Dr. Berg’s Approved Food List

Dr. Berg is a trained chiropractor and nutritional health expert who is a staunch critic of ultra-processed foods that are pushed to the public. But what ingredients does The Knowledge Doc™ avoid, and what foods does he recommend eating for maximum health benefits?

The food that you put into your body is of utmost importance. It is one of the human body’s life sources. When we are consuming healthy foods it has a positive effect on our all-round health and wellbeing, when we make poor food choices we are doing the opposite.

Dr. Berg says: “Food is that which is eaten to sustain life, provide energy and promote the growth and repair of tissue.”

Dr.Berg's Foods to Avoid

Dr. Berg believes the most damaging foods we can eat are ultra-processed foods, and we should aim to cut them out of our diets completely. This aligns with the views of other nutritional experts such as Gary Brecka and Eddie Abbew.

The Knowledge Doc doesn’t understate the dangers of consuming processed foods. He explains: “Which foods create the most disease? Ultra-processed foods – that’s a real polite way of saying “junk foods.””

Dr. Berg goes on to explain the meaning of processed foods and how they are produced: “Processed means something that has been altered using chemical, mechanical methods, or using methods that involve heat, to change something into something else.”

Processed foods provide little nutritional value compared to the wholefoods we should be eating. Dr. Berg elaborates: “I don’t know why they can even call this food because it doesn’t sustain life, you can’t live on it, it doesn’t give you energy – it makes you tired, there are basically no nutrients except for the synthetic ones they spray on it.”

4 Main Ingredients to Avoid in Food

While ultra-processed foods provide little nutrients, they are also produced using processes that make them even unhealthier to the human body. These types of foods usually contain a long list of ingredients, many of which are scientifically proven to be harmful to the human body.

Dr. Berg believes we should avoid all processed foods, but there are four particular types of ingredients that we should be on high alert for. These four ingredients to avoid are:

Synthetic sugars (e.g. Acesulfame potassium, Advantame, Aspartame, Neotame, Saccharin, Sucralose)
Synthetic starches (e.g. Distarch Phosphate, Phosphated Distarch Phosphate, Acetylated Distarch Phosphate, Acetylated Starch, Acetylated Distarch Adipate, Hydroxypropyl Starch, Hydrox Propyl Distarch Phosphate, Starch Sodium Octenyl Succinate)
Maltodextrin
Synthetic oils (unsaturated seed oils such as canola, sunflower, rapeseed, cottonseed, safflower, soybean, vegetable oil, and corn oils)

Dr. Berg says: “Those are the things you really need to pay attention to and make sure they’re not in your refrigerator.”

What to Look for in Food

Dr. Berg advises eating wholefoods. Natural animal products, sea fish, and vegetables have large amounts of bioavailable nutrients. They contain everything the human body needs to thrive. He says we need to be eating wholefoods that contain “vitamins, minerals, trace minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids.”

The Knowledge Doc is a proponent of the Keto diet and believes carbohydrates are not as important as essential fats and essential proteins. He says: “We do know the essential things are essential fats, essential proteins, but there’s no essential carbohydrates. We can actually live without carbohydrates.”

However, Dr. Berg believes there are benefits to consuming certain carbohydrates, particularly vegetables which contain vital nutrients. He says: “There are some vital nutrients in vegetables. Vitamin C, Folate, Potassium, Magnesium and Phytonutrients.”

He discusses a type of nutrients called Phytonutrients that aren’t so well known but provide plenty of health benefits. He explains: “Phytonutrients have a lot of additional interesting properties which go beyond just basic nutrients – anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, etcetera.”

Research is starting to show that Phtyonutrients aren’t just found in certain vegetables. Dr. Berg says: “You can find in grass-fed beef a lot of phytonutrients. There’s not a lot of research in this area as far as the different between the two (phytonutrients in veg and in grass-fed beef) but they’re in there. Even in eggs you can get certain phytonutrients which are plant-based compounds – so you don’t always have to get these phytonutrients from plants.”

Can Veganism Work?

Dr. Berg believes veganism can work, but it’s difficult to get all the vital nutrients the body needs through vegan foods. He explains: “If we look at a vegans diet – you can’t really get all of the nutrients without adding or supplementing. Especially B12 and other nutrients that are not as bioavailable. Then we have DHA which is Omega 3. And also the amino acids are different from plant to animal.”

He continues: “You can still do it – being a vegan. I’m not saying that you can’t, but it’s just a little bit more difficult. You have to combine certain things to get the complete amino acid profile.”

Dr. Berg concludes: “The bottom line is there’s just more quality amino acids in animal products than there are plants.”

Dr. Berg’s Approved Food List

Dr. Berg recommends eating the following foods that contain the highest quality nutrients, minerals, vitamins, essential fats, essential proteins, and amino acids to optimize your health: