Eating Nose To Tail with Pluck Founder James Barry on Boundless Body Radio!

Hello and welcome to another episode of Boundless Body Radio. I'm your host, Casey Ruff. And today we have another amazing guest to introduce to you now. James Berry has spent nearly two decades in the culinary field. He first started as a private chef cooking for Ava celebrities including Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Gerard Butler, Sean Puffy Combs, Barbara Streisand, and John Cusack. Most recently, James launched his first functional food product, Pluck, an organ based seasoning. It's the first of its kind and an amazing, easy and delicious way for people to get organ meats into their diet. Ancestral principles of like, supports like and nose to tail. Eating drives the mission at Pluck. The seasoning is a perfect gateway into eating organs because it doesn't taste like organ meat. Instead, what you taste is a savory deliciousness of umami, AKA the fifth taste. James is also a published cookbook author, having co authored the recipes in Margaret Floyd's book Eat Naked and co authored the follow up cookbook, the Naked Foods Cookbook. He most recently co authored the recipes in Dr. Alejandro Younger's book Clean Seven. You can learn more about James and Pluck at www.eatpluck.com or on Instagram and Facebook. And ChefJamesbury. James Berry, what an absolute honor it is to welcome you to Balanced Body Radio.

Thank you for having me, Casey. It's very mutual. I'm so honored to be a guest.

That's just great to have you on. I'm so glad I got to meet you in person. You and I had scheduled some time to be on an episode that I just made a few weeks ago at Low Carb Denver. And, and what I did is I compiled a bunch of like really short interviews that I did with random attendees and I put them all together in one longer episode. And you had scheduled to do it. I was super excited to talk to you then and I sent you a message on the app like, yo, I'm ready to go. Here I am. And you messaged me back and you said, yo, I'm not there. I'm stuck somewhere. I'm trying to get there as quickly as I can. You had quite the schlep to get to the conference, didn't you?

Oh, my gosh, yeah. I live in Portland, Oregon and we got hit with a freak snowstorm. It was crazy. Uh, there's kind of an ongoing joke in my household because I don't. When I do fly away, it just so happens that Portland somehow snows. I don't understand it. But yeah, so, yeah, I. It Ended up being like, I think Denver from, from Portland to Denver, it's like two and a half hours, something like that, by, by plane. It ended up taking me, I basically all day. I didn't arrive till the, the next day. Oh, my goodness.

And you said like, even at the Portland airport, there wasn't like staff couldn't even make it to the airport. So there was like hardly anything for you to e long layovers and plane switching and all kinds of stuff. What an adventure.

Oh, man. I. I know. Did you ever talk about travel food? Because that's really. Gosh, it's like, I thought since it was going to be a short flight that I wouldn't have to bring too much. And I usually bring like a meat stick. That's, that's one of my travel foods. Sometimes like, you know, bring. You bring like a boiled egg or just something that's going to be sustainable, sustaining, like a whole food. And in that day, I mean, the only store that was open was one of those new stores with all the snacks. And so what you. What's interesting is that there's a play going on around what's trending, right? So, so you see that there's like Clif bars or there, there are these protein bars and I'm using air quotations because they're. They may have protein in them, but they're ultimately candy bars. I mean, they're, they're just so many different variations of sugar from, you know, brown rice sugar to.

I mean, you.

Name it, like agave syrup. You know, it's like, it's just. They're just packed full of sugar and they're just, they're horrible. They're horrible to travel with. It's almost better just to fast if you can, you know. Yeah, you can't. No quality food.

That's right. But that's such a good point about the travel food. Like, we had a flight to Mexico a few years ago and we were carnivore, both my wife and I at the time and still are very easy for us to do fasting. And so we just thought, well, you know, it's a four and a half hour flight from Salt Lake City. We're leaving eight in the morning. It's an hour transfer to the hotel. Hell, we don't eat food. Not a big deal. Well, there was a delay at the Salt Lake airport by five hours. And in five hours we're still not hungry. We feel fine taking the flight. We're starting to feel really hungry by the time we're on our Transfer van. Both of us are very, very hungry and like, damn it, why didn't we bring something? And now I call it my cholesterol bag. I just have a side bag that is chock full of sticks of butter, maybe some guacamole, some meat and cheese sticks, beef sticks like you said. So we're always prepared that way. And I can always have a heart clogging cle cholesterol filled meal anytime I want on the road. It's great.

Yeah, it's, it's funny. But you really do, nowadays, you really do have to be conscious of that since products out there just really, they may not fit your diet, they may not fit your need.

That's right. Yeah, I just heard this week. I thought this was hilarious. Somebody was talking about a protein that they found, a delicious coconut protein and they were asking somebody about it and they said, well, if it's, you know, protein powder and it's really delicious, probably has a bunch of crap in it. She was like, oh, but it's amazing. So what I do is I open my Pepsi. Kidding. Kidding you not, I kid you not, dump half of it out. It takes me about 30 minutes to integrate the protein into the Pepsi because it fizzes so much and I drink that and it's a great way to get protein. I was like, that is amazing. That's amazing.

Well, you know though, it really speaks to something so, so that I've never heard that. That's really funny. But it really speaks to something that I feel like I've learned in my, you know, nearly two decades of working as a chef in the health field is that for health food to become healthy choice lifestyle, I really believe it has to hit two things. It has to be easy and it has to be delicious and it has to hit both. Not just one, but for if the food hits both, then that food will become a lifestyle food. There'll be no hurdle, there'll be no reason to not eat it, even if there's pandemic version eight. You know what I mean? Like there's no reason, there's no reason to fall off the wagon because the health food you're eating is easy and delicious.

Yeah, no, I absolutely love that. During that conference that you and I attended where we met, one of my go to meals, because I didn't have great access to a kitchen, was doing the McDonald's burger hack where you just order a bunch of quarter pound burgers and it saved me. They were great, but they come out a little bit dry, especially if you're not eating in the fresh. And when I met you, I was able to try your product, which I do have behind me, like the product placement there. Yeah, it's great. And just using your seasoning on the burger patty that was a little bit cold, like totally changed the flavor profile and made it delicious again. And so I really appreciated it for that. We don't love to bring on all kinds of different product owners on our podcast. We're very conscious of trying to keep a clean conflict of interest and make sure we're not doing commercials for people. And I just, I want you to know we brought you on because we know your mission. We know that this is going to, we're going to talk about your company, but we're also going to talk about organ meats and your journey through health itself. And so I just really appreciate your mission and we are more than happy to promote you and what you're doing because of that. So really thank you for, for being really upfront and honest and making such an awesome product. We love it.

Thank you. I don't take that for granted. So I'm very, very grateful for you and anyone out there that is supporting this product and our mission because ultimately what it, where it stems is, you know, I agree with you. There's so many, there's so many products out there that are just not aligned with, with what I believe is important. I believe that, that for health to work, it's what I just said, that it has to become lifestyle. And I've been in this business long enough to just see trends. I just, I constantly see trends come and go. And so ultimately even my head spins sometimes like, okay, well what, how should I be eating? What should I be doing? And I think about it a lot. And one of the reasons I came to creating pluck for those that don't know it's an organ based seasoning. So it's a way to get animal organs, which are the most nutrient dense food on the planet, into your diet easily and deliciously, which speaks to my earlier point.

So.

But the reason why I created it is because I'm a father of two and I also recognize in my own life, like, okay, 95% of Americans are nutrient deficient, but we're not calorie deficient. So it's really key. So how do we help people? Because we're seeing the ailments of nutrient deficiency, we're seeing the heart issues around racing heart, which is sometimes a B vitamin deficiency. We're seeing the high anxiety levels, we're seeing we're seeing people that are struggling with sleep. We're seeing people that are struggling with just attention span and trying to just ground down and be present. And a lot of times the first, my first go to when I look at any physical or chronic illness is what am I eating? Because that's, that's direct. It's something we do every day and it's an important resource. And you know, so I always look there first before I go to a doctor or something like that. I really go to someone like a nutritionist, someone that specializes in, in helping me look at what I'm eating and how it's affecting me. So as a father and as someone who's just really keen around health and recognizing, okay, we're a nutrient deficient society, my priority is like, well, how do I get those nutritions that those nutrients. Sorry. Into your diet and do it in an easy and delicious way. And that's ultimately what is why I created Pluck is I am trying to help people get healthier but not require a new habit really. Because I believe a lot of times these new habits are what push us kind of out of comfort zones. And that is kind of what contributes to trends like, oh, it's a newfangled drink that I have to drink three times a day or something like that. Well, I might do that for three days, maybe even in a week. But we're going to be hard pressed to do that if it's not part of our natural behavior. And, and with Pluck, it's like you, you, you already season your food. I'm not, I'm not asking you to do something you don't already do. You do it. I'm just saying instead of doing it with these seasonings that have no nutrients and if anything, sometimes are hurting your health because of their ingredients. I'm suggesting do it with something like Pluck because it's giving you so much more than anything else out there.

Yeah, dude, I love that. It is a weird world that we live in where we do have malnutrition and obesity at the same time as you were talking about calories and nutrients like that should not exist. You don't see that anywhere in nature. It occurs to us because we have so many calories and so few nutrients. But I don't know if you know this, dude. We actually have tons of supplements and pills that we can give people, so it's okay. Like we don't need to worry about. Yeah. Our nutrition from food at all. We supplement.

I'm so glad you brought that up because to me, this is the most absurd thing in the world that here we have organ meats from. We're already slaughtering the animals for the muscle meat. So we have their organs, which we know for a fact are the most nutrient dense food on the planet. The amount of nutrients these have are off the charts, do not compare to anything else. And yet we're just discarding them. We're giving them to our pets, we're, you know, bringing, giving them to zoo and we're giving them to everyone else but humans. And I'm just like, and yet we'll turn around and we'll spend money in the $50 billion supplement, you know, industry. And I'm like, wait a second. If you just ate the organ meats, you may not need those supplements because the organ meats are mother nature's multivitamin. It's, it's literally formulated not by a lab, but by mother nature. So it has the vitamins and minerals that are complementary. It has the forms of the minerals and vitamins that are most absorbable to your body. There's literally no part of that organ that your body can assimilate in some way. So I'm just like, I'm, I'm literally, I just find it just dumbfounding that we're not, you know, that we're not using this resource that we already have and we've had for thousands of years. I mean, we've had it forever. It's one of the reasons why we have bigger brains and why we can use tools and why we can communicate. It's because our ancestors ate these parts of the animal.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. That's such a good point. I mean, it's just like telling people, don't go out of the sun and so we can sell you sunscreen so you don't get fried when you take your annual, you know, vacation to Florida when your skin is not ready for it. Like, come on, we're just creating problems and selling solutions. It's a great way to make money, dude.

It's so true. It's so true. And yeah, I'm so, I'm so glad you brought that up because we can do, we can do better. And, and ultimately it's pro. And I'm not really, you know, yes, I'm pushing pluck, but I'm, I'm really, my bigger mission is I'm trying to push nose to tail eating, animal based eating, but not just muscle meat. I'm trying to support people in getting all parts of the animal. And. And hopefully in this episode, I'll. I'll walk your listeners through ways that they can easily incorporate organ meats in their diet. That. That should make it less intimidating because I think ultimately that is. That is what we're facing is particularly around organ meats, is the hurdles, at least I've identified as the taste people associated as being, you know, icky. And it's funny because I'll talk to people that have never even eaten it, and they will, like, they'll make that icky face, like, like, no way. And yet if I did the same thing around a dessert that they've never eaten, they wouldn't make that face.

That's right.

Right. There's something about, you know, the savory foods, maybe organ meats, that immediately cause that. That kind of ick response. And then the other ones identified are sourcing. And then. And then really the culinary knowledge of, like, what do I do with it? How do I cook it? Because I think the fact that it's a different texture than muscle meat kind of intimidates people.

Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I love that you're coming at this from the culinary side of things. And actually, like you said several times, you're focused on making food be delicious. So let's definitely make sure that we. Let's again, just kind of review what is it that makes organ meats different from muscle meats.

Yeah. So first of all, I like to kind of identify, well, what are organ meats? You know, before even diving into the nutrition. Because I think there's this. This idea that it's just, you know, heart, liver, kidney. It's that. But it's actually the. The parts of the animal that fall under the organ meat. Other names for it are awful. Off a L variety meat is another one. Pluck is actually used to be a term that represent that. That defi was defined as organ meats as well. That's where we got the name pluck. But so basically, the awful of the animal is everything except the bone and the muscle. So the marrow inside the bone is considered awful, but not the actual bone.

Gotcha. I did not know that.

Yeah. So. And really, the awful shows up in pretty much every other country's cuisine. I mean, you. You name it, and they probably are doing it from, like, Mexico. They. They use beef stomach in a dish called Menudo haggis. In Scotland, they use sheep and calf heart, liver and lungs mixed with suet, which is the kidney fat. And there's oatmeal and seasonings and it's usually boiled inside the animal's stomach. And it's a, it's, it's, it's one of their national foods. Blood sausage. Sausage in Ireland, which is also known as black pudding, uses the blood of the animal. In the uk, steak and kidney pies using kidney meat from the animal pate is incorporating usually in multiple organs, but usually you find like different animal organs as well and it's usually liver. And then in the US we have something called chitlins, which is the intestines of the pig and that usually find in the South. But even then we seem to be losing favor. More and more people just moving away from organ meats, which is why it's even more important to incorporate them. And so that's why I'm constantly looking, well, well, how can I, how can I dispel this, how can I remove those barriers of needing to know how to cook it, needing making thinking that it's going to be icky, you know, and how can I then make sure the sourcing is clean and easy for you? So I think it just, I think we just as, as manufacturers and suppliers, we just have to get more creative in terms of getting these really clean ingredients to people. But in terms of why organ meats, as I mentioned, so organ meats are the most nutrient dense food on the planet. They, they are, for example, compared to like kale, which a lot of people like to say is so nutrient dense. So, so a hundred gram portion of. I know, right. 100 gram portion of kale compared to beef liver. So beef liver has 17 times more phosphorus, it has over nine times more iron in its heme iron, which is the most absorbable form of iron. You basically can compare beef organs to anything that you think is nutrient dense. And beef liver will blow it out of the water. Including muscle meat, including the beef muscle meat. And in terms of vitamins, you have basically really every vitamin there is. I mean you have all the B vitamins, you have lots of vitamin A, there's even a little bit of C. In organ meats. You have the heme iron, which I mentioned is the, it's just organ meats are an excellent source of that. They also contain all nine essential amino acids, plus they are high quality sources of protein for anyone that's trying to eat more protein in their diet. They're a great source of choline, which is an incessant, an essential nutrient that benefits the brain, muscles and liver. They also have peptides, which are the small amino acid based Molecules. They're rich in fat soluble vitamins as I mentioned, like vitamin A, which is really good for your eyes for I mean really every, every biological system in your body benefits from organ meats. But it also has D and K. K is one that, that we don't get access to a lot from other foods. And what's really important is I love pointing this out and this kind of connects to the supplement comment we made a second ago is like, so when you're eating isolated vitamins, you know, in supplement form, we've all been told there's some that are water soluble and some that are fat soluble. Well, the reason why some people get sick when they eat the fat soluble ones is you're really supposed to eat them with food and it can kind of make you nauseous if you don't. What's beautiful about when you're eating them in the forms of organ meats is it already is a food.

Yeah.

So once again it's. Mother nature has designed it in a way that is most absorbable so you don't need to go out of your way, you know, and like make sure that you're taking a pill while you eat. It's just once you're eating organ meats, that is, that is the, the nutrient dense property and that is the real food. You just gotta, you know, there's tricks that you can do to incorporate into the meals you already are eating. So yeah, low impact.

It's so interesting that you talked about the difference between food and pills is when you're eating food, we've got those taste mechanisms. Right. That's what makes us know about salt. Salt self limits. Something can taste really good when it's well salted and all of a sudden will taste way overly salted. That's when the body says you've had enough salt. That would be different if you took it in a capsule form and just bombed yourself with a whole bunch of salt. You don't know how much your body needed, what it would, is going to use, what it's going to get rid of. How's that going to affect your water balance? There's no such thing as a taste stop on sugar. Sugar should always taste good. You should always have more sugar. Because sugar should be exceedingly rare in our environments. We shouldn't find it very often. When we do, it should reward us and it should make us fat. It should have lots of fructose. The way our body's programmed, that gets us ready for hibernation. And we can get fat when we have lots of fructose and particular sugar, so there's no taste stop mechanism. And I get the same way with organ meats. I learned to acquire the taste of chicken hearts, and I live down in Brazil, and they're delicious. I think they're a wonderful organ meat. And when we go to the local Brazilian steakhouse, there's some weeks that I'm like, I can't get enough chicken hearts. And there's other weeks where I don't really even want to look at them. And I know that's my body telling me exactly what I need. And that's what we miss out on when we take components of food in a plastic little capsule and throw it down the hatch. You don't know.

I love this topic. I absolutely love it. So that is absolutely something I believe is not talked about enough, which is intuitive eating. And really the process of eating your nutrients versus swallowing them, it's such an important distinction, as you said, and I use that salt as an example as well. All the time you get a delayed reaction when you take it in a pill or a supplement, form a tablet. Whereas when it, when you follow your natural digestive process where it goes into your mouth, the saliva, you know, coats it and you chew it and you break it down and then swallow it. That process gives you an immediate communication that you cannot get with a supplement. And I, you know, funny enough, so at that conference that you and I met at, there was a person who came up to my table and said, oh, I've been taking, you know, organ meat supplement capsules, you know, regularly, but every time I take them, I'm getting a. Not, I'm getting nauseous, I'm getting upset stomach. And I said, well, are you just following what it says on the back of the package and taking eight? He said, yeah. I said, well, how do you know you need eight? He said, well, I, I don't. I'm just following what the cap, you know, the, the, the jar says. And I said, well, that's the issue. When you eat it, when you eat the organ meats, your body is going to tell you how much you need, and most likely you don't need eight. And it's possible that you also have some elimination pathway issues. So you're not actually like, not only you, he may not be digesting them properly, but he's definitely not extreme excreting things, you know, toxins properly. And that's going to make him, you know, feel more nauseous. So I'm a huge proponent of eating Huge, huge proponent of that. And that's why I love like, like, so, so with pluck, we have four products, we have three of them that are seasonings that you can just sprinkle on anything, even your McDonald's, you know, as you mentioned. And then we have one that's called pure, that is no different than the capsules. It has no salt, has no spices, no herbs. It's just the organ blend. And it's five organs. It's liver, heart, kidney, spleen and pancreas, all from 100 grass fed cows. And I was telling them, I'm like, just take this instead. Put a little bit of it in your food. So let's just say you're mixing ground meat, making hamburgers, add, you know, a teaspoon of it to there and see how your body responds and do it that way. Or I said, if you're making a smoothie, add a little bit there, but you can slowly incorporate it. Which is not only going to help his body be more intuitive in terms of what it needs, but it's also, to your point, it's going to support his, his flavor, his taste. It's going to start to change his palate to want to incorporate more of these savory foods. Because most people's palates are really skewed sweet. Sweet and salty. So initially it's kind of. Initially it's like I remember growing up, you know, when I was really like hooked on juices and stuff like that. When I started drinking water, I thought, oh, this is so gross, you know, it's so plain. Right? But that's just because my palate was skewed towards sweet. And as soon as I kind of get out of that. And a lot of people don't realize you can change your palate in as short as two weeks. So don't never think that you have to be like stuck in a certain way of being and existing. You can really change your palate quickly. You just have to remove those sweet products. And once you do, you start really tasting the true flavor of food.

That is such a good point. One of my clients has just recently decided to go carnivore. She's eliminated a bunch of plant foods and a lot of sugar. She was heading out to a party. They were serving cake at this party. I think it was a wedding. And she knew she was going to eat the cake and she planned ahead. And she's like, well, I'm going to, I'm going to have this. I know I'm going to have it. I'M going to see what happens. I'm probably not going to feel very good, whatever. And she described eating this cake, and she described all the off flavors she could taste almost like a cornmeal. The fondant stuff was all waxy and gross. And like, I thought the way she said it was phenomenal. She said, I really wanted that cake to taste good. I didn't want it to taste bad. I wanted it to taste good, but it was disgusting. I could only have a few bites. So, no, I didn't feel terrible afterwards, but I got such a small dose because I just didn't even like it. And I think that's what we got wrong. When we tell people to eat intuitively, it's like, yeah, you should eat intuitively. Once you've reset that palette, like you said, it can be very short. It doesn't take a lot of time. But when you do that, your body's intuition is incredible. Like, the drive to eat red meat, I see, go way up. Fish will be like, I don't want it. And then all of a sudden, once a month, wow, salmon sounds amazing. And I'll eat it and I'll be like, nope, not having that again. Like, you really can reprogram that. And that's the way to intuitive eat. If you're intuitive eating out in the real world, you're going to intuitive eat sleeves of Oreo cookies and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Like, of course that's what you're going to do. Like, it's totally different.

Absolutely there I'm looking up this right now, but there was a study back in. I want to say. I want to say it was like in the 20s, it may have been the 40s, but basically it's a study where the people testing were trying to ascertain, if you put a whole foods in front of a kid, will they naturally choose what their body needs, or will they just go for sweet things? And what this study found. So this is, like I said, this is in the 20s or 40s, somewhere around there. And they got some very young kids together. And what they did was they filled the kitchen of this sort of orphanage, even though these kids weren't orphans. But they utilized, you know, they. They got all the parents of these kids to leave them all there over a certain amount of time. And they filled the kitchen with things of that time. So all whole foods, from vegetables to fruits to even parts of the animal, like. Like liver and kidney, even brain. Because people were eating brain back then, of course. And then. And then even like sweet breads, which is the thymus and bone marrow, things like that. And they were all whole foods. So nothing was not a whole food. And guess where the kids went? The number one foods that kids ate were brain and bone marrow.

That's amazing.

So you're like, what? Like, why would they do that? Why didn't they? If you're talking like. So in my mind I'm going, well, here I am pushing organ meats and liver and everyone's always talking about liver, kidney and heart. So why didn't they eat that? Well, but if you think about it, these are young kids that are first starting to eat their food. So when you're a young kid, if we talk about like supports, like, which you mentioned when you introduced me. So like supports, like is the idea that if I'm eating that part of the animal, that same part is going to support that part of me. So if I'm eating the liver, it's going to support my liver. If I'm eating the heart, it's going to support my heart. So when you're a kid of that age, why would you need liver? Because your liver isn't, does, isn't filled with toxins and stuff the way ours is. And you need support. What you are, is you're building brain and you're, and you're building like the bone marrow. You're building, you're growing, you're in a growth mode. And so when I heard that, I was like, oh my gosh, this is intuitive eating at its finest. Like, these kids literally gravitated towards what their body most needs. It's phenomenal.

So fascinating. Yeah, it's so fascinating. I've heard of that story before and I think it's wonderful. We'll tag that study in the show notes so people can go review that if they want. I think it's absolutely fascinating and a great segue too. I was going to ask you lots of different organs that we could be eating. How do we know which ones are the best ones for us? Is it good to get a mix? You know, you hear that liver is really the best one, but there's lots of different kinds. So can you tell us, you know, how, how we should choose our organ meats if we don't have that same intuition that those kids had?

Absolutely. Well, so there's lots of talk, of course, of quality. So, so for, and this is kind of an interesting. I, I've heard they're still studying this. There have not been a lot of studies on grass fed versus grain fed. And for good reason because the, the grain fed industry doesn't want to do those studies. They don't want to pay for those studies because they, they don't want to threaten their industry. So there haven't been a lot of studies. If you read a book like Sacred Cow by Rob Wolf and Diane, they, they talk about how actually the difference in nutrition between a grain fed and a grass or cow are not, it's not as prominent as people think that are. Actually they're pretty in alignment. What is different though is the environmental impact. So the 100 grass fed cow, the environment impact is much more positive whereas the CAFO conventional cow is, is, is a, is a negative. You know, they're creating more car, you know, carbon in, in, in the atmosphere than they are, than they are supporting whereas the grasser cow is actually sequestering the carbon. So, so there's, there's that piece. But then I recently just ran into someone another conference said there's a more recent study actually showing that there is a difference. So I can't really speak to, I can't really speak to which is, which is more nutrient dense or not. But as it is right now we tend to look at things as how, how are they most supporting people and how are they most supporting the planet. So I would say 100% grass fed is serving both. So that's really important when you look for quality. But that said, here's the thing, where are you going to? Also not. Because now once we talk about quality we have to talk about sourcing. So then where are people going to find these organs? That's key before you even get to which organs. Right. So the best places to find them right now are online. So you're going to find some 100% grass fed sources online. However, it's going to be expensive. Will it be as expensive as like a 100 grass fed ribeye? No, it's much cheaper but it is expensive. If it's out of your price range or if that's not as much of a concern for you and you just want to start getting the organ meat nutrition, then guess where the next place to look is. Just go to your, your local markets that are skewed towards different cultures. So like a Mexican market or an Asian market, those markets, they carry all the organ meats. They're just not 100 grass fed but they've got them all. And I would then start with to your point around the kind of your intuitive eating is. I would literally go to the market, look at the different organs and just literally follow. Which one looks the most kind of nourishing to you? Like, which one does your body respond immediately to if you see heart and you're like, that's the one I want. Well, that, that actually is good. And also different animals because, like, for example, you mentioned poultry organs. So chicken hearts are one of the easiest organ to adopt because it's closest to a muscle meat and it's really mild. So if you're going to start with organs for a specific animal, I would start with chicken organs because they are so mild. But then there are ways to start incorporating liver, which is the one that everyone talks about because it's so nutrient dense. There's ways to basically purchase that beef liver, which is, comes usually really large. And what you do is you cut it into smaller bits, but keep it frozen. By keeping it frozen, it's not going to be as intimidating. It's really when it's defrosted that it gets intimidating because it is slimy and it's, it's, it's a large chunk and it does have a flavor to it. It's kind of got a metallic taste to it from the iron. So you, you're just going to tend to be more overwhelmed. But if you have it in smaller chunks, keep it frozen. And then basically when you're ready to use it, just great. Grate some of it into your ground meat and just do a little bit at a time, similar to how you might incorporate new food into your pet's diet. You, you do some of the new food, you do a smaller percentage of, and the old food, the larger, and eventually the newer food overtakes the old food. Do the same thing with yours. You know, just kind of start small and then go till you feel your body kind of is most works for you. I find that if you go over 20%, then you're going to start changing the flavor of that ground meat and you're going to start changing the texture. So I recommend keeping it below 20%. So just to put that in layman's terms, that might be like, if you have a pound of meat, that's basically a fourth of a cup is 25% of that pound. Pound of meat. So you're going to want to go a little bit below a fourth of a cup. I'm sorry, I, I'm saying a fourth of a cup to a pound. A cup is not a pound usually. So I'm more just saying like, I, I think of it as in terms of cups, though. So technically the, the. I, I Would Recommend, like basically 2 to 3 tablespoons is really what's going to work for a pound of meat, because a pound of meat can be over a cup, but I just think of it as cups because we're very visual, people are visual. So that's why I'm explaining it in. In cup form.

Yeah, no, that's great. I love those suggestions and I love the idea of visually looking at organs and having that be another intuitive way that we can choose which ones are going to be best for us at that time. I want to come back to the amount of organ meats we should be eating. I think there's a lot of controversy there that you can help us clear up, but let's stick with kind of what we're going with. What are some other ways that we can make organ meats more delicious and palatable and incorporate more of them in their diet? I will say for me personally, when I want liver, which isn't always, but it is sometimes the way you described is exactly the way I do it. I cut up my liver into little. I call them liver pills. And I don't know, sometimes after a hockey game or the night before a hockey game, I like, almost weirdly like the taste of that kind of metallic and I feel like I get just a little boost in energy. And again, I do it sparingly once every few weeks, once every few months, just depending on how I'm feeling. But I feel like that's a great way to do it. But what are some other tips that you have that we can help get more of those in the diet and do so in a way that is simple and delicious, like you promoted when.

You'Re doing the Liverpool pills, are you swallowing them or you are chewing them a little bit?

I don't chew them. I do swallow them. But there is that, that kind of half second where you get a taste of it. And I just know, like, if I'm eating too much, that metallic taste is too much for me. But sometimes it like, I know it's going to be a strong taste, but I, I don't mind it. It's hard to describe.

Yeah, I know, I understand. But I believe that's your intuitive eating. That's, that's just the point where your, your body's craving it. So the, the kind of gateway, the easiest way to get the organ meats into your diet is the pluck seasoning. I mean, that's just all you have to do is literally sprinkle it on your food. And it's like Done. And you, you are getting five organs. You're getting the liver, heart, kidney, spleen, and pancreas. And those are micro amounts. So you're micro dosing. But the key is frequently, and then that equals cumulative effects. So the more you use it, the more you benefit from there. Then I would probably move right into either bone marrow. Because bone marrow is just so delicious. It's almost like butter. You can, if you eat bread, you can literally take, you can roast the bone and then scoop out the bone marrow and just lather it on a cracker or bread or even on a cucumber. I mean, you can literally put it on anything. Almost like a sauce, really. It's. Or a butter. Like I said, it's just so delicious.

So good on steak. Like right on. Steak is phenomenal.

Yes. Just like you would like a pat of butter. Just use it like that. Exactly. And you can add herbs so you can add things to it and just is so, so nutrient. But the bone marrow is a great first step because it's, it's, you know, most of us are used to bones, so it's not intimidating and it cooks really quickly. It's, it's not a. You don't have to roast it very long. The key is just getting either the bone, the bones cuts cut short or cut long so you can get access to the bone marrow easily. But then from there, I recommend chicken, as I mentioned chicken organs. I usually recommend the hearts initially because, because they're so small and if you cut them up, you can start to incorporate them in your other meals. Like, let's say you're making a sauce. I would treat it almost like it's a mushroom. So you wouldn't put tons of mushrooms in the sauce. You might put, you know, three or four into a big sauce. And so just use at first, like three or four hearts and just dice them up so you don't see them in heart form. Because I find that we want, we want to mess with our heads a little bit. If you're, if you're kind of, if the jump off point towards eating organs is high for you, then what you want to do is remove that barrier. So make it so that it's either not in the same form, so you dice it up so it doesn't look like a heart or a liver or anything like that. Or great. By grading it like we talked earlier, by grading that organ, that liver, you're. You're turning it almost into these little bits that you can't even see in the hamburger meat. So you're just messing with the psychology so that you're not associated and looking at going, oh, that's an animal heart, or that's an animal liver. I think that's really key from there. I mean, I like. One of the ones that I'm always recommending is beef tongue. That's one that people don't eat a lot of, but it's so good. It's also similar to the heart and that it's really close to the. The texture of muscle meat. And once you know how to cook it, it's so easy, and it really is very delicious. We have a recipe for it on our website@eatpluck.com and you just click recipes. But basically what you do is let say you're doing Taco Tuesday and you're braising your meat, or you're doing some kind of pulled pork or something like that, Right. What you do is you can also add the tongue into it while you're cooking it, whether it's in a slow cooker or pressure cooker. And when you pull the tongue out, it's got this skin, a sheath on it. And that sheath, if once you've cooked it for about an hour, an hour and a half, it will start to peel right off. And underneath that skin, that really tough skin, is this delicate, kind of almost stringy muscle meat. And it takes on flavor really well. It's got more nutrients than muscle meat, and it's. It absorbs flavor really well. So it's kind of like once you've tasted it, you can even mix it in with the pulled pork, whatever you want. No one will know. No one will literally know that you're eating tongue. But yet they'll notice just the enhanced flavor because it, like I said, it has more flavor than. Than many muscle meats do.

Wow. I have never tried tongue before. I thought about it, and you walk up to it at the store, and you do see it in that kind of sheath that you're describing. And I don't know, I get really put off by it, and I don't know what to do with this giant quantity of meat. That makes a lot more sense. I'm so glad you taught us about that, because if you're not used to it, it's difficult. It's tough to even want to approach it.

Yeah. And the key is, like I said, a lot of people, when. When you see a muscle meat, see, we're so trained. We see the muscle meat, the roast beef, for example, we think, well, we got to cook that separately. We we always think of it, it's like, that's what we're cooking tonight. But when you incorporate organ meats, you can add it to those. You don't have to look at it like, this is our main meal. It can be a component to the meal you're eating. And I think that will help you get over any hurdles that you might have with it. It, it. I, and I genuinely think that's one of the reasons why liver is so intimidating is because you get this big beef liver and you're like, what do I meal am I going to serve where I'm going to use all of that? And I'm just like, well, don't use all of it. Just use a piece of it and chop it up really fine or blend it in with the other stuff so no one really knows and there's no harm. Like, I think we're, we're caught up in this idea around health that it's all or nothing. Like, I gotta, I gotta go if I'm gonna do, you know, if I'm gonna eat these nutrients, I've got to get this amount every day. It's like, no, there's a cumulative effect and anyone that's a parent knows this, that it's not about getting initially when you first have a child, it's not necessarily about getting everything in that one meal. It's about getting as much as you can in a day's worth of food. You know, we, we got to look at it from a human accumulation, not just like the single meal. And, and similar to what you said too is like there are days where we crave certain things and there's days where we don't. And when you're force feeding yourself to eat something that you're not really craving or it's not really feeling like you're looking at it, it's like laborious to try to eat it. You're just feeling like kind of stuck as you eat it. There's probably reason for that. Your body probably doesn't need it right now.

Yeah, yeah. And that's a great segue to what we'll talk about next, which is you see a lot of influencers that are usually selling some type of organ meat supplement and they're doing a lot of it and they become really sick and you know, then they start to promote the eating of tons of fructose and all these other things they start to incorporate back in the diet so they can recover their thyroid or whatever's going on. And so again, if we just paying Attention to our taste. I believe that's all we need to tell us how much we need and what we need. But, but there's also that issue of like you know, people getting way too much. Now you're getting a lot of those fat soluble vitamins that can make you toxic that if you go too far it's like if you have the, what is it? The liver of a polar bear, Like a few bites of that and you'll die. Like you, you have to be really careful not to go overboard as well. And if we can use our taste buds to be able to do that, I think that's a great way to self regulate. But can you speak to a little bit about like maybe the amount or how we should be thinking about the amount of organs we should include in our diet?

Yeah, I'm always fascinated when, when you see some of these people saying you need to be getting 2 ounces of organ meats a day, I'm like well okay, if we're going off of ancestral eating and those tribes killed in a single animal there was one liver, there was one heart, there was one kidney. And not everyone in the tribe got a piece. It usually went to people that were pregnant or sick or young kids. So I'm always kind of surprised like where, where are they getting that? Where are they determining that? And maybe they're, they're using my earlier point which is well, we're all nutrient deficient and we need these things. But you're not going to, you're not going to know what your body specifically needs if you're taking a capsule. Because we're, we're all bio individual so we all meet, we all, yes, we all need these nutrients but the amounts of the nutrients is what's of question. And you really can't know that unless you're getting tested or if you're using some kind of muscle testing or like intuitive eating. You really, there's no way to assess that otherwise. So I'm always, I'm always, that's why I'm always cautious around over recommending too much of it it and that's all Honestly that is why I like pluck because it's not, it's not about, you're not getting too much, you're just getting a little bit each meal and what you get is a lot of flavor and then, and then, and then those nutrients from the organ meats but you're just getting micro dosing of it. And I personally I'm much more of like a, I, I tend to gravitate towards what is most sustainable. And if I'm get, if I'm like extreme in what I'm eating or how I'm trying to, to acclimate certain foods into my diet, if there's any extremity to it, then I probably will not sustain it. I will probably fill, you know like fuzz out, you know, or fill like I'll just eventually fizz out. And, and so that's why I like doing like kind of baby steps, micro dosing frequently. I just find that to be more effective. That said, I also think that there are some myths out there around organ meats that we might want to just address. Like so one of them is that a lot of people think oh well I shouldn't be eating the liver or kidney because those are talk, they're filled with toxins. That's where we process toxins and that's actually a myth. They're, they're, they're more of like a filter than a sponge. So they're not actually just absorbing all those toxins. What they're doing their job. Those specific organs, the liver and the kidney are, they're, they're basically their pros. Their, their job is to process and convert potentially toxic form, toxic byproducts into more water soluble form. So their, their job is to, to process those talking toxins so that you can then excrete them out of your body. That is their job. Now where those toxins get stored, if you're not excreting your toxins is in your fat, not in the organs.

That's right.

So it might be in the fat around the organs, but it's not going to be the organs themselves. Because if you think about it, what, what happens if you have a clogged drain? It backs up. So your organs, they're designed to not back up. That unless you're, unless you go too extreme, you go too far and you're extremely obese. You have or you're eating absolute crap, your organs. Our human body is miraculous. It's going to do what it needs to do to survive. That is what it's designed to do. That's right. So it wouldn't make any sense for it to store all those toxins in the organ themselves because then they do their job right?

Yeah. No, that's why obesity is a symptom. It's your body's short term way of dealing with a problem that becomes a long term problem for sure. But at least it's keeping the system running. You don't want a lot of ectopic or visceral fat in the body, but that's the short term fix to keep you from not dying. So that's a really good point.

Yeah. And then, and then there's other, you know, in terms of like vitamin A toxicity. Yes. You know, you can always get too much of a good thing. I mean, that's true with any food. I mean, you, you can basically look at the healthiest food and the worst food and you can find something good and bad in all of them. So, so I think it really is about moderation. But the key is, is also, I believe, getting it from a whole food source and, and eating it versus swallowing it, I really do believe that that's going to help support your regulation of that said food product. When, I mean, this is also, you know, important around, you know, the foods we choose eat. It doesn't matter what diet you're following is you need to eat slower. When we eat really fast, we delay that response of like, are you full or not? You know, and when you eat slower, it takes a certain amount of time. I think it's 20 minutes for the body to fully like communicate whether it's full or not over something. So it's like you, you need to allow for that time and that communication to happen so that you don't overeat or that you don't OD on like, you know, cookies or chips or whatever, because those products are designed to support your over consumption of them. One, one thing that is true in nature is that basically flavor typically in nature equals nutrition. So if something's flavorful, that means it has nutrition to it. And of course, these products that we're now buying in our grocery stores that have these extreme flavors are completely confusing our body because they're flavor rich, but they are nutrient void. So it's very confusing. When you're eating something that has all this flavor but it has no nutrition, your body's like, okay, when, when, when am I going to get that nutrition so I can communicate I'm full and it doesn't know what to do. And so that's why we, we just tend to overeat those products.

Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And you're talking about things like kale. Like, people say they love kale. Really? Do you love kale on its own? Or do you love kale covered in cheese and nuts and tons of olive oil and vinaigrette? Like, which kale would you prefer? Like, that's probably your body just accepting any of those nutrients it can get its hands on. And kale is almost a vehicle to get them into. It's better than nothing. But I don't see many people just gnawing on kales on its own. You wouldn't see that.

Totally. I completely agree. You know what? So in my career I've eaten a lot of different diets just because I had to understand them so I could cook them for clients. And you want to know what the, the best diet I ever did where I felt the best and I noticed I eliminated the best, I, I mean across the board, it was, I felt the best I've ever felt on any diet. It was primal, raw. So it was basically what that is, is eating raw animal products basically, or really anything raw. So I was eating, eating any raw. Well, raw, primal, specifically around animal based. But I was basically eating raw ground meat, I was eating raw dairy, I was eating oysters, raw fish. And I felt amazing. I truly felt amazing. I didn't eat as much. A little goes a long way. But it was like the food that I was eating was completely, completely available to me. Of course you gotta be mindful of quality because you know, you can get sick if you're eating. But the reason why I stopped doing that diet, I did it for 30 days, is because it wasn't practical. We had like a little kid and you couldn't feed our child, whose immune system is still forming, you know, raw foods and like that. And, and it just, it limited my lifestyle. Like I could go out to eat really, unless it was eating like sushi or oysters or something. But even then you couldn't go to like a party or someone's dinner party. And so I just felt like, huh, that's not really what we're here to. Like, that's not what I'm here to do. It's like I want to be healthy, but I also want to live a full life. I believe that we, we're on this planet for such a short amount of time and that we have to find joy in every moment. And sometimes I think we get so locked into these dogmas of like I, you know, eat this, not that, or, or this is the ideal diet. And I just, I think we have to ascertain, well, what's, what's right for you, what's right, what works for your body at this time. And it could be completely different than what you or I eat, you know, at, at this moment in your life. But what I just ask people to do is really what I think we've kind of been encapsulating. This whole talk is like, listen to your body. So eat whatever you think is the right thing for you to eat right now. Have the dignity of your food journey your process, but then just listen to your body and don't get so locked into the dogma of what you're eating that you're, that you're superseding what, how your body's reacting. So for example, if you are someone who's very plant based and is like, this is, I believe this is what I should be eating, go for it, do it that way. But then when your body, if your body does start reacting with a lot of digestive distress, if you start noticing you having skin issues, if you're starting you feeling bloated all the time, that is your body communicating to you. This is not working. And so I just ask that you then listen to it instead of fight it.

Yeah, that's amazing. That's so beautifully said. I absolutely love that. I was hoping you would share a little bit of your story because it's so interesting to talk to everybody how they found the way that they're eating. And most people in our world do settle into some version of low carbohydrate and find the animal products are very healing. And that becomes like a really good foundation for most people. You come from such a different background in the culinary world where you're literally just dealing with what does my client want me to make. And so you had that opportunity to like make all kinds of different diets and you could have landed on any of them, but you ended up kind of in this world in the low carbohydrate space. I wonder if you can maybe comment on that on and how that kind of worked over time.

Yeah, it is funny, like when I first got into cooking for clients, the, the hot book at the time was called the Flat Fat Flesh Diet. And so everyone was wanting, you know, recipes out of that. And it's been a fascinating journey. And I, I find it really is an example. I worked for this one client. I can't name who it is, but because I signed an NDA, but I worked for this one client where they were so disciplined in what they ate, but that discipline behavior would then cause them to then fall into these kind of like bingy like eating out periods, you know, where they would just, they would go long stints when they didn't have to be as disciplined, where they would just binge on food, you know, very, very carb centric food. Pastas and pizzas and things like that. And it always, when I would watch this kind of behavior in the celebrities or in the families I would cook for, I was always kind of struck that, well, is that really a good diet then? Is that, that being so disciplined, is that really worth it if you then are constantly yo yoing, you know, and I'm not talking they had one one day, I'm talking they would go weeks where they would be eating this way and I would always be experimenting with myself as well. And so really my current diet speaks to what I found works for me. And so I caution anyone like I'm happy to share what I do, but I caution anyone from truly following it because I really do believe we all need to find what works for us. And that dignity, I mentioned this earlier, the dignity of your process is so important because I think we shame ourselves around food, we shame ourselves around our behaviors and, and I don't see a good end result when we put shame and have to's and pressure on what we're doing. I think that the more we can ask for help the better. I think a lot of people out there are self diagnosing and they think they can muscle through it and they can use, you know, will strength. And I just, I have never found it to work. I personally find that the marketing behemoth and or sugar laden products will always win. They will always pull you in particularly when there's something emotional going on in your life. Because we are emotional eaters and we're not perfect, we're, we're very, we're very inconsistent, you know. And so that's why I look for that stamina, I look for that diet where I can just kind of like I know it works for me. So for me personally what I found worked for works is that I have, I tend to have this, I always joke, it's like I have this depression era mentality that if, if there's food on the table then I have to eat it all right then and there because it's going to go bad and I can't waste it. I don't know why, but so I found that if I have like sweets, for example, like if I have a carton of ice cream, I will eat the whole thing at once opposed to portioning it out. I've, my kids are really good at portioning it out. I've luckily not transferred that kind of error, that mentality onto them, but they're very good at portioning, but I'm not. So one of the ways I've learned to kind of deal with that is I don't bring things into the house that I don't want to eat. That's just it. I know that if it's in the house, I will eat it. So I'm using my intelligence around what I've learned, my, the tools of what I've learned in all these years of what works. And I try not to fight that. I just, I just try to take ownership of it and say, okay, if it's in the house, I'm gonna eat it. So I don't bring it in the house. And then that helps a lot because then you're forced to really go out of your way to get it if it's not in your house. And you know, late at night when you get those kind of binging kind of cravings, you have nothing in your house to, to meet them. So you kind of like, okay, I guess I just have to sit in whatever the emotion is that's coming up, or I have to drink water, whatever it is. And suddenly you realize, oh wait, it just passed. It wasn't as intense as I thought it was. It wasn't as, you know, necessary as I had thought. So that's really important process for me is I don't bring it in. I also find when we meal plan as a household that we make better choices and then we don't make emotional purchases. So when I meal plan, I usually go and I check like a, a cookbook or a magazine and I'm just going through it and I'm finding recipes that intrigue me for that week. Sometimes I just simply open my refrigerator, see what I don't have, what I do have, and I create a meal plan for the week. Usually only dinners because our lunches are just reheating dinner from the previous night. So I try to make it really easy. And then breakfasts are very simple as well. Sometimes my wife and I don't have breakfast. Sometimes we're doing it simply like eggs or steak or something. It's something very kind of more carnivore based, I guess. But, but the meal planning really helps because you basically you have a very clear schedule of what you're going to eat that week. You can even base that meal plan around your schedule. So let's just say if you have a day where you're crazy busy, back to back meetings, don't have any time to really cook and enjoy the cooking. Those are days where I do slow cooking. So I put, put all the ingredients in a slow cooker or pressure cooker in the morning and then turn it on and it's all ready when I, when I come in, in the, you know, in the, the early or late evening or sorry, the early evening to eat. And so that works really well. Meal planning. Also you create a grocery list and that way when you go to the grocery store, you're not basing your purchases off of sales or like emotional purchases. You're just going off of what's on your list. And if you ever. I always recommend as a chef, if you're creating a list and you're going off of a recipe that asks for something kind of weird, you know, because you're getting out of Bon Appetit or something and they're focusing on a ingredient that you don't necessarily have. I always recommend just substitute it out or omit it. Like never put pressure on yourself to buy something you're not familiar with because inevitably you're not going to use it. It's going to be a waste of your money and, or the ingredients are probably questionable anyway if you're not using it. So just omit it. Don't, don't get stuck on like the recipe has to be exact. Just, just kind of do the best you can in that moment. And so then, and then the other thing is I have done some genetic testing. I, my wife is a functional nutritionist and we, we probably do testing at least every year to. Every other year. So I'm always kind of mindful of what I do or don't need and I, I've just found that I don't do well with carbs. Like I re like with complex carbs. I'm really like, or I should say, I'm sorry, simple carbs. Like, like that kind of like the chips and all that kind of stuff. But then also I don't do very well with grain carbs, things like starches, like potato starches. I, I'm doing pretty good on vegetable carbs, but not, not the other. So I really have found like for me it's protein, fat and then some vegetables and I tend to gravitate towards like the very water based vegetables like lettuces and arugula, things like that. But that's kind of where I've gone. You know, what I found works for me. And when I eat that way I, I sleep well. My brain, my, you know, I feel like my brain is intact, it's not foggy and I have endless energy. Like my energy is, is what's normal. You know, I wake up out of bed, I'm alive I'm ready to go. I don't need coffee. And then I get tired at a normal time. You know, I start to get tired at 8:39, and I'm good.

Yeah, man. That's awesome, isn't it? It's so cool to say through all of the different cuisines and. And, you know, cooking that you've done over the years, you finally landed in a place where, yeah, you might make some tweaks here or there, but this is really pretty much the last diet you might ever really be on, essentially. It's so nice to be there after so many years of struggle. I can certainly relate to that, and it is wonderful to get all of that nourishment from food and to have that affect our lives positively. This has been such a wonderful conversation, James. I've learned so much. We've learned a lot about organ meats. We've learned about your company, which is fantastic. I love your products. Tell us where people can go to find you, connect with you and your work, and where they can connect with pluck.

Yeah, so eatpluck.com you'll find all of our offerings there. We have a discount code for those listeners, and it's boundless, so it's all capital. B, O, U, n, D, L, E, S, s. You'll save 15 using that. And thank you. Yeah, absolutely. You'll find us on Instagram and Facebook @eatpluck. And if you wanted to see what I'm up to personally, you can go to at Chef James Barry. That's Barry with an A. And we're just always grateful. We love people trying, you know, dispelling that organ meats are icky. Like, we want to show you that they actually can be easy and delicious, and we particularly love it. I. I know a lot of families reach out to say, oh, my gosh. I. I've been trying so hard to get these nutrients into my family for years, and this has made it so easy because they don't even know it's in there. And I'm like, yeah, I. I made it for myself because I'm historically a very picky eater, and. And so this was a way for me to easily get organ meats into my diet, too.

Yeah, well, it's. It. It's fantastic. Like I said, I love the product. Even just last night, you know, I had some tri tip, and I put a little bit of the spicy seasoning on half of the tri tip and some of the garlic on the other half. And it just. This is why I love using spices and sauces, as long as they don't have a lot of crap in them, is they they enhance the flavor and they they help me to eat more. And so I think it's a wonderful way to get more organs into the diet. I think they're very tasty. And I just really appreciate everything that you've done to be able to create the company. We didn't even talk about how you created the company during the pandemic, how crazy that was. But anyway, we just, James, so grateful for you and for taking the time to come on today and educate us about all things organ meats and all things about your company. So thank you very much. We really appreciate you.

Thank you. Casey.

This has been a wonderful episode. And this has been another episode of Boundless Body Radio.