#81 - Chef James Barry of Pluck Seasoning

Peterson's faithful, I call them pnfers. They're in for a treat. Here we got Mr. Barry, Chef Barry with pluck. And we're going to talk about organ meat seasoning derived from organ meat. Some thing like just the idea of where food comes from, why that's important, why you might care, why you maybe, if you're listening or watching, should care so quickly. I like to ask, you know, who. Who are you? Where are you from? Why do you do what you do?

Yeah. Well, I grew up in Northern California. I grew up in a household where we knew dinner was ready because the smoke detector went off. No joke.

Come on. Does that mean they were burning dinner?

Oh, yeah. Hamburgers are called hockey pucks. But. But I eventually, I always loved cooking and went to culinary school. Always kind of had this notion of, like, you know, I don't want to just be a chef. I'm more interested in how can I help people. And it was really about identifying how do people eat. And I. And I really, for my money, I think people gravitate towards comfort foods.

Yeah.

And we saw that in the pandemic. Right. All our addictive kind of comfort foods just shot up. And so I'm really about, as a chef, how can I take the things we as humans gravitate towards but make them actually healthy for you? And that's always been my interest. And then it led me to where I am now, which is. Okay. Identifying what are the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. And in between there. I always like to say this because people love hearing name drops. I was a private chef and I cooked for Tom Cruise, and I took cook for George Clooney and Gerard Butler and hey, there you go. I got to, you know, I had.

Which one of those was the most fun?

Honestly, they were all great. You know what, this is funny. Everyone always asks, how do they treat you? I'm like, no one. Like, everyone treats the chef well. You don't mess with your chef.

That's right.

Nobody. But if it's your trainer. Yeah, there's probably trainers out there that would have stories, but I. I only have good stories.

Well, and, you know, you hear these horror stories of celebrities, you know, just being a holes and that kind of thing. Well, everybody's that way. Certain bad days come. Generally, they're just humans.

Yeah.

Trying to do the best they can do. They've had success. They've got money. But that doesn't. They're still just like you and me. They have the same basic needs of acceptance. Love, all these Things.

So that's one reason why I think even as a chef for celebrities, I was. I was very. I had really good word of mouth because I didn't treat them any different than anyone. Yeah. I talked to them like real people. They were real people. To me, I think the money just afforded them more options than maybe some other people. That's really it. But. But so I did that. I started a meal delivery service, kind of did that. But my pursuit has always been how can I identify the most nutrient dense foods, and how can I truly make that accessible for people? And for my money, it's organ meats.

Yeah.

Organ meats are, hands down, the most nutrient dense food on the planet. But we're not eating it.

Yeah. Why is that? Why don't people eat organ meats? Is it because it's culturally unaccepted? I can't even speak right now. It's culturally unacceptable. Or it doesn't taste good. Like, what's your estimation?

It's all the above. So historically, you can identify that organ meats lost favor as people started making more money. It was a status symbol. Like, you know, hey, honey, we're making. I'm just throwing this out. Let's. We're making $100 a month now versus $40. Hey, let's buy the better cuts of meat because we deserve that. Right. Deserve comes out a lot when. When it comes around finances. Right. So you have people wanting to. Well, also, organ meat started to be looked at as poor people's food.

Yeah.

So if you have money, you don't want to be. You don't want to be associated with poor people. Right.

So.

So there was a socioeconomic stigmas. There was basically the change in buyer habits. So you had people that now were not buying organ meats in the grocery stores, so why would they stock it? It's just gonna go bad. And then the more it's not stocked now, you have people less and less buying it. Now we forget how to cook it. Sure. We're not now thinking it's not in our mind's eye. So now you. We're where. Where we. Where we are. Where we are. Which is now we're just unfamiliar with it.

Yeah. Right.

Complete unfamiliarity.

But it's crazy to me because I think humans evolved going for the organ meats first. Oh, you know, that's. That was the. That was like, you'll. I read this book or listened to it over the summer or. I don't know why I said summer. The name of the book is Empire of the Summer Moon. It talks about the Indians, Comanche Indians specifically. And when they rained the prairies, I mean, they killed a bison, they ate the heart, and they would take bile and put it on there. That was like the delicacy. That was the first thing they wanted. So it's crazy that we're. Now. We don't even eat it.

So Dr. Bill Shinley's in archaeology, right? So I love how he puts it. So he. He and I. I hope I don't murder it. So Bill, if you're listening.

Yeah, sure. He might be listening, is. I really appreciate it. Eat like a human, baby.

Yeah, eat like a human. So he Sundays. So about 3 million years ago, we were scavengers. We did get meat then, but we were getting the meat after the predators ate the blood, the fat, and the organs. And so we were just like the buzzards getting the meat and anything else. But 2.5 million years ago, we became hunters, and that what changed is now we got the organs, the fat, and the blood. And he points out that those three things completely changed us to be who we are now. So our brains, we had fire, we had language, we had more tools. And so people forget when they're out there thinking, well, I just need to eat muscle meat. It's like, no, no, no. We were scavengers eating muscle meat. Not much changed. It changed when we got the blood, the fat, and the organs. So that tells me we need that nutrition. So when we're not eating a whole animal, we're missing out something. And here's another fact, another kind of stat that I throw out there. And this is. This is alarming to me. 93% of Americans are nutrient deficient, but we're not calorie deficient.

Right.

We're an obese nation. So what does that tell you? Tells you it's we're not eating the right foods. And. Or the foods we're eating are just not nutrient rich. I've had.

Well, we're at Ketocon, Austin, Texas, 2023. You've got a booth. I've got a booth. There's a ton of people coming by, interested. They want to know. I've had conversations on the podcast with lots of people here, and it keeps coming back to, we're eating the wrong stuff. Like, what is food like? How would you define it? Well, it needs to be a certain amount of things. I mean, it's not just something you put in your mouth and a calorie. It needs to be thought of a little differently.

Yeah, we're the only species that needs to ask someone else what to eat. Yeah. That's how out of touch we are with our instinctive feeding habits.

Yeah.

We are the only species.

That's so. That's really poignant what you're saying.

You know what I mean? So, so for my money, and I, and I don't get too in the weeds with it. I mean, some people are like, oh, you know, they look, I fully admit, 100% grass fed. Yes. Pasture raised. That's great. Yes, absolutely. If you can afford it. But don't, don't let that limit you. Yeah, Like, I'm a big fan of like, like, look, if you can't afford that, if you can't find that in your stores, then go to those, those ethnic markets, like the Mexican markets, the Asian markets that are selling it. Yes, it's conventional meat, but to get the organs is better than to not get them.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the reality. And we're focusing on one part of the animal. And even some people that start to eat the organs, they're like, oh, but I eat liver. I'm like, yeah, but when, when back in the day, if we were a tribe of, let's just say, 40 people and we killed one animal, how many livers were in that animal?

Not many.

It wasn't enough for everyone to eat it every day.

Right.

There was one. And it probably went to the pregnant women, it probably went to the sick, probably went to the kids. You know what I mean? Like, you probably didn't get any or a little bit. So you were eating other parts of the animal. You might have gotten the spleen, you might have gotten the heart. And the spleen has five times more heme iron than the liver. But all we do is focus on one organ. It's like, man, we're always looking for that secret, you know, magic pill. It's like there is just, here's, here's the magic pill, the whole animal.

Right. You know, totally, 100%. Me and my daughter, we shot a deer and we're field dressing it and we're saving the kidneys, we're saving the liver, we're saving the heart. It was so fun. Now she's 13. She really should have, she really should have learned this earlier in life, but whatever, we're getting to it when we can. And we take all those meats. Now we've only had liver because I'm a liver and onion guy. Like, I love that. I don't even know if that's the best Way to do it. But I grew up eating that, so. And you can get it in restaurants in my little town. But. So that's what we cooked. I've ate like chicken gizzards and chicken livers and these kind of things. I think living in the country, probably with grandparents that grew up in the depression, those kind of things, they had ways they, they valued those meats. They had a taste for them. Like, I love liver. I really think I like it, I like eating it. It tastes good to me. What do you think the trick is to helping others find that appreciation?

You just actually mentioned one of them, which is people forget our palates are the way to our adventure eating, our adventurous eating. So picky eating is a limited palate. And really it's sometimes that simple. It's like your palate might be, you know, if you're eating standard American diet, it's skewed towards sweet and salty, but we also have bitter, sour, and a fifth one called umami. And organ meats have umami. I mean, so does meat. But organ meats have even more umami. And one of the ways to kind of help people get out of that picky eating and eat more adventurously is to incorporate those foods that tap those other tastes. And you don't have to go all in. Like you could treat it like you're changing the food of an animal, like a dog. Whenever you do that, you give the old food 90% new food 10%, then later 80, 20, 70, 30, and eventually the new food is the most dominant and the old food is least dominant or the least amount. And you can do that with someone's palate and you can completely shift it. I see people, I've been meeting practitioners who use my seasoning, which is an organ based seasoning. So basically something I was trying to solve is basically making it so that we, we, there's no more hurdles. So the hurdles being you've mentioned I'm like ori meats being icky, knowing how to cook them and then how to source them. So I removed all those hurdles and I basically took the freeze dried powdered organ meats that we find in capsules. It's raw organs that are then freeze dried powdered, five of them, liver, heart, kidney, spleen and pancreas. And I combined them with spices and herbs. So now it says swallowing our nutrition, we're eating it. And when we eat our nutrition, not only do I make it taste delicious, but when we eat it, we get an immediate communication between what does my body need and want and I'll use the example of salt. So when you need salt, now if I put salt in your tongue, your body immediately says, ooh, it's just craveable, give me more. But when it's, you don't need it, it doesn't taste right.

Right.

Yet if I gave you a salt tablet, you would swallow that and maybe 20, 30 minutes later you might feel bloated and you're like, wait, why do I feel this way? Oh, I got too much salt. So we're bite. When you swallow your nutrition, you're completely bypassing our God given, like natural digestive process. So for my money, it's important to eat the nutrition, but we're not eating the organ meats as we've already identified. So I'm making it as easy as possible because when it's easy and delicious, you do it.

Yeah. Are we missing anything by using a freeze dried version?

Well, look, like you said, when you're hunting, like raw is kind of to be the most nutritious, but honestly, yes, it's a modern, it's a modern preservation technique, but it's a good one because the nutrition and it is just slightly below raw and then slightly below that is dehydrated and other heating methods and then below that is cooked. You know what I mean? So it is pretty close to raw nutrition.

Good. Well, I mean, it just comes to my mind and I also want to identify we're not after perfection. I mean really, I guess we could be after perfection. I'm not personally, I'm after health, living a good life, you know, enjoying it. But I don't want to have our listeners not do it because it's not perfect. Nutrient. Look, it's better, it's an improvement, it's a step in the right direction.

Totally. And, and I would say, hey, similar to the stat I gave earlier, you're already not doing it. How's that going for you? You know what I mean? Like we have chronic disease in America, in the world, really. And I would even offer that people don't even realize, most people don't even realize how good they could feel. They're in chronic disease so often that they think that's the norm. They think it's normal to have bad skin. They think it's normal to not have a good memory. They, they think it's normal to not be able to sleep well. Yeah, you know, I mean, they think it's normal to have, I don't know what other chronic things like maybe rashes all over the body, whatever it is And I'm here to say that it is. Our human body is beautiful. It's amazing, it's stupendous, and it will do what it needs to do to survive, even in the worst circumstances. But let's not keep it in the worst circumstances. Let's help it. Yeah, let's help our body thrive. And once you learn that you can thrive, you will never want to go back. And here's one last thing I would offer too is I truly believe, and this is how much I believe in whole animal health and whole animal eating, is that I believe we can save the world by eating nose to tail. And here's why we treat how we feel in our own body, is how we treat people. So if I can get you to feel better in your body, then you're going to treat other people better. And once we're treating other people better, we have a better world. Yeah, we got to get you feeling better before we can really make any change.

Almost every scenario that you come across where somebody treats you like bad. They're feeling bad.

Exactly.

They're either unhappy.

We're very egotistical. Yeah.

Everybody is most interested in their own relationship. Reality.

Yeah. You know, we're stuck in our own feelings.

That's right. So I try pretty hard to get out of mine, but I'm still have the problem, you know, especially with my family. They're the ones that get it the worst. Because you're the most.

The ones you love, though. Yeah, totally. Because, you know, you trust at least that you can treat them how you're feeling and that they're not going to abandon you. You hope so, but that's not always a guarantee. Of course.

That's right. Where do you come across this knowledge? You also kind of strike me as a guy that's, you know, you value your health and that kind of thing. So. So outside of the hockey pucks, where you were looking for something more than the hockey puck, like, what gives you this passion for improving the world ultimately?

Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a deep question. I mean, I, you know, it's hard, it's always hard to, to kind of identify. Look at yourself with the microscope and identify, you know, your own journey because you're in it. But, you know, I just, I've always been. I've always been interested in health and I think I recognize at a very young age that of how amazing our bodies and the world is and can be. And so that potential has always been in there. And I have come to learn you know, I'm in my late 40s now, and I've just come to learn in my lifetime that my mission here is to make that thriving or to make, to mirror back that beauty that we all are to people and show them that it's possible. And you don't have to be me to achieve it. I just need to mirror back to you the best parts of you. And so I'm even the type of guy that, like, when I meet people, I'll straight up say, gosh, man, you're like, even right now. I'm looking. Your eyes, your eyes glow and they're beautiful. And your smile, it's like you're filling the room. And I appreciate that and I feel it. So I just try to. I have two young girls too, so they forced me to stay present. Yeah, I just try to stay in the moment and see how. And come into a situation and see how can I make this situation any better.

Yeah.

How can I leave this situation better than when I arrived?

Sure.

And that's how I look at my life, too. And it's taken me many years to get there. So I'm, I am a work in progress. I'm not trying to pretend I figured it out, because I really haven't.

Yeah. What do you eat? Like, give me an idea. Are you, are you a keto guy?

Yeah.

Right?

All these labels, right?

Yeah.

Well, so I've been. So I've been a chef now for over 17 years. And, and man, the trends, I mean, when I came out was a fat flush diet was Atkins. It's like, you know, keto is slightly different than Atkins, but it's kind of similar vein. And there, there's just so many things. You know, they went vegan, there was vegan titles, and now it's plant based. Like, you can keep brand rebranding it. But to me, to me, the baseline of health is eat real food. Okay, don't eat. Look for foods that are ingredients, not that have ingredients.

There you go. That's right.

That's. That's boom. Just the standard where it all starts. Then from there, be present with your body. So I'm not going to tell you, follow this diet or that diet or this diet. Go wherever you want to go on your journey. But all I ask is that when you eat that food, let's just say you chose, you're like, I'm going to be plant based. Okay. Let's just say, well, when you eat that way, if you start feeling bloated, if you notice you have diabetes, digestive distress, like gas a lot. And you're not pooping. Right. Or whatever it is. And you're, you're just kind of like your body, you're noticing you're getting more and more weight. That is your body communicating that the diet you're choosing is not working.

Yeah.

So all I ask is you listen to your body because your body knows your body has the answers and it will tell you where to go. You just got to be listening. So I have listened over the years and what I found works for me is, is animal, animal meat, any kind of meat from fish to poultry to. And I go, I kind of follow. Like sometimes I'm really, you know, beef hungry. Sometimes I just need some fish. I love oysters. I go wherever that kind of animal or shellfish or fish based diet is. And then I, I add fat. I love like dressings and sauces. That's my fat. And then I just. Sometimes I crave vegetables, but I find that I really gravitate towards lettuces and arugula, like kind of those really lighter vegetables. Sometimes I really want broccoli, but I don't, I don't really crave kale or any of those things. Charred and all that stuff I've eaten in the past. But lately I just don't crave it. And that's kind of it. I, I find I don't, I don't do very well on starches and, and grains. I sometimes will eat them, but I, I'm the type person that if I, if I diverge from what feels good, then I kind of fall into that whole. Whole. Yeah, like, and that goes with sweets too. Like, I don't eat much sweets or anything like that. And if they're in front of me, that's one thing I've learned. If I bring it into my house, I'll eat it. Doesn't matter what it is. So I've just learned don't bring it.

That's a great statement though. I mean, we all have to understand that. And it's hard to understand. You bring it in, you're gonna eat it. You bring it in, your kids are gonna eat it. Like, the trick is having the discipline.

Yeah. And I've learned the discipline over the years. And really that's kind of what I advise people is, you know, we have, we are intelligent human beings. You know what I mean? No matter what you've been taught to believe in yourself, you are an intelligent human being. And so all I ask is you listen to your own innate knowledge, you educate yourself on what works or doesn't work. But don't pretend that what someone else is doing is what you're supposed to do. Just follow the beat of your own heart, but honor it. Like, so if you find, hey, man, when I have ice cream in the house, I eat the whole carton. And then you better. You better start listening to your own body and your own knowledge of that and, like, be an adult about it and be like, you know what? That doesn't feel good. I'm not. I'm not gonna pretend to bring it in the house and start a, you know, will. Strength of will. It's like, that doesn't work. Just don't bring it in the house. You know what I mean? Like, make it hard for you to get those desserts if that's the thing you're craving all the time. And then I would also offer, if the cravings won't go away, maybe it's a sign that something else is off. Like, a lot of times when we crave sugar, it's because we're not eating enough fat or protein.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, so don't question things. Ask questions like, like. Like, just be kind of mobile with it. Don't get stuck in your way.

Good.

So good.

It's so good. But we are, what, brainwashed? In my opinion, at this point, at least, if you're a 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s, that fat is the devil. You know, like any no fat, no fat, whatever it is, then it must be good. And now that's Twizzlers. I mean, that's.

Yeah, candy. It's fat free. Well, you remember, you and I might be similar enough age. Do you remember Snackwell devil cakes?

Yes.

They're still out there. But holy moly. When those came out and like, I think it was in the 80s, early 90s, they were. They were the first one to say fat free. And everyone was like, you mean, I can eat as many as I want? And people would eat the whole carton in one sitting? And then now 20 years. It took 20 years for the. For the education to get out there. Right now we're what, 40 years from there? It's like, now people go, oh, wait, the sugar converts into fat.

Yeah.

So when you're fat free, you just want more sugar?

Yeah.

That's like, oh, man. 40 years of, like, messing everyone's body up.

Yeah, man. Chef, I appreciate you stopping by. Everybody go check out James Barry. Really? You got to go find him on LinkedIn. We'll put links to.

To pluck and, yeah, you'll find a pluck@eatpluck.com. try it, guys. It's really good. It's the easiest and most delicious to get. Organ meats. And then I'm chef James Barry on, you know all those socials.

Yep. We'll find them. We'll put links in the show notes. We want everybody to have easy access to get to know him better. He's a great member of the community. We're friends. He's been on our. He's took. He's done a takeover on our platforms as well, so it's all good, man. I really appreciate your time. Thank y' all for listening. Look, your time's not free. I mean, if you're spending time listening to us, we need to be adding value. That's what we're trying to do. Go out there. Do you do it in a big way.