, but unless you try it mid-race or mid-exercise, it's a bit of an unknown. So that it's great to get that you know positive feedback that it's really easily digestible. It wasn't causing them any stomach problems.
00:15:43
Jonathan
um And yeah, they they like the taste as well, which I think is really important for gel. So yeah, many ultras and marathon runners really at at this point, but yeah.
00:15:57
ukrunchat
Yeah, and it's quite appealing to hear that it could stop you potentially hitting that wall when you've pushed too far or too fast and you've still got quite a bit of of distance to run.
00:15:57
Jonathan
book
00:16:08
ukrunchat
and So yeah, that's that's good to hear that that can help with that actually.
00:16:13
Jonathan
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's just something which um obviously having the gel and the carbohydrates are great for feeding your body with with bit glucose to stop you doing that. But the nitrate is just going to mean you're a bit more efficient with how your body is using and that glucose. So it's kind of, um yeah, like I said, a bit more functional than your usual gel. But so yeah, we're just looking forward to really I guess fully launching it.
00:16:37
Jonathan
We'll be exhibiting at the London Marathon next year. so but It's a bit of a way off now in April, but so we'll have a big stand there.
00:16:40
ukrunchat
Yeah, okay.
00:16:44
Jonathan
We'll do loads of sampling and we'll have a lot of sort of, you know, build up events as well. So looking forward to really getting the product to people's hands and seeing how they come on with it.
00:16:53
ukrunchat
Yeah, that's really exciting. So is it is it available currently, did you say? oh Yeah.
00:16:58
Jonathan
Yes, yeah so you can buy it off our website. We sell it on on our website directly, btip.com. We sell it on Amazon. You can buy it off other websites like XMiles online as well. And then various different independent cycle run stores in the UK. And if anyone who's listening is based in another country, we supply about 40 countries now, so if you go onto our website there's a drop-down list, international distributors and there's a link that will go through to the local website if the country that you're in is on our list.
00:17:30
Jonathan
If it's not let us know, we'll try and find someone locally.
00:17:34
ukrunchat
Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. Well, let us know if you're listening out there and you've tried it or yeah let us know how you get on with it. and So in terms of the shot then, is that something that runners would take just before a run or is there benefit to taking it more?
00:17:50
Jonathan
Yeah. So, um a lot of people take the beatroot shots for events, I guess, if you're going to do a marathon, half marathon, and typically you' take it for about three to six days before the race.
00:17:57
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:18:03
Jonathan
So the reason being is that the research has shown that you the body stores nitrate within the muscle and you kind of need to preload on it.
00:18:09
ukrunchat
Right.
00:18:11
Jonathan
A bit like how you would carbohydrate load, kind of storing the muscle bank
00:18:13
ukrunchat
Okay.
00:18:15
Jonathan
Because when you start to exercise, the body will use it in the bloodstream first, a bit like with the gel. And then once that starts to dip, it will draw it from the stores. If you haven't stored it, it just, from a nitrate anyway, it just means you're not going to benefit as much because the body's only got so much that it can you benefit from. Any more than a week, there's no added benefit. So there's only so much we can really store. And any more than two shots a day, the body just kind of really absorb it. So um yeah, sort of one or two shots a day for about three to six days before a race.
00:18:45
Jonathan
You can use it in training. Um, obviously it depends on how much people want to spend on their day to day training. Some people are quite serious, so they want to improve the performance during the training. That's great. Just use it like a pre-workout, I guess, take it one to two hours before. Um, and, uh, yeah, for training, I guess there is some, some things to be said that, you know, was you to push a bit harder than you would otherwise be able to do. And that may.
00:19:13
Jonathan
create some training adaptations that you wouldn't get if if you didn't have it. But yeah, um and I think it's one of those nutrition products where it's one of the only ones actually that's not only good for sports, it's good for health as well. So like I say, it's the kind of history behind it was through with helping to manage high blood pressure. um But it's also packed full of natural polyphenols, antioxidants that are really healthy for us anyway. you know it's it's It's a vegetable. So um yeah, so it's something that people drink daily. you know We do a beetroot juice, an organic version of the supermarkets that people have daily. That's an alternative. The the shots are obviously just a more concentrated form of that.
00:19:51
ukrunchat
Yeah, yeah. so So there are benefits to drinking at Delhi then. So it's something I've never noticed in the supermarkets actually, but perhaps it's never been on my radar. So it is there, is it?
00:20:00
Jonathan
Yeah, definitely. I have to go down down down the rock. We're in Sainsbury's, Tesco's, Morrison's I believe, Waitrose, Cardo. So most most of the majors we're in with a beetroot organic.
00:20:13
Jonathan
in a kind of Tetra pack in the chilled format as well.
00:20:14
ukrunchat
Yeah, okay.
00:20:17
Jonathan
But the sports range aren't in the supermarkets. So that's just an online product.
00:20:19
ukrunchat
Yeah, no. Yeah, a bit more, a bit more specialist. So does being reduced then aid in recovery as well or reducing fatigue? Does it have benefits there?
00:20:31
Jonathan
Yeah, it's a really good question. So that the the the research, there's not been a bulk that much research done in this area. um I think most of the research has been interested in can we run harder, faster? You know, can we prove performance? But there's a lot of ah sort of antioxidants and beneficial components of beetroot that should really, in theory, be good to help recovery. um A lot of the benefits of recovery has been more associated with like sour cherry.
00:21:00
Jonathan
So we we then wanted to make a combination of products, which is the regen. So I've got it here for those that have got the video. It's 58% sour cherry, that's a concentrate, and 42% beetroot. So it's only two ingredients. You've got that combination of the sour cherries and the beetroot, so a pack of antioxidants.
00:21:19
Jonathan
and yeah the bulk of the research around sour cherries really been looking at can we reduce the symptoms of muscle soreness so you know you get delayed onset of muscle soreness if you go to the gym or if you do a long run everyone knows what it feels like to have the kind of jelly legs so it's all to do with dampening the kind of inflammation that you get after sort of causing the damage, I guess, during exercise.
00:21:43
Jonathan
So, um yeah, the regen is a product for that. It's, although it is a recovery product, it's something you need to be taking a few days before the race, on the day of the race, so once you've finished, and a few days afterwards.
00:21:57
Jonathan
So they call it a pre-covering, they call it in the research now, where you don't really get a benefit, if you would just have it afterwards, because it's kind of a bit too late, so you need to do it a few days before,
00:22:00
ukrunchat
yeah Okay.
00:22:09
Jonathan
on the day and if he goes afterwards. So yeah, that's a bit different. Obviously the taste is mainly sour cherry, so it's not quite as intense as their beetroot, but yeah, it's just something else to help you recover, especially for those who've got back to back races or they compete in the next weekend and they want to recover well, it's quite a good option.
00:22:31
ukrunchat
Yeah, if you're doing lots of races, I suppose you do you do want to kind of bounce from one to the next, don't you? So potentially useful there.
00:22:38
Jonathan
Yeah definitely we we have, um we know a lot of the Tour de France cyclists are using sour cherry because obviously that that's day back to back.
00:22:44
ukrunchat
yeah
00:22:48
Jonathan
We've got a good guy in the Netherlands who's ah a cycling fanatic who's got a lot of contacts in the cycling world so we know that it's been used by these kind of multi-stage cycle events so yeah it's definitely worth checking out if that's the kind of training you're doing.
00:23:04
ukrunchat
Yeah, absolutely. So is is there anything else we should know about beetroot juice then? or I have one question and and that is potential side effects to look out for when drinking it.
00:23:12
Jonathan
um
00:23:17
Jonathan
Yeah, no, definitely.
Consumer Understanding of Beetroot Effects
00:23:19
Jonathan
The only side effect that you've got to worry about with Beecher is we're not really worried about, or just good to know is that it turns your wee pink and your stools pink.
00:23:26
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:23:27
Jonathan
um If you know, then it's okay. We've had some people have come back to a set show once and they said, I went to the doctors after I had your product. I thought I had something wrong with my kidneys and the doctors first thing they said was that I had Beecher juice.
00:23:40
Jonathan
And I said, yes. so Um, we do have it on the labeling actually, but it's not obviously the biggest thing we shout about, but, um, it's, uh, yeah, no, definitely.
00:23:44
ukrunchat
Yeah.
00:23:47
ukrunchat
It's good to be a weather, isn't it?
00:23:50
Jonathan
But other than that, but there's no side effects. It's been tested by literally thousands of athletes over the last 15 years. And, um, yeah, just, it just sort of turned your way pink, but it's, it's harmless and it goes away with within about 12, 24 hours or something.
00:24:04
Jonathan
So yeah.
00:24:06
ukrunchat
Yeah, I'm sure we can live with that if we're performing better and being able to run further and faster.
00:24:11
Jonathan
Definitely.
00:24:12
ukrunchat
That sounds very appealing. Yeah, well, thank you very much, Jonathan, for your time. It's been fascinating learning all about beetroot juice. So tell us again where we can buy products and how we can find out more about you.
00:24:21
Jonathan
Yeah, na no thanks thanks for having me on. It's been it's been great. um Yeah, so the products you can buy at btip.com or just type into Google btip. We sell on um online, we sell in some independent cycle and run stores. If there's any stores that people like to shop at,
00:24:39
Jonathan
A lot of people like to to keep these independent stores going, so if your local one doesn't stock it and you want it to, just yeah let them know. we we can We can get them in touch with that. And yeah, you'll find us online at Amazon, like I say, XMiles, various sort of online retailers as well.
00:24:57
ukrunchat
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you very much. And I hope that you listening out there have all enjoyed today's episode. You've been listening to the UK Run Chat podcast.