Have you ever heard about endurance athletes drinking beet juice to help with their stamina before a long run? Well there’s a new product on the market called AltRed and it’s marketed as “Betalains Unleashed.” This simply means that phytonutrients sourced from beets have been “unleashed” at Sur PhytoPerfomance and now you have the option of taking a supplement in capsule form.
As a fitness instructor, a runner, and the mother of two very active boys, I am constantly on the go. I am always on the lookout for healthy products that will safely give me that extra boost in performance and recovery. And let’s face it, at almost 40 years old now, I need all the help I can get. Sur PhytoPerformance, a company that is committed to clean and natural phytonutrients for athletes, recently announced that they had an exciting new supplement that was built on the experience of 7 generations of farmers who have grown with the food and dietary supplement industry. This product is called AltRed and I was eager to give it a try.
The thing that most appealed to me about this product was that it was a plant-based supplement. There are so many products in the fitness industry that claim to be good for you that are, quite honestly, loaded with all sorts of things that actually aren’t. It was reassuring to me to find out that Jeff Van Drunen, the founder of Sur PhytoPerformance LLC, worked on the family farm in the early 80’s and wanted to find a clean, plant-based product to support his athletic endeavors. The primary ingredient in AltRed is 50mg of beetroot extract and the betalain, (which comes from the pigments found in beets,) is purely extracted and concentrated. All beets contain betalains, but the Sur team’s studies discovered that if it was chemically unbound and freed from nitrates and sugar, the result is something completely new, different, and clinically proven to improve sports performance.
Sur has done some groundbreaking clinical studies at the Sports Performance Laboratory at the University of California Davis and you can read about them here. What they have found is that betalains have a statistically significant impact on athletes. The studies showed faster performance times, lower heart rates, lower perceived effort, and reduced markers of muscle damage. You can read about the study performed on runners here, or they study performed on triathletes here.
It’s recommended that AltRed be taken daily and 2 hours prior to exercise due to the fact that the benefits are experienced when it’s active in the body during performance. It’s also recommended that you take it every 2 hours during activities that will exceed 2 hours. I’ve been taking the AltRed for only about a week and a half. I like that it’s in pill form because I’m always in a hurry and this is one way I don’t even have to think about it. When I first started taking the pills, I felt a tad jittery, like I’d had an extra cup of coffee. I was going through some personal stuff at the time though, so my anxiety level may have had something to do with it. It wasn’t disruptive, just something I noticed, and the feeling did go away. As far as my performance level goes, I’ve taken it before some workouts and runs and I do feel like I have been getting a better workout. I feel like performance is very hard to measure because we all have “off days” and “good days” and there are so many things to factor in.. nutrition, sleep, your schedule, life.. so it’s probably going to take me at least a month before I can decide if it’s really made a difference overall in my active lifestyle. So far, I feel I’m off to a good start and I’m excited to keep taking it. I would recommend it to a friend, because .. Why not?
Product/Items: AltRed Phytonutrient Supplement
Company: Sur PhytoPerformance
Price & Where to buy: $50 for 30 capsules. Order online here.
Product Specs (From website):
- NSF Certified for Sport
- Informed Choice Certified for Sport
- Contains No Sugars or Nitrates
- Non-GMO, Gluten-Free, Kosher
- Betalains sourced from nature
Thank you to Sur for providing us with samples. Please read our transparency page for info on how we do our reviews.
