Is Your Nutrient-Dense Menopause Diet Protecting Muscle, Bone, and Brain Health?

Do you really have a micronutrient-dense diet? Will it sustain your muscle, your bone, and your brain health? Tune in. Welcome back to the Flipping 50 Show. This is Debra Atkinson. I'm your host. And in this episode, we have a returning guest coming back. And although we could, we're not talking only about organ meats, although my guest James Berry has been 20 years in the culinary field, started as a private chef cooking for celebrities. And yes, we're going to drop names right now because it's important, like Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Gerard Butler, Mariska Hargitay— do we have your attention?— Barbra Streisand, and John Cusack. So his business, he's CEO and founder of the organ-based superfood Seasoning Pluck. You've, if you've been around here for a minute, half a minute, you've seen me post about it on Instagram just as I'm cooking dinner because I will sprinkle it on my ground bison. I will sprinkle it over my eggs, put it on my salads. Doesn't matter, but I really love it. And you know, it's like putting any seasoning on, it's gonna add a little bit of flavor. And you're also getting organ meat and the micronutrient density from it without knowing you're getting organ meat. Win-win. So you get the gist of today, but we don't actually go down the rabbit hole of talking exclusively around organ meat. So if I've already turned you off and you're thinking liver, chicken gizzards, or all of those things, come back to us right now because James's kind of his slant is so much more about what, what really is good nourishment. How do you nourish your body with food? And I think it's as simple as it sounds. It's a topic we've all gotten away from. Eating somehow has gotten complicated. It's gotten mechanical, or Maybe math. It's gotten to be math, like, what are we taking away or adding, or how is this multiplying, you know, or subtracting from me? There's just so much that we're ignoring because it's gotten hard. Food isn't actually food anymore. So in this episode with, uh, James Berry, again, I think you're gonna love it. He was on once before. We'll link to that previous show where we actually do talk more about organ meats and the benefits and the value of eating them, which is a little more of the backstory of how Pluck came to be. But today we really talk not just about the nutrient density in foods, but how you can let your body use its own wisdom to tell you what you may need to or need to stop doing. I think you're really gonna like this. I hope you're on a hike or lifting, and if you're on a commute, I hope you're on the way home or somewhere that you love. All right, okay, so cut it out, get serious. Welcome everybody. We'll let you in on the secret as soon as we really know what we're laughing at, but we've had a good time already in the green room. My guest today is coming back. He is a fan favorite, James Berry, the chef to celebrity. I mean, last time you were here, we'll have to link to that. You shared some juicy behind-the-scenes stuff, which is very cool. We all like gossip, so it was our version of People magazine, only better because you were literally there. So many of our audience members who are OGs and know me and follow anywhere on social know that I am pulling out my pluck all the time and sprinkling it on everything. So seasoning my meat to my eggs, to my salads, to my just everything. Zesty garlic, still my favorite. But let's talk a little bit about how that got born in the first place. Why, why did you invent this new seasoning that is not just a taste good, but it's made of organ meats? And, you know, if you've led with that, you know, I think you'd be burying the lead because actually it tastes really good. That's the important piece.

Yeah, a lot of people would be shutting the doors in my face if I led with organ meat. I mean, ultimately, I think that's why I created it. It, it's I, I did not grow up eating organ meats. Uh, I, as an adult, I'm a picky enough eater that I still don't gravitate towards eating organ meats. Even, even when they're put in front of me, I still kind of like cringe. It's just, it's just not something I'm acclimated to.

But where are you that they're put in front of you?

Oh, I've been to some restaurants, you know, where the pâtés are available, or, uh, sometimes you'll go to like a Brazilian restaurant, they'll have like the chicken heart hearts, you know, skewered chicken hearts, and they're, they're really good. So it's not even the taste I'm kind of cringing about, it's, it's more just the familiarity. Like, I'm still not really that familiar with it even though I work with them to this day. And but really, I mean, if, if, if anything, it's a testimony that I get it. Like, I get it that we are squeamish about these things because I am too. I get it that I don't want to take the laborious time to cook some of them, even though some of them are very simple. I still don't want to get to that place that anyone that gets like a CSA or like a meat box or something that gets cuts that they're not familiar with. Anytime you get anything you're not familiar with, there's a moment of like, you know, cringing, like, what am I going to do with this? You know, and then it becomes a little bit more labor intensive because you got to look it up or you got to, you know, you got to cross over the barrier of I don't feel familiar with this, right? And I don't usually want to take the time to figure it out, particularly during the weekday. I just want to get it done and eat because I have very little time as it is. So I, like most people, am looking for something that's going to be delicious, something that's easy, and something that's sourced really well, like really clean, you know. 100% grass-fed, that kind of thing. And so that's what I set out to solve. And I— it's fascinating to me because to this day I'll be at events and people will taste it on popcorn or, or really anything, uh, nuts, whatever I serve it on. They'll taste it and go, this is so delicious. And then they're like— they'll be like, well, what is it? And I'll say, it's organ meats. And they will literally make a face and run away. And they'll look actually angry that I— that they— that I got them to eat it. I'm like, you liked it. Like, what's going on here? Like, I don't know. So I personally have no issue with organ meat. Like, if I'm getting organ meats in the form of a seasoning, I'm overjoyed. Like, I'm like, great. Because here's the thing, and this is ultimately what we really want to delve into, which is we need these nutrients. We need them. Like, we are a society that is nutrient deficient. The amount of health issues that are going on in the world today, a lot of them, many of them, not all of them, but many of them can be solved with these micronutrients.

Yeah, and I really want to tap into that. And I think we're, we're talking to, you know, women who are over 40 who We were raised, many of us, in diet culture. I'm not sure where we've still left that. I think the culture has changed a little bit. Maybe we just spun the dial, but I think we're still in some ways in diet culture. That the first place you go if you want to lose weight or your body is uncontrollably changing, you can't explain it, you've gained weight or belly fat, it's relocating. The first thing we do is think about not micronutrient density. We think about, I'm going to cut back on my calories, I'm going to eat less, I'm going to, I'm going to avoid, cut things out. There must be a magic way to do this. And yet right now I'm also reading more and more science where it's not just protein, and, and we'll have to talk about how that's so promoted right now, but it's also for older adults in order to gain strength and muscle mass they not only have to have the protein, but they have to have the micronutrient density. And that we see that as a limiting factor the older we get. So we're in trouble, like trying to cut out, limit, reduce to just, you know, fewer macronutrients. So if, you know, there are so many people cutting out carbs or going low-fat or both, and then where are we getting our micronutrient density from? It's disappearing.

And let's not forget that as we get older, digestibility and absorption— digestibility of proteins gets more challenging as you get older. So what's amazing is that Orgamates— now, if you're eating Pluck, you're not necessarily doing it for the protein because you're getting microdosing frequently. We're really focusing on the micronutrients with Pluck. Even though you do get some protein in the end, but you're not, you're not gonna do it for the protein, right? But if, let's just say you were eating the organ themselves, you know, and you're using them in the meals, there is a significant amount of protein and it's easier to absorb because the, the, the sheet, the, the base, the texture of what organ meats are. If you've ever seen, if you've ever left a steak or liver on your counter and just let it get room temperature, the steak is still a steak. The liver starts to melt. It literally starts to get so soft that it, it looks like it's melting. And that is exactly what happens inside your body. It, it breaks down easier, so you can actually absorb the nutrients easier than you could in like a steak or like, you know, a normal muscle protein.

Amazing, amazing. Okay, so texture and taste, small hurdles. James Berry, how do we get over that?

Well, I think we first have to look back. Let's think for a second about how we came to be, you know. So our body is Homo sapiens. That's at least what the scientists have been telling us. So, and we know that, that this body that we're in, this human body, was basically created a few hundred thousand years ago. So think about the mechanisms, the biology that's in this body, and at that time what it was created for. And if you think about just our taste buds, our palate, it was created basically— there was two pieces of information that it was was really meant to provide you. Is this food going to nourish me or is it going to kill me? It was truly that simple, but also that complicated 'cause we didn't have, you know, the ingredient labels we have now, right? Where they tell you, hey, this mushroom is edible, this one's poisonous. You know, you didn't have that. But that is ultimately what the biology was created to do. And how was it created to do that? Well, we have these senses, right? So we have our sense of taste, we have touch, We have our eyes, and all of our senses are used to communicate, is this food going to kill me or nourish me? And it all starts, like, if you think about it on a certain level, it starts when you first, if we were walking through a forest, we saw something in the distance. What is that? You know, so it stirs a curiosity. As we get closer, we might smell something in the air. Hmm. And that smell is now initiating a hunger response, potentially. Then as we get closer, we now can see it's something plump. We go to touch it. Oh no, it is definitely plump because now we can feel it. Once again, it's communicating, oh, this is something I think we're going to eat. As we get closer, now the smells are really strong. We bite into the juices, go down our mouth. We start to get a taste and flavor typically equaled nutrition. Doesn't nowadays because you can have something that has the flavor of strawberries but has no nutrition of— it has no strawberries at all in it, right? So back in the day though, flavor equaled nutrition. Nutrition. So as we are— as our mouth got the flavor, our brains in our, in our system communicated, oh, this is going to be something that nourishes you versus kills you. And now, you know, your, your body starts to initiate the biology of, and of the processes of like, okay, let's, let's eat this, let's digest it, let's tell, tell the brain when to stop. You know what I mean? So there's this whole process that happens, and the only way to access this biological process that was created with this body we're in is to eat the food. You cannot get this communication by just swallowing capsules or pills. You get a delayed response when you do that. So what happens is, is when we eat our food, and then we, and then we can get to, well, what food do we eat, right? But when we eat our food We are establishing a couple of things. We're establishing, is, is, is what I'm putting in my body make my body feel safe, or does it put it on alert? But we're also establishing, what does my body tell me it needs and how much of it it wants? When we swallow things and when we bypass this communication pathway, it's called the neurolingual response. That's what that process is called. But when we bypass it, we're basically outsourcing what we should be eating. And we're basically, you know, doing what Dr. Bill Schindler, who's a food archaeologist, would say is like, we are the only species in the world that looks to someone else to tell us what to eat. So that's basically what we're doing is we're off-putting like, hey, I don't know what to eat, so can you tell me what to eat? Because I don't know. And that's what we're doing. We're looking at bottles and we're saying, oh, it tells me it takes 6 to 8 capsules or whatever it is, right? And then you, you swallow them and you feel nauseous. Why do I feel nauseous? What's going on? Or if you take a salt tablet, why do I feel bloated? You know, so we're having these reactions, but then we're going like, I don't understand, the bottle told me to do this. And we're outsourcing our innate knowledge of what our body needs. And I'll, and I'll end this little piece with just saying, like, my wife doesn't use Pluck right now. She doesn't have the flavor for it. Guess why? Well, when she eats it, she's like, ah, there's just something in my body that tells me no. So she's not using Pluck right now. Well, then when we got her tested, her numbers are, are like high, like for her iron and all these micronutrients that you're going to really be getting from Orgameats, they're high. So how she interprets That is what I usually— how I talk about it, which is her body is communicating through taste. I don't need what you're putting in my mouth right now. So it's communicating to her like, ah, because she has had the taste for it previously, but she just doesn't right now. And our testing is showing like she doesn't need it.

Amazing. That is fantastic. And you're absolutely right, 100%. I mean, we've We've lost our own intuition. And, you know, I mean, in regard to so many things, but, you know, when I've started to work with women, often they no longer can tell really when they're hungry, they can't tell when they're full, and they can't distinguish between I'm thirsty and I'm tired. And wow, that we can get this sensitive and drilled down when we are tuned in. And of course, I know Margaret, she's tuned in, so you can just tell her I said so.

It really is amazing that when you start to just eat real food— so that's now we're going into like, okay, well, what should we focus on? And, and what I believe— I like to try to simplify it. I mean, I'm a really big believer in not putting pressure on ourselves, you know, meeting ourselves where we are and just doing the best we can. But we're, you know, we're all of a certain age, and the best that we can is a lot better than what we did when we were in our 20s, right? And we have to take ownership of that. Like, I know that eating a pint of ice cream doesn't make me feel good, right? Like, and I have to take ownership of that. It's like, you know what I mean?

What's the time span? 30 seconds, right?

But like, I know, so I know that If I have it in my house, I will find a reason to eat it. I don't have an off switch with junk food. I know this. I'm in my 50s. I've learned. I've had the experience of feeling bloated and like, and just disgusting after binging on something. I know this. And I think, I think it really helped— what I'm about to say, I think will really help other people if they're not feeling really in tuned with their their own body that this will help. And the way I look at it is like a food pyramid. So like the top of the pyramid, I'm looking for foods that have flavors that are found in nature. So not natural flavors like what we see on the back of the packaging or artificial. So I don't want any flavor added to the product, none. But I want food that has flavors found in nature. So that means, you know, foods just that are ingredients versus that have ingredients. Right, they're just simple foods.

Yeah, right. I just wanted to let that sink in a minute. That was rich. Yeah, right.

Yeah, keep it simple. And then in the middle of that paragraph, in that pyramid, I want foods that are nutrient dense. I want foods that are whole, that are not, not broken apart and destroyed in some way or fortified in some way. I want them as nature intended. Right? And so then this is the big one. It's on the bottom of that pyramid, the, the footing, the grounding of that pyramid, is we then have to mindfully make these choices. We have to mindfully eat. We can't just be like rushing around and surrendering, you know, and just going like, oh, go, go, you know, just I'm gonna eat and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna feel or think about how it's actually affecting my body. I recognize that the person I'm sitting across from when I'm eating this food stresses me out. Like, I'm going to be mindful about the environment, the food, the feelings that I, that I have when I'm eating these foods. Because we have to start thinking like that. Because if you're not thinking about these very basic things, then you don't actually know if you're absorbing and digesting this food well. Because there's a— I guarantee it, if you're eating and stress, in any stress, whether it's your dining table stress, which we all know from like holidays, but some people live that every day, right? Or it's stress because you're, you're eating on the go, or because you're just rushing and you're, you're, you're never actually taking a breath before you eat and just like being present to, I'm sitting in this chair, oh, the smell of this food, I'm grateful for where it's come from, I'm, you know, like just being that gratitude and presence, it actually helps you absorb the food. And, and then you also start to feel, how does this food affect my body? And now that's mindful eating. And then we can jump to— we start being more, you know, intelligent with ourselves about, you know what, I ate that and I really feel bloated, or whatever it is, you know. Then we start. But you gotta first eat. You gotta first eat and then later you'll start to get, you know, more in tune with how does your body feel after you've eaten it.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there's one thing that you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself to not only get the protein but the fiber, fruits and veggies that I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day. Over 30 years ago when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want hiding in most protein powders or pre-made shakes. I finally caved in after years of saying I'd never ever ever sell supplements. Look, stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning and after workouts by always being prepared Protein plus fiber kill cravings and boost satiety and build muscles and a strong future. Use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at Flipping50.com today. This is an interesting thing to ask you to speculate which I think I'm doing, but I truly am interested in your opinion, even if it is that. And maybe there's some science behind this, but there are so many issues with bloating. I mean, that is probably, you know, I've said these words, you know, in a string together. I feel like I never take breaths, like bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea. I mean, it's one, which would you check those boxes? Would you check them all? You know, but I'm asking women that constantly, and they don't volunteer it, by the way. They just tolerate it. It's their norm. But I'm also thinking about what you said, you know, and taking time to actually eat and be there mindfully, you know, that's not happening. I think the most of the time— and I'm guilty of it, I live alone. So, you know, is there a computer screen open or am I thinking while I'm chewing, I can scroll and just check on this? Check on that, you know, on some account. But there's a lot of that happening in women at work, eating at their desks, you know, or eating standing up. It's, I'm just going to take a minute, get this over with. And how much do you think of bloating, you know, or with digestive issues, is not actually the food and the digestion? It's, it's how we're eating.

Oh yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, I usually do think it is the food, but I think it's both. I mean, I really do.

I do—

the first place I go is the food, but I would absolutely then also think about, well, how was I eating? Was I eating really fast? Was I kind of like drinking tons of water or mixing foods in certain ways that they normally wouldn't be mixed? You know, I don't know the science behind this, what I'm about to share, but there are many, um, health practices that believe, for example, that you should never combine fruit with protein.

Yeah.

And that's how I was taught when I was in culinary school. I think Ayurvedic philosophies fit that as well, but that I was told, like, you eat fruit in the morning all the way up to, like, the latest I think was 2 PM. And then you don't eat fruit beyond there. And what's fascinating is if anyone actually starts practicing this where they eat fruit alone without anything else, um, if they eat fruit without anything else, they will notice they don't get bloated as much.

Interesting.

Because the reasoning behind it is that they digest differently. Protein takes longer— protein and vegetables take longer to digest, and fruit digests within like 30 minutes. So when you have something that digests so quickly mixed with something that doesn't, it does it. And then of course also fruit can ferment the food, uh, which is going to help create gas. Uh, so there's lots of things like that to think about, but ultimately I almost don't think it matters which one you focus on. I think when you're being mindful and you're sitting and breathing and you're taking one bite at a time and putting your fork down in between, that you will you'll, you'll get a lot of information. You'll get a lot of information around just, am I full? Um, you'll get a lot of information around, did those two foods I mixed together, did that feel good? Is the food I'm— and, and ultimately, where I believe it, it— and this is going to be hard for some people— when we start being mindful about what we're putting in our body and how our body's responding to it, what happens is that you start to see that maybe the thoughts, the, the ideas you have around what the right diet is, may not be the right diet for you. Because your body does not lie. It's not going to lie to you. It's the only person in your life that's not going to lie to you. If you eat something your body doesn't agree with, it responds. It responds with gas, bloating, uh, Skin issues, hair falling out, dark circles under your eyes, gaining weight, you know, whatever it is, it will respond. And I, and I'll just use this as an example, and I don't mean it to sound judgy, but like back in the day when I used to cook, I had a meal delivery service in LA, and we did offer some vegetarian versions. We had like Sugar Control Detox, which was low carb. We had regular, which was just gluten-free. And then we also, we would provide different proteins. So some people were vegan, some people were anything. And then there were some people, like, there's one that I, I created a name for because there's not a name that exists. I called it poyotarian because they were people that would only eat chicken but not beef or fish or anything like that. So I called it a poyotarian. Um, but anyway, like, what was fascinating is these people would come and they would be like new to the vegan diet, or maybe they had been doing it for a year, but it was still somewhat newer. It wasn't something that they had grown up— they, they were adopting it because they had heard it was healthier, and they had been doing it for a while and they had been gaining weight. And then they came to us like, can you help me lose weight? I'm like, well, not if you're going to keep eating like that, because your body is telling you that this isn't working. Like, you know what I mean? I don't know, what am I going to do differently? Like, yeah, sure, maybe I can help you not eat so many processed vegan foods, that will definitely help to lower the weight. But you ultimately, you're eating more carbs and more of these things because you are starving for that protein or what, you know, whatever it might be.

Yeah.

And so it's like they— but they didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to hear that they're— that maybe that perspective that their brain was telling them they should have, that their body wasn't in congruence with it. But I believe it's the body that knows over the brain. The brain is is our worst enemy sometimes, right?

Just because you believe it doesn't mean it's true.

Exactly.

Yeah. And, you know, I want to let that sit for everybody. And this might be if you're, if you're trying really desperately to follow plant-based because you've heard so often and you're really going all the way in. I think women in midlife, sometimes even though it worked for them earlier or prior. Sometimes things change and it just becomes an issue when insulin resistance changes. And, you know, it's not, it's not me or James or anybody else telling you, it's, it's you telling you.

And that's a beautiful point too, is that the thing that, like, it's gonna keep changing. Like, the body is informing us. It's, it's not static. You know, it's, it's constantly changing. Like, that's what I find so funny and fascinating about, for example, food. Like, we're always trying to say, like, even with organ meats, people always like, but what's the nutrition? How much, how much protein am I getting from that steak? Well, if you think about it, we're always getting averages, but no one treats it like it's an average. Because when it's a wild product, that means the nutrition is wild too. That means that if it's, it's dictated off of where is it grown, what's the season of when it's grown, what kind of seed was it, how often was it watered, you know, what was it fertilized with, you know, like there's all these different factors. It's like Jurassic Park. You don't know what you're gonna get, right? But, but, but we're always, as you know, we're, we're being taught to think like, oh, I gotta know, I gotta control, and I've gotta like have everything like my, the minutia of everything figured out. And what I would like to advise is that that granular thinking is what's stressing us out and keeping us from just listening to our own body. I really— there's a fast— I haven't talked about this much, but this kind of fits into this conversation a little bit. There's this fascinating book about the ayahuasca plant, and I'm forgetting the name. It's called something like Serpent and The Serpent in the DNA, something like that, if someone wants to search it. But basically what it's about to me is fascinating. I think that what it's about extends to what we're talking about. So this scientist went into the rainforest, he was going to study one thing, I don't even remember what he was going to study, but when he got there, the way that these shamans were talking about this plant and they were sharing the information that they had that the plant had told them. They had understandings of DNA helix, like they had understandings of things that we were only just starting to have words for, but they understood it. They just had different names. And they said that the plant gave it to them. And I think that— so that's plant medicine talk, right? But what, what makes us think that that's not happening with everything? Everything's made of water, so that means that everything— that energy can flow through everything. And, and there are cells, and that there is history kept in cells, just like we have, you know, we, we can have generational trauma, right? So not— it's not your trauma, it's trauma that's from past generations, but it's going to be in you cellularly, right? So why can't that be true with food? Like, why is it possible— like, I think it's possible that our bodies know more, and then the food we're eating can tell us more than we're giving it credit for. I don't talk about it much because it's, it's, it's a, it's just a, it's a newer thought. But it's like, in my judgment, there's no reason why we couldn't be the power and the source for our own knowledge if we just tuned into it.

Yeah, I think that's so rich. And I think, again, it's— I think our biggest challenge right now, and, and I say this collectively, maybe as whole population, but also just looking at women and our listeners, it's getting quiet enough to listen. It's getting still enough.

So hard. Yeah, it is so hard because it's scary, right? Particularly like, I mean, I would love to hear your perspective because you shared that you live alone, right?

Right.

When you don't have any stimulus, when you're not at a screen and you're just sitting in silence, What are the feelings that come up?

You know, a lot of gratitude, really. And the sad thing is, unless you take the time to get still like that, you miss that.

Yeah. And I would, I would suggest too that if you're let's just say in your circumstance, if you are eating in your own room, your own place, like I would eat out as outside as much as possible. Not out. I'm not suggesting you eat at restaurants. I'm saying cook your own meals, but just eat outdoors because that stimulus will be enough. Just hearing the sounds around you, feeling the wind on your face, seeing the trees sway, maybe see a butterfly or a bird fly by. Like that is its own screen. But one that our body is in tune with and our body recognizes. And here's what I said this a little earlier, but I wanna go into it a little bit deeper, which is we really wanna think about what do— what is the outcome of the food you're about to eat? When we choose foods that our body knows, and I call these ancestral foods, and those are like, you know, very basic foods like animal-based foods or organ meats or bone broths, even Uh, even plants that, you know, are normally found in nature, or as close, you know, as heritage plants, you know, ones that haven't been hybridized too much, anything that's kind of like as close to nature as possible, usually that's going to make your body feel safe. And it's going to like, I don't know about you, like when I've eaten or when I have like, uh, bone broth, I can feel like this beautiful, heavy, warm blanket is around my shoulders and I just curve inward and I feel so taken, nurtured. And taken care of. And yet then let— then imagine you're eating a box of Oreos or bag Oreos or Doritos or even Coke. It's like, what is your body feeling after you do these things? And a lot of times it's on alert and it feels like, right, overstimulated, or it feels like it's inflamed because that, that food is causing inflammation, whatever it is. And you're basically then putting your body in high alert. And so it's very challenging to even feel relaxed when your body's always on high alert due to the food you're eating. So even just making different food choices will help you be more still.

And I think so important when we're talking about this, you know, collection of listeners we have here, who many are dealing with some level of fatigue. Some admit it, some don't, you know, but there's a level of brain fog. And, and then there is the— I think what I call mechanical stress of— we're all being told right now, and whether it's true, and we're all feeling it as well, but we have to hold on to our muscle, we have to hold on to our bone. There's almost an urgency to this right now in social media for midlife women. As if, you know, you know, what are you doing? It's almost like everybody's got to— everybody's watching you. What are you doing for your bone? What are you doing for your muscle? And, and I think that has— we've maybe lost a little bit of how do we just take care of ourselves? How do we nurture, take care of ourselves, as opposed to it becoming so mechanical and counting macros and, you know, counting, counting, counting? Everything. We're just— we're monitoring and tracking all the time, but giving up our power from how we feel to what does this tell me? Um, it has my heart rate variability, you know what I mean? It's like, how did I sleep? Instead of like, how did I sleep? How do I feel?

You know, it's fascinating. So I, I started a podcast myself last year. It's called Everyday Ancestral, and I have interviewed people of all backgrounds. I mean, I interviewed a professional poker player, I've interviewed health people, fitness people, I've interviewed authors of books around psychology, or I've interviewed farmers. I've just all over the place. And you know what most— the majority of the conversations always come back to 4 things: sleep, nutrition, movement, and stress. Hmm. Doesn't matter what background they have, what their focus is, but when we talk about what are the movers, what are the things that support people in grounding and and finding the, the biggest movers around their health, it always comes back to the basics. And what's fascinating is you don't need to jump to biohacking those basics. You really can start it simple. So if we're talking sleep, okay, the simplest thing you can do is just get up at the same time every day and go to bed at the same time every night. That's it. Then if once you've done that, then make sure your room is as dark as possible, you know, make sure there's no light coming in. Do those things and your, your sleep will improve, I promise you. Then, then for movement, simply just go for a walk after you eat a meal. That's it. Try to walk more. Don't worry about going to the gym, working out. Just if you're starting from zero, just start walking. Because ancestrally, we had so many more steps in our lives than we do. The average American has something like 4,000 steps. Ancestrally, we had something like 17,000.

Wow.

It's a big difference.

Yeah.

So moving after you eat is gonna change— be life-changing. And it's also going to help with digestibility. It's going to also help with stress. And then for nutrition, I kind of already said it: choose things that are ingredients versus have ingredients. Look for real food. And just really, that's it. Like, just focus on that real food. Even if it's bread, make sure it's real bread. Like, try to make it from scratch with the 4 ingredients versus the 20 that the, you know, the, the market sells, you know. Or look for, look for things that are as simply made as possible if there are ingredients. And then And then for stress, I mean, I would personally think about the company you hold. So make sure that the people you're surrounding yourself with are people that you feel joy around and that are reflecting you back, your best self back to you. And then I would also do things like taking a breath before you eat, just taking a breath or saying a prayer or being like looking for gratitude any moment you can. But to do that, you got to take a breath. And those are the simplest things you could do just to get back to that basic kind of grounding of what it is to be a human.

Such a rich conversation. Such great advice. I really, you know, in coming back to just getting back to the basics. I think letting go of some extras and maybe rules and boundaries that we have put up, fences and things that are in the way. In terms of, you know, cutting through the noise, where do you think that we're potentially making mistakes with, you know, eating for bone, for muscle, for brain health during and after, long after menopause? Because we hope we'll be here long after.

Yeah.

Where are the biggest mistakes?

I think that we're still— I think there's a few things. I think we're still, um, being too granular about things. Like, we're over-worrying about things. So just to give an example, like, the amount of people I know who, when they're eating or planning a meal out, is it serving, you know, uh seed oils? Is it this? Is it that? And they're just— they're going through everything. And what I find— and then they're like, oh, is it all organic? Right? Personally, I think it gets to a point where it's causing more stress than it needs to, because here's the reality: we think we have control over these food systems. Very far from it. I mean, I even last 2 summers ago, I was traveling across the country, and I was in Ohio, and I was talking to some farmers and someone who actually helped to create— who used to work for not Monsanto, but, but basically helped to create, um, uh, the, uh, what's the main ingredient? Um, glyphosate. He helped to create glyphosate. And what's so fascinating is I learned that even if it's an organic crop, they can pull it out, put it aside, and then sometimes they will spray it with glyphosate to dry it out. And they can still claim it's organic because it wasn't grown with glyphosate. So here are all these people freaking out about glyphosate and worried about is it organic or is it not, and yet the system still failed us. And we still don't fully know what we're eating. And it, to me, I'm not trying to raise the alarms and say like, oh, panic more. What I'm saying is like, at one point, at one point, we just have to let go. And what the— and then create our own kind of rules. And so my rule is I only eat out once a week, if that, at a minimum. I try to make everything I can from scratch because at least then I can control those ingredients., right? I can't necessarily control how it was grown. I could try, but even then we still don't know. But I can control the ingredients that I choose to put on that plate. And I'll— even a simple example is when you go to a, a restaurant, they've either— there's two things, there's two realities. One is they either bought the product pre-made at a restaurant depot, and it's probably like a Kraft dressing or something like that for that salad dressing, okay? So that you, you ordered the salad and what they did is it's literally just a bottled dressing that has all the horrible ingredients in it, and you're— they're just— you don't see the bottle, so you don't realize that it's pre— you know, it's a pre-made thing. So that's one reality, and that's a very common reality. The other one is that they're making it themselves, but they're making it cheaply because they have, you know, they want to make a profit. So they're not going to use, you know, extra virgin olive oil. They're going to use a canola oil, soy oil blend and then what happens in a restaurant, the hierarchy of a restaurant, is you have your head chef. Well, most restaurants don't even necessarily have a head chef. They just have someone managing the restaurant. And then what you have is like a lot of people who are just chefs or cooks. You'll call them cooks, not even chefs. And a lot of them don't know how to really work with a recipe. So what they're doing is they're just following formulas like add this much, do that, do this. Well, inevitably what happens is if The way that they get out of that recipe to make sure that it's not too bitter or too sour is they just add sugar to it. So you're either in one— you're, you know, one scenario you're damned, or in the other you're damned. So the only way to get out of that situation is to control the environment and make your own food, make your dressings. Like, I can't remember if I said this last time on the show, so I'll— if did. I'll just repeat it because it's that powerful. Here's a simple recipe that anyone can follow to make their own salad dressing, and then you can do it in 60 seconds or less. You take a tablespoon and then you pour 3 parts olive oil into that tablespoon. So 3 tablespoons, put it into a mason jar, and then you do 1 tablespoon of of vinegar. So you choose what vinegar. Let's just say it's all balsamic vinegar. So 3 to 1 is the ratio— 3, 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar or acid. Pour that into the, the mason jar, seal it, shake it. You now have a dressing that is delicious. Now you can certainly add to that dressing. You could add some Dijon mustard, you could add some salt, you could add some pepper, you could add things But you don't have to if you're not feeling inclined to. That is the simplest dressing you could do, and you just follow that formula 3:1, and you use the same vessel. You know, if it's a tablespoon, a tablespoon, if it's a cap, a cap, but the ratio has to be in the same vessel.

Amazing. Yeah, I love it. Simple, simple, which is what we all need. Okay, so I have a couple rapid-fire questions for you. Okay, all right, so you're a chef, you've cooked for some pretty impressive names, uh, your favorite meal on your birthday?

Oh, it used to be, um, barbecue ribs. I love barbecue anything, um, and I would say it's brisket. It's barbecue brisket now.

Okay, so your favorite flavor of Pluck?

It changes all the time. Um, but I gotta say it's the spicy mild, which we are changing the name, not the formula, just the name to Southwest because people get freaked out about the spicy and I'm just like, it's not that spicy. It's pretty mild. So that's why we're going to change it to Southwest and hope that, that people don't get so scared about it.

Okay. And your, your favorite way to use it?

Uh, I put it on everything, but I would say eggs is my favorite. And then I'm not eating popcorn as much just because I— Deb, like, no matter what test I've done, pop— like, corn always comes up. Every year I've done a test. Yeah, it always comes up. So I've just had to— going back to that emotional intelligence, like, I, I'm now fit, you know, I'm in my 50s. I gotta just take ownership of, like, corn doesn't work for me. When am I gonna get it? It just doesn't. So But popcorn used to be one of my favorite ways to get pluck, but yeah, now it's like I just— I don't do the popcorn. But I'll put it on like toast, I'll put it on salads, um, I'll put it on steaks, chicken, any proteins. Yeah, yeah, potatoes. It's so good on potatoes.

Yeah, it's, it's amazing. I love it. All right, tell everybody where they can find you, follow you, and say more about the podcast so they can tune Oh yeah, you can find us on socials at Eat Pluck.

Our website is eatpluck.com. We're sold on Amazon as well, if that, that's more your jam. And then you can also find me on socials at Chef James Berry. And, uh, what was the last— oh, the website, the podcast. The podcast is Everyday Ancestral. It's on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. And, uh, we're having a lot of fun, and I'm I'm— we will have you on there too. So I don't know when that's happening, but I'm pretty sure someone is or has or will be reaching out. I don't know, but I know your name's on it. Okay.

All right. Thank you so much. This is a great conversation. Always good to see you.

Yeah, thank you.