Total Beets is a powdered beetroot supplement designed to boost nitric oxide levels in your body, which can lower blood pressure, improve blood flow, and support exercise performance. It works by delivering concentrated dietary nitrates from beets in a convenient scoop-and-mix format, skipping the mess of juicing raw beets. Whether those benefits are meaningful for you depends on how much nitrate you’re actually getting per serving and what you’re hoping to achieve.
How Beetroot Nitrates Work in Your Body
The active ingredient behind most of beet supplements’ benefits is inorganic nitrate. When you drink a beetroot powder mix like Total Beets, about 25% of the nitrate gets converted to a related compound by bacteria living in your mouth. Once that reaches your stomach, some of it converts further into nitric oxide, a gas molecule that relaxes the walls of your blood vessels.
That relaxation widens your arteries, lowering the pressure your heart has to pump against and increasing blood flow to muscles and organs. Nitric oxide levels in your blood typically peak around 3 to 3.5 hours after you drink a beetroot supplement, and the effect has a half-life of roughly 70 minutes, meaning it tapers off over the next few hours. This is why timing matters if you’re using it before a workout or for blood pressure support.
Blood Pressure Benefits
The strongest evidence for beetroot supplements is their effect on blood pressure. In a phase 2 clinical trial published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal, people with high blood pressure who consumed dietary nitrate from beetroot daily for four weeks saw their clinic blood pressure drop by an average of 7.7/2.4 mmHg (systolic/diastolic). Their 24-hour ambulatory readings, which capture pressure throughout the day and night, dropped by 7.7/5.2 mmHg. Home readings fell by 8.1/3.8 mmHg. Importantly, the benefits held steady over the full four weeks with no sign of the body adapting and reducing the response.
A drop of 7 to 8 points in systolic pressure is clinically meaningful. For context, that’s in the range of what some first-line blood pressure medications achieve. This doesn’t mean a beet supplement replaces medication, but it does suggest a real physiological effect for people whose blood pressure runs high.
Exercise and Physical Performance
Nitric oxide improves exercise capacity by enhancing blood flow to working muscles and reducing the oxygen cost of physical activity. Your muscles essentially become more efficient, needing less oxygen to produce the same amount of work. Research from the Australian Institute of Sport identifies the effective dose for exercise performance at 350 to 500 mg of nitrate, consumed two to three hours before exercise. Taking more than about 600 to 750 mg doesn’t appear to add further benefit.
The practical effect varies by person and activity type. Endurance athletes and recreational exercisers tend to notice the most difference during sustained efforts like running, cycling, or swimming. If you’re using Total Beets specifically for workout performance, timing your serving about two to three hours before exercise aligns with when nitric oxide levels peak in the bloodstream.
How Total Beets Compares to Whole Beets
Total Beets uses organic beet powder and a patented nitrate ingredient (listed as NO3-T betaine nitrate) in a 7-gram scoop. That’s a relatively small serving compared to what you’d get from whole food sources. For comparison, an 8-ounce glass of fresh beetroot juice delivers around 700 mg of nitrate, while a tablespoon of generic beetroot powder (16 grams, more than double Total Beets’ serving size) provides up to 320 mg. The clinically effective threshold for measurable benefits sits at 350 to 500 mg of nitrate.
Fresh beet juice also delivers significantly more polyphenols, the antioxidant compounds that contribute to beets’ broader health benefits. An 8-ounce serving of juice contains up to 265 mg of polyphenols versus roughly 40 mg in a tablespoon of powder. The tradeoff is convenience: juicing two to four raw beets daily is messy and time-consuming, and fresh juice contains about 22 grams of sugar per serving. Beet powder typically has just 1 to 5 grams of sugar, making it a lower-calorie option.
The key question with any beet powder supplement is whether its serving size delivers enough nitrate to cross that 350 mg threshold. Total Beets doesn’t prominently list its nitrate content in milligrams on the label, which makes it harder to compare directly. If you’re serious about the blood pressure or exercise benefits, look for products that guarantee at least 350 mg of nitrate per dose, or consider concentrated beetroot juice shots that have been used in most clinical trials.
Side Effects and Safety Considerations
Beetroot supplements are generally well tolerated. The most common and harmless side effect is beeturia, where your urine or stool turns pink or red. This looks alarming but is completely benign.
There are a few situations where caution is warranted. Beets are high in oxalates, compounds that can contribute to kidney stone formation. If you have existing kidney disease or a history of calcium oxalate kidney stones, high doses of beet products could worsen your condition. There’s also a theoretical concern about very large doses lowering calcium levels, though this hasn’t been demonstrated in practice.
Because beet supplements lower blood pressure, they can amplify the effects of blood pressure medications. If you’re already on medication for hypertension, the combined effect could push your pressure too low, causing dizziness or lightheadedness. Beet compounds also interact with certain medications processed by the liver, potentially changing how quickly your body breaks those drugs down. This applies to a broad category of pharmaceuticals, so it’s worth flagging with a pharmacist if you take prescription medications regularly.
Who Benefits Most
Total Beets and similar beetroot supplements offer the most value to two groups: people looking for natural blood pressure support and active individuals wanting a modest boost in exercise efficiency. The blood pressure evidence is robust enough to be taken seriously, particularly for people with mildly elevated readings who want to complement lifestyle changes. The exercise benefits are real but more subtle, most noticeable during endurance activities rather than short bursts of strength training.
If you’re already eating a diet rich in leafy greens and other high-nitrate vegetables like arugula, spinach, and celery, you may be getting enough dietary nitrate without a supplement. For everyone else, a beetroot powder is a practical shortcut, provided you’re getting a dose that actually crosses the effective threshold. A single scoop of Total Beets is convenient and low in sugar, but you may need to compare its nitrate content against clinical benchmarks to know whether it’s delivering enough to matter.