If you were asked to name some superfoods, you’re probably go for things like blueberries, red peppers, maybe kale. Besides cakes and crisps, the last thing on your mind might be red meat.
Meat from cows and the like has been heavily linked with bowel and colon cancers, putting it in a similar bracket to the litany of processed meats we’re regularly told are no good for us.
But this is the internet, so contrary opinions and refutation of scientifically-backed evidence are always available.
This one comes courtesy of Dr Eric Berg, a licensed chiropractor who’s branched into fat-burning advice, promoting concepts like ketosis and intermittent fasting.
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Speaking on his YouTube channel, the back doctor said: "Today, I’m going to tell you about the #1 superfood: red meat! Some people think green powder is the best superfood, but while it's very beneficial, it’s missing one important ingredient: protein.
"Green powder has vitamin C, K1, beta-carotene, magnesium, potassium, and phytonutrients but no protein.
By green powder, Berg presumably means water-soluble supplements like AG1. It doesn’t seem as though anyone is claiming those supplements are the ‘number one’ superfood, but Berg has certainly set fire to that straw man.
He continued: "To optimise your health, you might want to start consuming grass-fed red meat along with your green powder."
Red meat hardly needs a champion. The average American wolfs down 124kg of it each year, according to TheWorldCounts. It’s, again, been repeatedly linked with bowel cancer, and its corresponding deforestation and methane-heavy cow farts are horrendous for the environment to boot.
But anyway, back to Dr Berg: "Red meat is an excellent source of B vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins, iron, selenium, zinc, and DHA. Grass-fed red meat also contains phytonutrients. Red meat increases the antioxidant glutathione and is a potent source of carnosine, an antioxidant that helps prevent glycation.
"Protein consumption triggers the hormone glucagon, which stabilises your blood sugar and helps counter the effects of insulin. Grass-fed red meat protein is the best source of protein.
"The protein leverage hypothesis states that animals, humans, and insects will continue to eat until they satisfy their protein requirement. This is why you will overeat if you consume junk food—it has no protein! If you have low blood sugar, you should consume protein, not candy!"
Berg helpfully forgets that protein is very much available from other sources, including non-red meat like chicken and fish. It’s also useful for his argument to create a strange binary between either eating protein-rich food or sweets which is… a position.
Anyway, he continues by addressing the well-reported risks posed by red meat.
"You've been taught that red meat is a dirty type of protein, red meat obviously causes cancer right? I mean everyone knows that it's a carcinogen,” he says.
"It causes type two diabetes, colon cancer, heart disease - because of all the saturated fat."
Berg is incorrect here. It’s not about saturated fats, it’s about the compounds in red meat that break down into carcinogenic materials.
One is haem, a red pigment found in red meat that breaks down into heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) formed when the meat is cooked at high temperatures, according to Cancer Research UK.
Nevertheless, Berg refutes this and claims that it’s just processed meat we need to watch out for.
"Out of all the foods that give you the highest quality it's red meat - and of course I'm talking about grass-fed, I'm not talking about processed meat,” he says.
"[Scientists and the government] don't differentiate the two and no, they have never proven that grass-fed red meat has caused cancer, heart attacks - there is absolutely zero proof."
Proving absolutes in medicine is challenging, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore mounting scientific evidence that indeed links red meat to cancer.
Rachael Davis