Bro, Please Don’t Pass the Raw Balls
What influencers like Liver King get wrong about the health benefits of Rocky Mountain Oysters.
What influencers like Liver King get wrong about the health benefits of Rocky Mountain Oysters.
Controversial men’s health influencers have been known to do a lot of crazy things with their bodies. From no-fap and no-nut challenges, to chugging gallons of milk to flex their masculinity, the trends have gotten a little concerning over the past few years.
But as a recent episode of the Daily Beast podcast “Fever Dreams” pointed out, none of these methods are as hairy as eating a bunch of raw testicles.
“This masculinity influencer market, the guru market, had become so saturated that it’s not enough to just say you need to eat steak and own the libs anymore. Now it has to be raw testicles,” co-host Annie Kelly said of men’s budding interest in housing some ball meat.
However, raw meat enthusiasts like Brian Johnson, otherwise known as Liver King, beg to differ, insisting that eating nutrient-rich balls boosts testosterone and sperm production.
The influencer and self-described “CEO of the ancestral lifestyle” will pretty much eat the raw testicles of any animal (or drink their blood), but admits that some taste better than others. Still, he regularly consumes Rocky Mountain Oysters, or bull balls, as Liver King told Barstool Sports.
Robert Kiltz, a medical doctor and Founder and Director of CNY Fertility, agrees, noting on his blog that it’s crucial for the balls to be uncooked because “research shows that unless eaten raw, animal testicles have only trace amounts of testosterone.”
According to Kiltz, there’s reason to believe that eating the organ of an animal comes with a lot of benefits for that same organ. For instance, beef heart is highly concentrated with CoQ10, a coenzyme and antioxidant that has been found to reduce heart disease. To him, the same logic may apply to Rocky Mountain Oysters.
If nothing else, raw bull balls are rich in zinc, selenium, iron, and B vitamins, all of which support healthy testicular function and fertility, Kiltz explained.
At the end of the day, there may be some upside to eating testicles, but until I can disguise the taste with a deep fryer, that’s going to be a no from me, doc.