Charred is incorrect preparation. Food should be prepared in such a way that all parasites and pathogens are killed. In foods where it is possible, some Maillard reaction products are desirable. But you should not ever be burning your food if you can help it.
You could get by with just Pasteurizing all your food (or cooking sous vide), but any meat or fish you will probably want to sear for about 3 minutes per side before eating, because it just tastes better that way. The mutagenic products of the Maillard reaction are far more dangerous to bacteria than to mammals.
Red meat is and has been associated with cancer for decades, they've recently found the causative link and it has nothing to do with the preparation: blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/01/02/red-meat-cancer-immune/#.VYBs8mWCOnM
My original statement was inadvertently strong, they've found a causative link between red meat and cancer.. not necessarily the link that explains 100% of the association or anything of the sort, but a link that's universal across red meat, is dose dependent, and is readily repeatable.
