Juices: Nothing beats beetroot

WHITE’S Fruit Farm, home of a range of natural juice drinks, has just celebrated its 21st birthday, writes Emma Crowhurst.

Based on a small farm in Ashbocking since 1993, James White Drinks has come a long way in the last two decades, offering not only a range of classic English apple juices but a variety of new products, including a Soil Association-certified range of organic fruit and vegetable juices and their world-famous spiced tomato juice (Big Tom).The company has a new production plant and will be pressing up to 1,000 tonnes of beetroot for its organic Beet It juice and concentrated Beet It Shots.

The powers of beetroot juice were in the news during and after the Olympics: the active component that affects oxygen utilisation during exercise is nitrate. To be getting the recommended quantity of “performance-enhancing” nitrates, you would have to be eating over 10 beetroots a day. Juicing is therefore more accessible.

How exactly nitrate (or more specifically the nitrite ion) helps sports performance remains unknown. Research is ongoing.

The England rugby team were given beetroot juice for their nutritional build-up to the 2010 season. Some loved it, others were less keen.

The boffins at James White then developed the idea of a 7cl concentrated beetroot shot to deliver the equivalent dose of nitrate. They have now taken this a step further with Beet It Sport, which contains 33% increased nitrate. Like the organic shot, it is cut with lemon juice to reduce sweetness, and does not have an overpowering taste or smell of beetroot.

Beet It With Passion and Beet It With Ginger are two new variations of Beet It organic beetroot juice – made especially for those keen on the benefits of beetroot juice but not on its taste. “Beetroot is not everyone’s favourite taste. We reckon about 30% of the world loves beetroot, but at least 50% cannot bear it,” admits company owner Lawrence Mallinson. “So we have come up with two great new tastes.”