Does steak have minerals?
Dr. Martin built a whole episode around one claim: steak wins by a knockout. He went through amino acids, then minerals, then vitamins, then omega-3, and the minerals part starts with a myth he hears all the time. A lot of people think that if you eat meat, you get no minerals from it. His answer is that it is not true.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818There's lots of minerals in steak, including magnesium, including potassium, very important minerals, by the way, you need those things in your gut. Absolutely.
He calls steak "vitamin S". In episode 818 he names magnesium, potassium, zinc and iron. Elsewhere he adds selenium. Each comes with a reason it matters.
Magnesium and potassium in steak
Magnesium comes first. He says it does about 600 things in your body, and most people do not get enough of it in their diet. And steak, he says, carries it. For more on why so many women run short, see why so many women over 60 are low in magnesium.
Then potassium, the mineral he says nobody talks about. He compares it to Rodney Dangerfield, the comedian who never got any respect.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818Doesn't get a lot of respect compared to magnesium, but you need potassium. Very important electrolyte. It's a very important mineral for your body.
Both, he says, are found in steak.
Is steak a good source of zinc?
Zinc, he says, became famous during COVID, when everyone started talking about it for the immune system. He did not disagree. His point was where you get it.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818No, but when you hear me talking about zinc, you'll hear me telling you that if you eat vitamin S you're going to get your zinc. Okay? You're going to get it. That's an all important mineral.
In a later episode on the immune system he put vitamin A, zinc and taurine together, and named steak as the top source of zinc.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1145Where do you get zinc higher than anywhere else? Steak. You get zinc in eggs too. You get zinc in eggs, meat and cheese.
The iron in steak is heme iron
Iron is the mineral he spends the most time on. He wonders aloud whether it is the most important mineral of all. The word that matters to him is heme, spelled H-E-M-E, from the same root as hemoglobin.
Every time you breathe, he explains, your red blood cells pass through your lungs. In the middle of each one sits hemoglobin, which works like Velcro. Oxygen attaches to it, and your red blood cells carry that oxygen from your brain to your toes. To make those red blood cells, he says, you need the right kind of iron.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818It's not just any iron. It's heme iron. And guess where it's found? It's found in the animal kingdom, it's found in red meat, it's found in steak.
In practice, he says, iron deficiency anemia was like an epidemic, especially in young women with heavy periods. He would tell them they were anemic and to start eating vitamin S.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818Popeye didn't get strong eating spinach. I'm sorry. He didn't. He lied. You need heme iron and that's really important.
He came back to it in a later episode on anemia and put a number on the gap between spinach and steak.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1474It's not heme iron, first of all. And it's about 1% bioavailable compared to heme iron. You got to eat steak or liver.
What about too much iron? He covers that in episode 818 too, and puts it down to a liver filled up by carbohydrates rather than to steak. That question has its own page: can eating steak give you too much iron.
Does steak have selenium?
Yes, and for Dr. Martin this is about the thyroid. In an episode on thyroid nutrition, he told women who live on chicken and salad that they get some iodine that way but no selenium. He says the thyroid needs selenium every bit as much as iodine, or more, and that the two work together.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 985But folks, listen, your thyroid needs vitamin S steak because it's loaded with selenium.
He adds that selenium is not really found in the plant kingdom. In episode 818 he makes the iodine point: there is very little iodine left in the soil, and when people avoid the animal kingdom, they run low on it and the thyroid cannot work. His full thyroid list is iodine, selenium, magnesium and the B vitamins.
Are minerals in steak better absorbed than in plants?
This is the heart of his argument, and the part he says he gets push back on every day. It is not only that steak has minerals. It is that your body gets to keep them.
He says plants carry three things that chelate minerals, a word he used in practice for pulling heavy metals out of the body. The three are oxalates, phytic acid and fibre. That last one surprises people, so he said it plainly.
"Fiber is overrated because it's a chelator of your minerals."
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818Steak has none of the three, which is why he says it wins.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818That's why steak, vitamin S, wins by a knockout. You're going to get your minerals, plus, they're going to be absorbed. There's no chelators to take them out.
He is careful to say he is not against plants. He likes berries and he loves flax seeds. His point is about relying on them.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 818Okay? So don't say Dr. Martin doesn't like plants. Fruits and vegetables. That's not true. All I'm saying is, don't survive on it. You will not do well.
Can you get your minerals from steak?
He sees a lot of people who are over fed and under nourished, eating plenty but missing the minerals their body needs. His answer is nutrient dense food from the animal kingdom, with steak first.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1474What your body wants more than anything is nutrient dense food, all your vitamins, all your minerals, all your amino acids.
Steak brings more than minerals. In episode 818 he goes on to B12, which he says is not found in the plant kingdom, along with the other B vitamins, retinol, vitamin K2 and the omega-3 DHA. More on that in why so many people are low in B12. The way he eats day to day is laid out in the eggs, meat and cheese diet.
Common questions
Does steak have minerals?
Yes. Dr. Martin names magnesium, potassium, zinc, heme iron and selenium in steak, and says the idea that meat has no minerals is not true.
What minerals are in steak?
The ones he names are magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron and selenium. He singles out heme iron and zinc as the big two.
Is the iron in steak better than the iron in spinach?
He says yes. Steak has heme iron, and he puts spinach iron at about 1% bioavailable compared to heme iron.
Is steak a good source of zinc?
He calls it the best one. He says you get zinc in eggs, meat and cheese, but steak is higher than anywhere else.
Are minerals better absorbed from meat than plants?
In his view, yes. Plants carry oxalates, phytic acid and fibre, which he says pull minerals out. Steak has none of them.
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