Now, if we’re talking about the absolute best food to help you heal and repair, especially after exercise but also from anything like stress, trauma, or surgery, hands down the answer would be red meat. I recently did a video discussing different proteins that are slightly better for certain health conditions; maybe some are better for anti-inflammatory purposes, etc. But when we’re talking about generalized healing and repair, animal meat, and specifically red meat, is at the top of the list. Not only does red meat have the most protein, but it also has some other amazing benefits that I’m going to share with you today, which will blow you away. Over 30 years of practice, I’ve never met one person who ever had an allergy to meat. They might have had an allergy to peanuts, eggs, seafood, shellfish, wheat, or soy, but not red meat. Despite the fact that meat has been villainized as the bad guy— “you should start eating less red meat to get healthy” or “it’s going to be better for climate change because we know the cows are destroying the climate,” which is completely ridiculous—that argument alone suggests that mainstream advice is often in the exact opposite direction of the truth. In fact, it’s difficult to heal and repair your body without animal protein, especially red meat, and today I’m going to prove it.
In past videos, I talked about eggs, and I eat a lot of eggs. Eggs are awesome, okay? But if we compare eggs to meat, there are some significant differences, and that’s what I want to talk about today. I’ve also discussed the benefits of having salmon and fish, which I also have once or twice a week. Salmon and sardines are very high in omega-3, which is good, but beef (red meat) has more protein and other things that can help you heal. If we look at the whole picture, I will say out of all the things involved in the healing and repair process, we need amino acids, bioavailable protein (which is animal protein), and concentrated protein. If we just compare red meat to eggs, red meat is twice as concentrated in amino acids. It also has 1.5 times more iron, 2.2 times more magnesium, 3.7 times more zinc, and 50 times more vitamin B3 than eggs. It has double the amount of B1, four times the amount of B6, twice the amount of B12, four times the amount of vitamin K, and five times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids. The ratios are going to be better. And, of course, I’m not talking about processed meat from factory farms; I’m talking about grass-fed beef. Even if you compare that to chickens that are pasture-raised, they’re still fed grains, which throw off the omega-3 to omega-6 ratios.
That being said, eggs are also a good source of protein, but as a side note, beef liver has 73 times more vitamin A than eggs. Now, there’s another nutrient that eggs have that’s better than beef, and that would be choline. It has a little more than double the amount of B2 and a lot more folate—12 times the amount of folate than beef. Beef has something else that I think is like the X Factor; actually, there are four things I’m going to mention. The first one is carnitine. Carnitine helps transport fat into your cells’ energy factories called mitochondria to help you get more energy. Without carnitine, the cells can’t get energy from fat. Carnitine gives you that quick energy when you’re exercising, and since we’re talking about a very important transport of fuel to the mitochondria, it is essential for healing and repairing your tissues. So, not only do we need all the essential amino acids as the raw material for proteins, not just for your muscles but for all your biochemistry, we also need other things as well, like those vitamins I just mentioned, which are cofactors, but also the shuttle to allow this raw material to give our bodies energy. If we compare 100 grams of red meat to 100 grams of eggs, the amount of carnitine would be like 150 milligrams versus only 7 milligrams for eggs. As far as the food that has the most carnitine, it would be lamb, but beef is number two. So, this beef (red meat) is at the top of the list for giving you a good source of carnitine.
Then we have creatine. Creatine gives us quick energy and can be used as fuel for very high, explosive, intense movements. Both exercise and physical activity need this creatine, which is why you see a lot of bodybuilders, weight lifters, and people who exercise taking this as a supplement. Well, guess what? Out of all the foods you could possibly eat on planet Earth, red meat from beef has the highest amount of creatine. So, creatine is just going to give you more energy to heal and repair from exercise. The next compound I’m going to talk about, which by the way red meat from beef has the absolute highest source, is called carnosine. It buffers the pH from lactic acid, the acidity in the muscle, so if you’re exercising, this compound comes along and helps neutralize this acid to allow you to exercise longer because the pH messes with some of the oxygen in the muscle. So, it buffers the pH, acts as an antioxidant, and helps recovery after exercise and general healing of your whole body. It also decreases something called AGEs. Advanced Glycation End Products is a fancy term for when you have a sugar molecule locked up with a protein molecule that’s stuck in the body. These AGEs plug up the body and interfere with function and usually come from consuming too much sugar. Well, guess what? This compound helps get rid of those things, so it’s considered an anti-aging substance. It can help you live longer. Out of all the foods you can eat, red meat from beef has the most carnosine.
Then we have coenzyme Q10. What is that? It is a nutrient that helps the mitochondria, the energy factory where food gets converted to energy. The best source of coenzyme Q10 is organ meats like beef liver, but it’s also in the meat as well. It’s in fish and eggs, but mostly in organ meats. Just in general, when I was very sick, I stumbled upon the ketogenic diet and low-carb diet. Buffalo burger was the first food I ate that made me feel good. I actually healed my body on buffalo burger and hamburger. To this day, I still feel the best when I consume red meat in the form of hamburger. I will eat steak and other cuts, but I do very well on red meat in general. If you’re trying to heal, especially after exercise or from some type of injury or trauma, you should really consider increasing your red meat intake and having it more often. The cool thing about hamburgers is that they have a bit more fat than leaner cuts of steak.
There are only two conditions you need to know about regarding the difficulty of digesting red meat. People who don’t like red meat often have low stomach acid. As someone ages, they lose stomach acid, and their taste for red meat decreases; they can’t tolerate it as well. There’s a simple solution: just add some betaine hydrochloride to the meal. I’ll put a link down below. You just take three to five before a meal. You don’t have to take it forever, just for a month, and it will start to increase the acidity in your stomach. You’ll start to digest red meat much better, break it down, and start feeling better. Older people often have more difficulty because they don’t have enough stomach acid, leading to gas, indigestion, and acid reflux (GERD), which are all signs of low stomach acid. Instead of avoiding red meat, just fix the stomach’s ability to digest it. The last point is a certain genetic condition where someone has a hard time getting rid of iron; they tend to accumulate iron. If that’s you, then red meat might not be the answer. You would want to consider poultry or eggs, which have lower amounts of iron. For everyone else, I highly recommend red meat. If you’re going through a menstrual cycle and losing blood, red meat is the best way to fix it because you’re probably slightly anemic, and red meat has the best iron and B12 in the best forms.
I hope I’ve given you more than enough information to try this out and see if it helps you. I consume a lot of red meat in the form of hamburgers on a regular basis. I’m lucky because I get it from an animal farm, but you can get it from the farmer’s market or online from various sources. One good source is U.S. Wellness Meats. I’ll put a link down below for them as well. If you haven’t seen my video on protein related to other specific body conditions, check it out right here.