Healing the World Through Ancestral Eating with James Barry

Today's episode of the podcast, I'm joined by Chef James Barry, CEO and founder of Pluck, which are ancestral superfood seasonings made with organic spices, herbs and nutrient rich organs. And it is freaking delicious. He's also an ex celebrity chef for Hollywood, a listers like Tom Cruise and George Clooney, and has also written multiple cookbooks that are helping people thrive. James is deeply committed to reconnecting us as a society to our food sources, where it comes from, and ultimately educating us on how to eat to thrive. At the end of this episode, you're going to understand more about how humans and our diets have evolved to shape the way we are now. Learn to be curious about nutrition and ultimately find out a diet that works for you. Five things anybody can do today to radically improve their health. The benefits of organ meats, other nutrient dense foods, and the role they play on our health. Ways to make healthy eating simple, practical, affordable, and delicious, even if you have a busy schedule. How to recognize when certain foods aren't working for you and why changing your health now is so important and how it can benefit future generations. Chef James is the man. You guys are going to take so much away from this episode. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to tune in and if you find value in this video, please like, like this video, subscribe to the channel and share it with a friend who you think would find value in it. My ultimate goal in life is to inspire and empower 100 million people to live as the happiest, healthiest versions of themselves. Chef James has helped me with that mission and I want you guys to be a part of it as well. I love you all. Now let's dive into it with Chef James.

It's such a treat getting to do these in person. Honestly, for like the last three years, it's all been virtual for me, dude.

I know. That's why when we first connected, I was like, we gotta wait and do it in person.

Like, there's.

I'm so grateful that we have the platforms that we do to, you know, that you and I, we could have done this on Zoom, but I was like, you know, as many as I can do in person, it just makes it so much more fun, so much more meaningful. You just. There's such a deeper connection that you can have with somebody sitting face to face, couple feet apart.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, do you feel like it's almost like you're able to look into their, like, into them a little bit more and kind of which softens and deepens the connection. Because I feel like on zoom, you're looking at a camera and you're not really looking at the image. Right. Because if you look at the image, then your eyes are going below the camera. But I don't know, I feel like that. That is always a. I know.

I always try to like position the zoom where it's like the person is just below the camera. So it doesn't look like I'm looking off centered somewhere.

Yeah. But even then, you're. It's almost like you're needing to look past the image.

Yeah.

To create a connection with the audience, whoever is watching the video.

It's super weird.

Whereas now we just look at each other's eyes and it's like you could feel the emotion of that or whatever it is, or the. The feeling that comes with the humanity of looking at someone straight in the face. Yeah.

You feel that energy, that energy exchange, that connection.

It's interesting that we're starting talking about this regarding connection, because it's something that I actually think is a huge issue around our food industry is the disconnect between what we purchase, what we eat, and where it came from. I feel like it's huge, particularly a lot of people. See, it's easy for those of us that are in the industry, that have been in the industry for a long time. It's so easy for us to forget that most people don't think like or know what we know. You only know what you know. And I just traveled across the country from the west coast to the east coast during the month of July, and I definitely saw that there's a lot of states, a lot of cities where people don't have the options that we do on the coasts, that don't even have the consciousness of certain health paradigms, because it's not even available. It's just not even available to them. So why would. If it's not available to you, then that means you don't desire. You're not asking for it because they would supply it if you were asking for it because these businesses want to make money. So that means you're not asking for it because you don't know to ask for it. It's now not in your zygous, it's not in your vision, it's not in your reality. And so that clearly means that there is a disconnect between what the food you choose to put in your mouth and how it affects your health. There's a complete disconnect, let alone the disconnect of like, a lot of people don't even realize where, if they're eating me, realize what part of the animal it's from the. Sometimes they don't even know what animal. Like, some kids don't even realize pork is from a pig. They don't, they literally don't know. So I think a lot of us in this industry forget that most of America is suffering, is chronically ill, is hugely overweight and doesn't even know it. Doesn't even, they're not even aware of it. So I don't know. I've been thinking about that a lot lately of like, well, so how do I support the person that may not actually even be listening to this podcast? Like, how do I support them?

When did you first realize that this was a problem? That disconnect between humans and what we're choosing to eat?

Probably. Well, it's definitely like an onion, right? So like, I, I, I started out as a chef over 20 years ago. I went to culinary school before that even happened. In my early 20s. So not just a little bit younger than you are now. I got a kidney stone. I was just out of college. I was at the time an actor, and I was doing the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts, which was a huge deal. It's a very prominent, prestigious theater company. And I was so grateful to be there. And I was there two weeks, hardly. I was becoming friends with my, my fellow actors, but I really didn't know anyone. And I was 3 thousands of 3,000 miles away from my family, and I got the most intense pain I've ever had before because a kidney stone is like, kind of like the closest a male can get to having a baby, which is still not close. And, and yet it was incredibly painful. It's basically like a, it's like a calcium or mineral stone that's collected in your body and it's now trying to get out and it's going through your urinary tract and it's literally like probably like the size of a match head, or at least mine was. Some are a lot bigger and it's going through a tube that's not at all that big. And the pressure and pain is so immense and I didn't know what it was. So I was at this dormitory at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and I'm like crouching inside of my friends, like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I just feel like I'm constipated. Like, I feel like I have to take a shit. Like, I literally thought I'M like, I just have to, like, poop or fart. Something needs to come out. And he's like. He's laughing at me. We're joking at first, but then, like, two hours later, I'm still in that position. I'm sweating. I'm like, even in more pain. He's like, dude, something's wrong. Like, people don't do this for this long when they have something that's ready to come out. Like, something's going on. And I'm like, I think you're right, and went to the hospital. And. And even when I got the hospital, they were like, okay, it could be your appendix or it could be a kidney stone. They didn't know at that moment. And then I learned it was a kidney stone. And then I was incredibly fortunate. But I asked a question that to the doctor that changed my entire life. I said, how did I get this? How did I get this? And what do I do to not get it again? And luckily, my doctor or the person that was in the room said, well, what have you been eating and drinking? Like, how many doctors ask you?

I was gonna say, the fact that they even ask you that, they were. They were a step ahead.

I mean, this is a long time ago, too. Yeah. Wow. And this is, like, 95. Yeah.

You don't even hear doctors saying that now.

And the fact that they asked that. And I was like, well, I just. You know, I just graduated from college, and I. It was a really intense period of trying to get out of college. I had to leave two weeks early to go to this theater company. So I had to do all my tests, all my finals, just everything had to finish two weeks early. So I was really stress. I was eating pizza and drinking root beer. Now, I did not know at the time that the food I ate was going to affect my health. I mean, I'm 21. I'm like, I thought that didn't matter. I mean, it never mattered before then. And this experience in him asking me that question, I was. And I said that to him. I said, well, I've been drinking root beer and eating pizza. And he was like, well, what about water? You're drinking water. I'm like, well, isn't there water in the root beer? And that's something you hear. Coffee drinkers are always saying that. They're like, well, but isn't coffee mostly water? It's like, no, no, no. You still need to drink water. Like, that's. These. These. The potassium, all these different things in the soda are going to collect if you're not drinking enough water and you're going to get a stone. And it's like, I mean, blew my mind. And from that moment on I just, I, I carried water with me everywhere. And I started to be more conscious about, okay, the food that goes in my mouth, A, I'm in control of and B, it directly affects my health and well being. So now what do I do? You know, and then that's kind of, that shaded the rest of my life. Eventually I went to culinary school in New York. And well, even before that, I mean, I tried everything. Like I started going down the path of being vegan and I tried eating, I was mostly eating tofu because they didn't even have all the fake meats they have now. So it was mostly tofu. And I noticed I was living with my girlfriend at the time and I noticed my sex drive like went to zero. And I thought I was just depressed and she didn't understand it. And then skip ahead like three years. And I'm in culinary school and they're talking about how, because it was a, it was a unique culinary school where they're talking a lot about nutrition as well and they're talking about how like, oh, well, well, you know, like tofu or soy could. It lowers your testosterone and it can affect your sex drive and all this stuff. And I was like, oh, well, maybe that's why that was going on. And I mean, I just kept trying different things because I was exploring health, I was learning. And I think a lot of times, particularly when we're young, we get on these soapboxes of whatever it is that we're doing and we go like, oh, this is working for me. So that means everyone should do it. And you kind of get on this diatribe or this, you get really extreme with whatever it is you're doing. And it's not that I was, I was not preaching to anyone at the time, but I definitely got extreme in the things, the choices I was making. Like when I went tofu wise, I went all soy, you know, when I. And then after that I went all poultry, you know, I just kind of went all in. And I think though, over time it just kind of what it did was it kind of indicated to me, okay, I just, there is something about being curious. And I think that there is a process we all go through that is the process or journey of our health and we all need the dignity of that journey. And so like shaming someone for being plant based or shaming someone for being carnivore. You know, either extreme is like, I don't know if that really helps because whatever that person's doing, they need to go through to then get to the other side. We need contrast. Like, I wouldn't have known that all that soy didn't work for me unless I'd gone down that path. And I wouldn't have known that chicken, all that chicken didn't work for me until I went down that path. You know what I mean? And so as I've gotten older and even now that I really like, I would say that I definitely push whole animal. But I wouldn't tell you like, you need to eat whole animal. I would just say, look, in my experience, whole animal is the most nutritious way to eat. But whatever you're doing is your choice. But if you talk to an anthropologist like Dr. Bill Schindler, he wrote Eat Like a Human and he'll tell you, he'll be like, well, humans. We were originally foragers and we were scavengers. And when we were scavengers, we did get some muscle meat. But it wasn't until we were predators and we got three things that really changed our, you know, evolved us. And those three things were blood, fat and organs. And those three things evolved us into the people we are now. And it enabled us to not only have language, it enabled us to have more tools. We got fire around that time. Like it, it, it's closest to the body we have now. So that tells me, oh, okay, well, that probably means we need animal products. But that still doesn't mean, like, what got us here is animal products. But you still need to have the dignity of whatever your journey is with food. And so I just rarely tell people this is how you're supposed to be. But I do try to say, like, I have some nieces that are, one of them's vegetarian. And all I told her is, I was like, look, all I ask is, yeah, have the journey, whatever you're doing and why you think it's right, go for it. But all I ask is that when you do, when it stops working for you, please reach out because you potentially are doing harm to your body. Your body's not going to create as much hydrochloric acid when you're not eating animal products. And so when you go to animal products, what happens a lot for people that are going from plant based to eating?

Can you explain hydrochloric acid and like, the what that is real quick?

I mean, a little bit. I'm not a nutritionist, so I don't want to pretend but, but I've just been in the industry long enough. But it's something our bodies naturally create that helps us break down food, particularly animal protein. And it's, and it happens in our stomach and it's something your body naturally will do. But if you stop eating animal meat and, or you're in a stressful life like so lots of modern living reduce the amount of hydrochloric acid. Our body will, and not eating meat will reduce the amount. So what happens, and this is not just around food, but you see it all the time, is people use their current situations to justify why whatever it is they're doing works or doesn't work. Right. We're looking for clues as to what path we should go on and we're constantly looking outside of ourselves when I actually believe we should be looking inside ourselves. But so what happens a lot is people go plant based and they do that long enough where now their body's not creating hydrochloric acid. And then when they go to, let's just say eat that steak or something and it's usually beef that they have trouble, they get like digestive distress or they have issues with the digestion and they then use that as like a reason of why this is why I shouldn't eat beef. See, it doesn't work for my body. It's like, well no, it doesn't work for your body right now because the diet you were on kind of made your body less optimal, right? So now your body's not working as it should be. So you need support. And so that's all. I just, I try to tell me, I'm like, look, just don't accept your conditions. Like when you are ready to change, give it a moment and ask for help. Like don't self diagnose, don't like reach out to people that know what they're doing and support that change. And I don't even know how I got off on plant based versus carnivore. But I think ultimately what I'm sharing is that I went down quite the path in my 20 years in the health field and even before that, just getting to it. And honestly if anything I've noticed in my time, everyone I have not met a single person yet, everyone that is in this field, around any kind of health, health practitioner, anything like that, they're there for a reason. They're there because either they got sick or someone they, they loved got sick. And you can even like then do a jump from there and it gets Even more interesting because then it becomes like, well, okay, so let's say you've been in the field and I've worked with a lot of practitioners, and I'm married to one. And it's like. And what you then learn is that. And you could talk to literally any practitioner and then like, okay, so how do you elicit change in people? How do you get people to change their health habits? And most people will admit that you can't. They have to do it. And there's two reasons that will get someone to change. They get sick or someone they love gets sick. So it's exact same parameters. And that that's a problem because you don't want to wait till you get sick, right? Because some people get really sick and there's kind of. Sometimes there's no going back, right? And so I really like more and more. Even with my product, with pluck and just how I talk about stuff, it's like, I'm really more and more just trying to get people to look for smoke. Like, like, kind of similar how to how he's talking about food. Like. Like, first of all, you gotta recognize that food is gonna affect your health to then get to the next layer of that onion, right? And then the next thing you gotta kind of realize is like, okay, now that you're aware that what you put in your mouth affects your health, now what signs are you looking for in your health to show you that whatever you're eating or doing is not working? And there's lots, right? I mean, it could be skin. Skin rashes. It could be red lines in your eyes. It could be dark lines under your eyes. It could be aches and pains in your body, could be bloated. There's so many things, but there has to be first before we even, like, it's almost like we have to make sure that people understand what those are so they can start looking for them. And then we got to get people to actually recognize, like, own. Take ownership of looking in the mirror and feeling, how do I feel today when I wake up? How does it feel? Am I. Do I have energy or am I groggy? And start, okay, I just ate breakfast. How did that make me feel? Do I feel now more tired? Okay, that's a sign that the food you're eating is not working. You probably had a blood sugar spike and now you're dropping, you know, some. There's something off, but we gotta, like, that's the smoke. And we gotta help people see the smoke so that they don't Wait for the fire to then do something different to make a change. Yeah, like, we gotta make a change when there's smoke.

100%. Like, you talk about that smoke. And I just think for, for a lot of people, myself included, we've been fed, you know, no pun intended, but like part of a, you know, special K. Like these, like, you know, serious. I'm not calling them out specifically, but like, you know, part of a balanced breakfast. You know, like Frosted Flakes.

Sure. The food pyramid. Sad.

Which should be opposite.

Yeah, Flip it up.

Flip it up on its head. So I think for a lot of people, it's like, it's not their fault totally. That, like, this is what, you know, you think, you know, a bowl of Frosted Flakes with skim milk and a glass of orange juice. Like, you think that that is a healthy, balanced breakfast. Right. And it's not their fault that that's what they've been taught. But that's, that's the smoke right there. Right. So we got to clear that smoke. So, you know, for us as people in the health amount of space, and you for somebody who's been in the field for much longer than I have, how do we begin to clear that smoke?

Yeah, Like, I, when I look at it now, so I come at it from a different perspective than, let's say, even a nutritionist or, or, or a, you know, a doctor or anything like that. I, I, I really come at. So I'm a chef of 20 years. Right. So I'm a very. Like, how Guy. A lot of times practitioners would get their clients or their, or their, yeah, their, their clients or patients, depending on what they are, and they would diagnose or assess them. And then that patient or client would be like, okay, you're telling me I can't eat this, this, this, and this. And you're telling me that this is going on. This is the chronic stuff that's going on. But how do I do that? Because you just told me all the things I eat, I'm not supposed to be eating or drinking. And so then that's where they bring me in, because I'm the guy that, okay, you can't eat these 10 foods. I'll show you how to do it and still not feel deprived and feel like your life's not, you know, just a spiral into depression, you know, because the truth is we get very attached emotionally to food and our lifestyles, so I'm very much so. So a question like that, I look at it from a not necessarily scientific standpoint but truly, like, okay, what is, what is, what are the things that we can do that daily that really are going to move the needle, that you're going to, that are maybe even simple movements, but you're going to get the most bang for your buck. And I look at it from truly a layman's terms, like, okay, I'm not going to talk about food science around. I'm going to just talk about habits. And there's a handful that a lot of people don't realize they don't do, they don't take the time to do, but they really do move the needle a lot more than people give her the credit for. And then the obvious one, and this is one everyone is talking about more but is sleep. And I even didn't realize this for most of my life is how important this sleep is. But I now get it that this sleep is for me kind of like the first step to everything else. Like if I get good sleep, I make better food choices. When I have bad sleep, I grab the closest junk food I can because I just, I'm just like, I just need calories, right? Whatever. I just, I just, I. My cravings get control over me. When I have good sleep, I'm not as stressed by sudden changes. When I have little sleep, sudden changes really stress me out. I don't blow my top as quicker, you know. And so like there's just, there's just a regulation that happens from that sleep. So that's always the first thing. I'm like, if you're going to focus on any movement around making better decisions for your health, start with sleep. And then it's like, well, and then you can get really granular with that. It's like. But there's, there's a handful of things that right away make some big movements. Like having some, some. Something that shades your room, like darkens your room. It really does work. Like having no light shine through truly works. Not watching screens before you go to like, at least, you know, two, even better, three hours before you go to bed really works. And if you are watch screens, put on some of those, you know, blue light blocking glass. It really works. Having sheets that are more natural fibers because we sweat and sometimes we get too hot so the cooler you can keep your body so not having, making sure your heat turns off, you know, way before you go to bed so you're not overheating. That will help you sleep longer. So these little things are huge. Going to bed, eating, you know, ending your last meal at least by 6 if you're going to bed at 9, you know, things like that. Huge, huge. So now you're getting better sleep. Then the next thing I would focus on is, okay, if you're eating a lot of processed foods, you're drinking a lot of processed drinks, try to cut that out. And I wouldn't try to do it all at once, unless you're you, you are someone who truly does better with that. But I would conquer it one at a time. And the first one I focus on is what you're drinking. Just knock out everything but water at first. And if you have to ease into that, then for every soda, for every juice, for every coffee you drink, you're drinking double that amount of water, right? That's a simple start. Those are huge movements. I, I'll tell this one story just about how water in itself can change. But there was this, this young kid when I used to have a meal delivery service in la. And there was this guy, was my friend who had, who was basically diagnosed with ADD. He was 19 at the time. He was diagnosed with ADD, had never held down a job, really was just one of those guys always bouncing off the wall and really good guy, but, but he smoked, he drank lots of sodas, had really bad acne, and he, he, I hired him for my meal delivery and he started out just washing the dishes and he would see us making all this healthy food and he kind of see what we were doing and he got curious and I didn't, I didn't push anything on him. I waited till he asked. Because when we ask questions, when we're ready to ask questions, that means we're ready to listen, right? All very important when you're talking about, you know, because goes back to. You can't force anyone to change. They've got to, they've got to want the change, right? So I waited till he asked. He asked, he said, hey, I want to, I want to understand what you guys are doing. Like, what are you doing? Why are you doing all that stuff? And, and I said, well, let's, let's make, you know, let's. We talked about. And I was like, let's do one change, you know, if you're, if you're open to it. And he's like, okay, yeah, yeah. I said, so how about instead of drinking the sodas, I see you drinking every day, all you do is cut that out and drink water. That's it. I don't want you to do anything else but that. And he did. He made that change. And we never had Another discussion that was the only one we had. And from him just starting to drink more water. He eventually stopped smoking. He eventually, his skin started to clear out. He eventually got off his meds for ADD because he didn't need them anymore. I mean, this is over time. He then started working out in a gym. And now I see him now, he holds down a job fine. He's a lot older now. This was a while ago, but. But I'm just saying that one change created this ripple effect that knocked everything that was an issue out of the water. Like literally water fixed it for him. And so it can be that simple of a movement and it can extend from there. Like, like, like people talk about exercise. Absolutely. Very important. Move your body. We're in a body. We, we, we, we know. We were bo. And we know that when we die, this body doesn't go with us wherever we go. Whatever happens, I don't know. But I do know that this body doesn't go with me. Right? That is the one thing we know about this life on this planet. So when I hear that and when I look at that, I philosophically go, well, then that means this life is about living in this body. That's what it's about. Whatever that means to someone. And it doesn't, you know, someone might be, well, what about paraplegics? Like, no, that's still living. They're still in a body. And whatever is coming with that, that's what, that's how you're existing on this planet. So own it, you know, use it however you can. If it's only a finger, you can move great. But sometimes it's that restriction that is part of your lesson, right? Sometimes. And sometimes it's the ego working through the ego, whatever it is. But I believe this life is about living in this body. And so I think exercise is extremely important. But we sometimes are jumping to. We're all very harder on ourselves as humans. There's a lot of shame going on. So my whole thing is like, look, if you're gonna do one thing, just go for a walk after eat. That's it. Like, that will do the same thing water did for my friend. That will initiate more activity, guaranteed. Being outdoors, breathing in the air, being in your senses, walking, it's going to help a lot. And once again, a little movement. Another thing that people underestimate or don't put a lot of energy is around is meal planning. Huge movement. So when you meal plan, that basically means you're just, you're determining what you're Eating all week, it helps you create a list for, you know, grocery list. So then now when you go to the grocery store, you're not making emotional purchases, you're buying what's on the list. And I guarantee it's not, you're not gonna see ice cream and chocolate bar and Hostess Tween. It's not gonna be on the list because it's not in the recipe. Right. And then you also get to build that meal plan around your work week. And I think that's a mistake people make is they think, oh, I just need a meal plan. I'm like, no, no, you gotta be looking at your schedule while you meal plan. Because if you have a day where you are on calls, working from nine to five straight, you have no breaks, well then that means you're gonna get off that day and you're gonna be extremely tired. You're going to make poor dinner decisions if you haven't already planned it. So that day to me is a slow cooker day. That's, that's where you throw everything in a slow cooker. In the, in the morning when you're fresh, you set a timer on that slow cooker, you press go and then at 5, it's done. And maybe you, if you're eating vegetables, you throw some, you know, some greens in there that then the heat, the residual heat from the slow cooker will just wilt real quick and you're done. You're literally done. And you eat a home cooked meal where you control the ingredients that you pre plan so there's no decision issues, decision fatigue, things like that. And these are the little movements that will truly affect your health. And notice we hit all of them. We hit sleep, we hit stress, we hit food, and we hit exercise, which are really the four pillars, right?

You knocked it out of the park with that right there. You just covered all four bases, right? Because it's not one without the other. Like each one feeds into the other. Like you can't just focus on sleep and then you're eating like crap and then you're not exercising because in turn that's going to affect your sleep. So it all kind of works synergistically. So I can see that there. I want to jump into pluck. And you know, the product that you've created, you have, show it over there. The organ based seasoning. Where did that idea come from and why did you decide to make an organ based seasoning?

Yeah, it's, it's been quite the journey because I did not grow up eating organ Meats. I was a very picky eater. Like I tell people, like, I didn't have my first taco till I was in college. You know, I mean, like, we used to go to a Mexican restaurant. I grew up in California, so there's a lot of Mexican restaurants. And we would go to one and I would get a hamburger. Like, I was really bad, so didn't grow up with it. And, and as I already shared, I had that journey of kind of learning about food. And, and really, as a chef, I've always been very interested in helping people with their health, but. And also very aware that it's not about tricking people. Well, this is kind of a little bit of a gray area. But so, you know, like right now, keto is huge, right? And you can look at any diet, but what happens is what's the first category of that diet that becomes trending that you start to see in the grocery stores? And when I look back on it, it's like, it's always desserts, always, you know, plant based desserts, Keto desserts. Now you're even seeing carnivore desserts. You're seeing, before that you saw paleo desserts. Before that it was Atkins, and before that it was fat free. You know what I mean? It's always dessert. So it's always playing off of our, our addictions and it's not really changing anything, right? So I've always kind of looked at food like, okay, I, I see people are having ABCD issue. We're all gravitating towards comfort foods. So I wasn't, I was interested, well, how do I then make comfort foods healthier for people? And so I've always kind of looked at food from that lens. And throughout my career, I'm always a little, okay, what's the most nutrient dense food? And at different points of my awareness, it would be one thing and another. And when I first became a chef, it was all about how you prepared things. So like, even if you did grains or beans or, well, for grains and beans, it would be like, okay, did you soak them first? You know, did you help to make it more digestible? Later on it was like cultured vegetables or anything that was naturally fermented so that it would support digestion as well. But then eventually it got to, well, what is the most nutrient dense food? Because I'm still seeing that 93% of Americans are nutrient deficient. So I'm like, well, that's an issue because we're not calorie deficient. So how Do I support people in getting these nutrients when we're clearly we're eating plenty of food where it's like 73% of men and 63% of women are overweight or obese. Right? It's a huge number. And so we need help with the food choices. So that's when I was like, okay, what are the most nutrient dense foods on the planet? And I'm doing some searching, you know, Mr. Google, and it's like, oh, I'm noticing whenever these, these charts come up that there's beef liver on there and it's knocking everything out of the water, even beef, like knocking it out of the water. So I'm like, okay, that's interesting, but there's, there's hurdles here because clearly we know organ meats are. They've been around forever, literally, right? Millions of years. And it's like, we're so what? Why are we not eating them? Well, we have this associated idea, this idea that they're going to be icky. And it's funny, even if people haven't tasted them, they think they're going to be icky, which is fascinating to me. Two, we don't know how to cook them. We've lost the art of cooking them. Most people overcook their organs even when they do it. And so they're like, oh, why is it so this texture, why is it like that? It's because you overcooked it.

What's the best way to cook organs?

I'll share that because that's a great way. Absolutely, I'll share that. And then the third thing is sourcing. And so I was like, how do I solve that? And so what pluck is I took the freeze dried powdered organ meat that you're already finding in capsules, but I combined it with spices, organic spices and herbs to offset that taste. Because I want you to eat your organ meats, I don't want you to just swallow them in capsule form. Because when we swallow things in capsule form, it's really guesswork. You buy these bottles of encapsulated organ meats and they'll say, like, have six capsules. Well, how do they know what you need versus what I need with versus what she needs versus what that child needs. Like, it is impossible to know what everyone's needs are. We're all bio individuals, right? But when you eat it, your body will tell you what it needs. And salt is a perfect example. If I put salt on your tongue, your body will immediately say, oh, give me more. Or it will say, Like, I don't need any more. Like, it's immediate, it's instantaneous, but if you swallow a salt tablet, it's delayed 15, 20 minutes later. You're like, why am I bloated? Oh, I got too much salt. When we swallow that nutrition, it is a guessing game, but when we eat it, our body gives the feedback of what it needs. So I'm all about, like, eat it, it's okay if it's freeze dried, it's okay if it's whole. Doesn't matter to me in that regard. What matters to me is I we need to get in our diet because our food is not as nutritious. So I combine those ingredients and basically solved all those hurdles. And even more importantly is it's not a new habit. So, you know, health, and this was very evident during COVID but health is only as good as we do it, so. And how many people, like, I always think of Suzanne Summers and this is not a joke on or not to knock her down. She's an amazing entrepreneur. She's an amazing businesswoman. Kudos to her. But you might be too young for this, but maybe some listeners will remember she had this thigh thing, this device that you put in your thighs and it's kind of V shaped and you would do, you know, do this kind of thing. It was like Thigh Master or something like that. And it was huge, hugely popular. Like freaking everyone bought it. I was too young to buy it. But I'm just saying, I remember the commercials. I remember you'd see them in garage sales everywhere. And that says everything right there is people bought it, but I guarantee they probably used it a month. And then it was in the garage and later in a garage sale. And same thing with some of those Jane Fonda videos, you know, Jazzercise, all that stuff. And so I just look at all that stuff and I'm like, man, this is like the illusion of health. If we don't do it, it doesn't. I'm not saying the person who created is malicious or trying to. It's not snake oil. It's only snake oil if you don't use it. And so I love the fact that I that this inadvertently is by turning that organ meat back into a food. I'm making it so there's no new habit because we already season our food. All I'm saying is switch out the current season, you use and use this ancestral superfood powder that we've created and put that on your food. And now it's effortless. And when Health is a habit that you do daily and don't have to think about it. And it doesn't matter what emotional state you're in, you're just doing it. Now we've got something, now we've got something you're going to do. No matter if there's Covid 4.0, you're going to do it because it's easy and it's delicious. So that to me is like that's the future. Like we gotta tap that. We gotta tap that because people need help. So I'm grateful that that is just happens to be what pluck is. And, and, and so that is, that is pluck. And that is, it's basically we call it the gateway to getting organs into your diet. I to your point of asking, so what is the best way eating organs? I don't want you to necessarily stop it. Pluck. My goal is to get you to eat whole animal. When we slaughter a grass fed cow, that that's what we're all told to eat, right? 100% grass fed cow. Cow. Right. When we slaughter that cow, the muscle meat is something like 48, something like that. The other 51, 52% is organ. It's, it's like, it's what we call awful. So it's the, it's the bone marrow. It's every part of the animal except the, the. Well, it's including bone but, but it's basically every other part of the animal. And so my whole point is like the same 100% grass fed cow. We're already slaughtering that cow. But where is that other 52 or 50 ish percent of that animal going? And it's really, it's, it's either being designated as not for human consumption. So it's going to pet foods industry or it's going to some other industry or it's getting tossed in many cases.

So.

And then yet we turn around and we spend $50 billion on, on supplements. And I'm like this is mother Nature's supplement. Like this is as mother Nature intended. It's one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. It's bioavailable, meaning you can easily absorb it and yet we're not eating it. So my mission is to support you in getting those other parts of the animal that we're discarding or giving to some other species right now. So what. So pluck is just the beginning point. But I don't want you to stop there. I would love it if people ate organ meats. And so how I Kind of like walk people through. Easing into the organ meats is. So you start with like pluck. Like I said, it's a gateway. Easy, easy start.

And it's delicious.

Thank you. Yeah, I think so too.

And dude, I was telling you, my mom and I, when I first moved down to Austin like two months ago, we went up to the farmer's market. We got some, you know, local grass fed beef, we got some raw goat cheese. We got, and then we seasoned, we made burgers. We seasoned them in pluck and we literally took a bite and looked at each other like, this is, this might be the best burger ever eat. You know, and it, it almost, it makes you not even want to go out to the restaurant. Like, you know, you're eating like something local that is, you know, well sourced and you know, you're getting your, the organs within, within there. And it just tastes delicious. Like, it's like, why would I, why would I go buy meat anywhere else?

You know, as a parent, I love it because my kids, they put on everything and they know what it is. But I talk to other parents who buy pluck and they're like, yeah, I don't even tell my kid what it is, but they love it. And I'm like, it's a win because, you know, that's all you want. You want that for yourself, you want that for your family. You just want to be healthy, you know, you want to have longevity. And I really believe that it's these nutrient dense foods that are going to help us get there. And, and very much so. Whole animal from, from, from my, my investment and yeah. So thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you find it delicious. I, I, I use it, I mean, I put it on everything. I mean, like I said, I didn't grow up eating organ meats and I don't typically cook organ meats, but I eat pluck all the time.

Do you, do you season your, do you eat organs and season them in pluck?

I have, but I still don't gravitate toward it. And one of the reasons is because even though I know, yeah, I want to eat organ is, is, is. I'm a parent of two young kids and I work all day. And so I don't want to be in the kitchen too long because if I am, it takes away from my family time. But also I'm like, I'm kind of done at the end of the day. Right? So I want, I just want quick and easy meals. And, and sometimes if you're really, if you're acclimated and familiar with cooking organs, they can be quick and eat like liver and onion is very quick, but you got to build that. And one thing that you face as parents particularly, well, I was a pick eater, but one thing you face as parents is that you don't want to make a meal and then have someone in your family say, I don't want to eat that.

Right.

You just don't want the headache, you don't want the argument, you don't want the picky eating. You don't want any of it. You just want to, you want at the end of the day everything to be smooth and easy, you know. And so a lot of times, and I've talked to homesteaders, I mean, I've talked to so many people in the industry around this stuff and they're like, yeah, I'll make pate, which is as organ meat in it and no one in my family eat it, so I'll just eat it. I'm like, yeah, that's the reality is we still have those hurdles that I talked about earlier and the kids have them as well. And some people are very sensitive to the taste. So I just gravitate towards easy, easy and delicious. That's what I gravitate towards. But obviously I want it to be healthy. And so, so the three of those together, how do I achieve that? Well, I put pluck on everything. It's just so easy. It's delicious, it makes the food taste better and my kids love it. I mean, I got mymy seven year old, she was excited to eat broccoli because I put pluck on it. It's the first time in the entire world where you get a kid to eat their vegetable because you put organ meats on it. That's unheard of. It's so bizarre. But my mission is to get people to eat whole animals. So to your question, I would ease into. So after pluck, I would then look for some blends that already have organ meats in them. Force of nature does. There's a multitude of companies that have what they call sometimes ancestral blends or primal blends. And they already have some organs in them. So that's always a good step. But then you're locked into. It's gotta be ground meat, you know, that you're using it for, which is great if you're doing spaghetti sauce or I don't know, stews and things like that. But for someone who wants it differently, then I said then after that I would focus on chicken. And it's not because it's necessarily the most nutritious. I think the beef cow is still, is still going to be more nutritious, but it's an easy entry. And the key is we're working on just getting you acclimated to eating organs and their taste. Right. And chicken hearts are very mild. They take on the flavor of whatever you're doing. And what I focus on when I'm trying to get someone to eat organs is I focus on changing the texture to meet what works for their favorable. We all have kind of textures we gravitate towards. Some people are really creamy, some are crispy. Right. It varies. And then we gravitate towards taste. So I'm looking for. And then of course we, we eat with our eyes as well. We order with our eyes, that kind of concept. So I make sure that it doesn't look like a heart. So that chicken heart, I cut it up, I treat it like a mushroom. When you buy chicken hearts, it's usually in a container. There might be 1012 in there, maybe 15. Just like mushrooms. When you buy a box of mushrooms, there's like, you know, 1012 in there. And so I just pull out two, three hearts just like you would a mushroom. Chop them up so now they don't look like heart. And I throw them in whatever I'm making. And I guarantee no one will know because I'm keeping the ratio of the heart smaller or lower than the other meat that's in the muscle meat that's in there. And so that ratio is important, not having it look like an organ to scare anyone off. And then that they don't taste it really key, right? And then after that I would then move on to like tongue, beef tongue. And beef tongue is amazing. Now it's over. It's intimidating because you see it and it looks like a tongue and you're like, ah, it's a tong. But you, what I like to do is kind of take the piss out of things and like have fun with them. So like, like anyone listening to this, you can buy that tongue. First of all, it's going to be from the same 100% grass fed cow that, that rib eye that cost, you know, $26 a pound is. But this will cost a lot less. It's more like six or $7 a pound. So you're saving money. It's more nutritious than that ribeye and it's actually got more flavor. And so that's one thing. And then you can kind of also have fun with it. You can like put it up and take pictures and, you know, share them on your social media. Like you're like Gene Simmons from Kiss or something, you know, like just take the piss out of it, like, don't take it so seriously, but have fun with it. It's like, ah, cow tongue on a human, whatever. And then just find a good recipe. And you can find one on our site either eatpluck.com and we have a recipe section and we have tongue taco recipe. And it's freaking amazing. And once you actually cook it, you start to see how easy it is and how delicious. And if you're intimidated, let's just say a lot of families, a lot of people do taco Tuesdays, right? So whatever meat you're cooking for your taco Tuesday, as long as it's not ground meat. So I'm, I'm just saying like carnitas or even chuck roast or anything like that, basically take that, cook it the same way, but add the tongue to it. So if you're braising it or you're slow cooking it, or even pressure cooking it, put the tongue in there too. You end up kind of pressure cooking it or slow cooking it for a few hours. And once you go to pull out that tongue, you'll see that actually that little, that kind of tough skin on, that's on the outside peels right off. And what's underneath is this really kind of delicious muscle meat. And then chop it all up together. So let's just say you made carnitas, right? So you made pork, you did pork shoulder, pork butt with the tongue. Now you, you chop up the tongue, you chop up the carnitas or string it, whatever you want to do. Pull, pull the pork, whatever, and then combine them really well with the sauce. No one will know it's in there, but they will all go, wow, this is so delicious. And now you've exposed yourself to tongue and once again you're acclimating your palate. Your palate is getting more and more acclimated to these flavors. And now you will find that you actually start to gravitate more towards them. And that's really all you gotta do. You gotta do it long enough for it to become something you now are conditioned to, which then becomes craveable. But you gotta do it long enough to make it craveable. But I guarantee anything you do in life, and you do it long enough, you will. Then it will become effortless. It's just, that is how life is, right? The more we do something, the easier it gets. And same thing Goes with food.

So I know you mentioned you were vegan for a while. You've done. I know. I remember listening to you with, with my guys, Harry and Brad on, on Meat Mafia. You talked about. Was it the Raw Primal?

Yes. Oh my God, that was amazing.

So you've done a, you've tried a couple different diets. You've been in the industry for a long time. What have been the ones that have worked for you the most and what have you kind of, what have you pulled from that and what is your like daily diet nutrition look like on a day to day basis now?

Well, so I have to, I'll have to share then because the Raw Primal really worked the, the best.

Yeah, I'd never heard of that.

It was amazing. So Raw primal is basically you're eating raw animal products, so you really got to source from very quality meats. And you also want to make sure they've been frozen for like 14 days, at least in the freezer. And so we would get like some really good buffalo. A lot of it was ground meat, admittedly, and we would do that. We would do oysters, we would do sashimi style stuff too. Sushi grade fish. We would do raw honey, we did raw dairy. And then of course some, we could do even some vegetables raw, but obviously only the vegetables that you were okay to eat raw. You know what I mean? But primarily what we would do, and we did it for 30 days is the meat raw and some raw dairy as well. And we would do these like, I mean, it fluctuated. But like we did, we would take the raw meat and make almost like these meatballs. And I'd make them small enough because I found if I made them too big, I had a little bit of a gag at first because I'm. I grew up in a household where we knew dinner was ready because the smoke detector went off like, like it was like everything was extremely well cooked. So me going raw, it was really hard because once again, I'm not acclimated to it. My wife was very acclimated. She loves raw meat. I mean, she used to eat it as a kid because she would gravitate, she instinctively would go to it. And so for her it was not a hurdle at all. But we would do this and we both felt amazing. We ended up, I was very carnivorous, meaning I was like eating lots of meat and kind of still not satiated, which was interesting. I ended up learning at one point that I had a, I had, gosh, what's it called, A parasite. I had a Parasite. And once I eradicated that, I wasn't as meat hungry. So that was kind of interesting. But this was before raw primal. Then when I was a raw pimal, I was finding that I actually didn't eat as much. Like I ate less and felt completely satiated. And my digestion was spectacular. My energy was amazing, my sleep was amazing. Like I didn't need any supports. It was so good. But here's the rub, it wasn't practical. And I know there's some people out there that I know. This guy Max, he lives like this and it's like he's making it work. But like we just, we had a young baby at the time and we're like, well, we really can't eat out very much unless we're eating like sushi all the time. But you can't really eat out like that. You can't really go to parties or dinner parties with people because no one else is eating like that. And then with kids, you don't necessarily want to give them raw primal when they're still building their immune systems and they're, you know, they could get sick. So it's like it just wasn't practical. And once again it defaults to the humanity piece. It's like it only works if it works for you. You know what I mean? Like if, like it's the same thing with the health I was talking about. If you don't do it, then it doesn't work. That's why I'm always telling people with pluck, I'm like, do not treat this like nutmeg. Don't use it once a year. Like you got to use it every meal daily to get the benefits. That's the point. So I'm just. Yeah, so that was a big one that really worked, but it just wasn't practical. So I think where I'm at now is it's kind of a hybrid, like, so I probably, I'm definitely eating a more variety of animal based foods. I eat fish, I eat beef, I eat poultry even. And I kind of just try to listen to my body because I'll eat beef like a lot and but then I'll just start craving like chicken thigh. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna listen that I'm just gonna do it, you know, and I'll. I love getting my chickens from Cook's venture because it's a really clean company and I know the CEO is really quality guy and I believe in their products. So that's where I get my chickens and, and you can find them. Well, actually this is, this is news, breaking news breaking. Really. A lot of people don't know this. So when you go to Trader Joe's and you see their pasture raised chicken, that's Cook's Venture.

Ah, okay.

Yeah, a lot of people don't know that.

All right, I'm gonna make my way over to Trader Joe's then.

Yeah, so it's a way to get Cook's Venture if you can't find them in your other, you know, areas. But they're really quality because they focus on breed, they focus on how it's fed, they focus on how long it lives. Really, really good stuff. And so sometimes I crave the chicken stuff, sometimes I'm craving fish, sometimes I crave lamb. I just kind of follow it. There's one thing though that I try, I'm really actually conscious trying to move away from, and that's pork.

I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah. What are your thoughts on pork?

Pork is an interesting one. It's a very sweet meat, naturally. And it's, you know, of course, anyone that eats bacon, I know bacon is consciously sweetened, but it's just, it's just something that, that we, we're all very acclimated to eat, particularly if you eat bacon. Like, and particularly talk carnivores and ketos, they're going crazy on bacon. Right. But here's something that a lot of people either don't know or don't talk about, which is that it does your, your blood, it changes your blood for a few hours. And you can go to like, Wise, Weston A. Price and look up the study they've done. And not a lot of people have studied this. But, but eating it changes your blood. I'm not saying it necessarily changes it permanently, it's just for a few hours. But it is kind of interesting that pork is closest to human meat, which is interesting. It's also in a lot of religions, historically it's one that they don't eat. And I know that that's tied to hygiene and conditions, but I look at cultural foods and historical foods and I kind of look for a little bit more than that. I think that a lot of times they knew stuff that, that we have lost and that sometimes we may not understand why this culture does that thing, but I think it's potentially for deeper reasons than we even think. And I actually think that a lot of religions and cultures don't eat pork for more than just the age old hygiene. Because meat at the time, a lot of people are Getting sick. But I think it's deeper than that. And I wonder sometimes if they're tapped into or they were tapped into, kind of a more of an energetic kind of awareness around that this isn't so good for us. Because when you look at that study, the only way you were able to make pork not change your blood was if you, was. If you basically cured it in some way. So like, or soaked it in like apple cider vinegar or buttermilk, where you did something to it to support the meat in making it maybe more digestible or something. So it's kind of interesting. And that's kind of why I'm trying to move away from it. Because I find the same thing for me was with nuts. Like I find when I start grab, when I start kind of like using foods as a crutch, and those are my go to things when I'm like hungry or like default, I'm always eating this meat because, like, because it's sweet. And you think about pork, if you try to get sausages, I mean, think about everything that any kind of pork product usually gets tied to. Sweet. You notice that it's like, it's always sweet. Even if you buy hot sausage, they still put sugar in it. It's crazy, right? It's just like what it's. And so, and I think it is kind of, it's kind of like the same thing of what hot Cheetos do. It's like they know that if they put like for every, I don't know if like for every five of the Cheetos, if four of them are spicy and one is not, they know that we'll keep eating it because it's like you give your palate a break for a second and then you just want that, you want that hit again, that stimulus again. So there's something about, you know, sweet, salty. You know, as Americans, we really kind of stay in that realm a lot. So I'm always trying to make sure that if I'm defaulting to something and it becomes a crutch, that that's the sign that I'm, I need to move away from it. And like for nuts, sometimes they're getting too much fat, you know, or sometimes I'm filling my hunger or I'm emotionally eating with it, you know, So I just kind of monitor that. And so pork for me became that thing of like, you know, this is too easy and I'm clearly like tapping that sweet part of my palate. And so I need to change that up, you know, and, and so I've been trying to wean myself off of that and I already am not eating as much bacon as I used to. And I really, it's fun. It's. I like kind of keeping myself sharp. It's no different than someone that goes into the gym and it's like they, they mix up their exercise to keep their body guessing and keep, keep it really working and not getting acclimated to one condition. Right. It's no different. I just try to do that with my diet and my food choices as well. However I say that. And my food choices have not diverged from. I'm always whole food, always. Like I, I am not a ultra processed eater guy at all. And I, and I, I haven't even eaten fast food since I was, I mean like over 30, I mean probably about 30 years or more I haven't had it, you know, I mean I, I don't do sodas, you know, things like that. There's certain things that once I wean myself of it, I, I just don't touch. I haven't bought a candy bar in a long, I mean, I like, I don't even remember the last candy bar I had. You know what I mean? Like once you know, it's your job to own that and use your intelligence to move now to the next stage. It, it's like that Angela Maya Angelou quote which is once you, you know, you, you, what is it you do good until you know better and now you do better, you know, I mean it's like once again you only know what you know. But once you know now it's on you if you, if you go backwards. Like once you know this food hurts you, then now you are consciously hurting yourself.

Unfortunately, I think people don't know what it feels like to really like thrive totally. You know, when you're eating whole foods, nutrient dense foods on a daily basis, you're getting enough water, you're getting sunlight, you're getting good sleep, you're cutting out processed foods, you're cutting out sugar, you're cutting out seed oils, you feel freaking amazing. And then when you look at a plate of grass fed beef, you know, maybe got some, like some raw cheese in there, you've got some other good stuff. And then you look at like a KitKat, that food is information, both of those are information. And for me, like I can look at this plate on the right and I can say I'm gonna feel amazing after I eat this and I can look at that food on the left, I'm gonna Say, yeah, this is gonna give me a huge rush of dopamine for. For 12 seconds, and then I'm gonna feel like crap, and I'm gonna sleep terribly. I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna feel groggy, I'm gonna feel achy. You don't realize what it. What that does to you until you've cut it out of your diet for that long.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, you. You have to be willing to feel the pain or feel whatever it does to you. And a lot of people just check out, right? And so here's the simple, simple but hard fix. So it's simple in concept, hard to actually do, but it's. But if you can get past the first four days, it actually gets easier. You cut out for two weeks only. So 14 days, anyone can do this. Cut out any sweets, cut out alcohol, cut out grains, cut out simple carbs, you know, I don't know, pastas, whatever. Any. Any of those kind of starches like that. Potatoes. Cut out all that kind of those starches. And then. And then cut out fruits that are very high in fructose. So, like pineapple, mango. So really try to stick to just some berries. Right. You can still do animal meat. You can still do. You can't do soy because you're cutting out the carbs you're trying to cut out. Even beans you can do. If you really need the beans, you could do a little bit. Or legumes, but you don't need them. No, you don't need them. Exactly. So you're really focused on animal products. You're also cutting out dairy, right?

Even raw dairy?

Yes. Okay, so all you're eating is meat. You're eating fat, but not dairy fat, just any other kind of fat. So you can eat nuts, you can eat tallow, lard, butter, because I don't count the butter as dairy, only because it's mostly fat. And so a lot of people can do that. But try to. If you can cut it out, you'll see even bigger gains. But it's not that big a deal with butter. But cheeses are. And so you cut out kind of. Really what you're doing is you're cutting out all the main potential allergens, and then you're also cutting out the grains and the starches. Okay, so meat fat. And then. And then you're getting.

You said like low, low and low on the GI Scale, fruits.

Yeah. So you're maybe eating. I wouldn't do strawberries because those are too sweet. So you're eating blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries.

Okay.

And you're only eating. You don't want to eat more than a handful, but. And then that's what you do. And you can still have like, like, you could still have like low glycemic, like produce. So you can have as many of that that. That you want. So if you, let's say you want like butternut squash, you can have it. You don't want to do necessarily. You can do sweet potatoes, but once again, you don't want to get. Those can be very sweet because they're. They're kind of manipulated. They're hybridized at this point, so they're very, very ultra sweet. So you just want to be careful of anything that's overly sweet. Right. If you need to, you can do a little stevia. You can still do your coffee if you want, but you're just not putting dairy in it. Okay? Two weeks, eat like that. And what happens is not only do you end up losing weight and inflammation because you cut all these things out, but you also recalibrate your palate. So let's just say a lot of people that do this, they'll enter it drinking two to three glasses of wine a night. They can barely finish a glass after two weeks because they really suddenly now taste how sweet it is. Same thing with fruit. Like, they go to bite an apple and they're like, oh my gosh, it's like candy. That's all you need. You just need to recalibrate. You need, like you said, you need a moment of pulling back from what it is that you're so hooked into or addicted to to then have contrast. So now you know what your body feels without it, and then you move forward from there. Now the hardest part after doing two weeks is not then just throwing it all out the window. You know, you really do want to ease into it. And if you ease into it properly, you'll actually discover what foods are causing these issues because you'll immediately feel bloated or you'll immediately feel like you'll see things pop up, like rashes or something. Because in that 14 days, a lot of things kind of clear up, which is miraculous. I had. So in my meal delivery service back in the day, we offered this to people. So we had just our whole food kind of based plan, but then we had what we call our sugar control, which was exactly what I'm describing. I had this guy. This happened to a lot of people, but I love this story. I had this guy come to Me. And he told me afterwards. So he did the two weeks, and then he said, hey, I just wanted you to know how much this changed me. And I'm like, well, thank you, but what do you mean? He said, well, I had gone to the doctor. I was pre diagnosed. I was diagnosed with prediabetes as a pre diabetic for type 2. And my doctor wanted to put me on meds, and I asked him just to hold off. And I just did your program for two weeks. And then I had him retest me, and I'm no longer pre diabetic. Wow, two weeks. And he said. And then his doctor said, what did you do? And he said, well, I changed the way I eat. And his doctor said, no, really, what did you do? And he said, that doctor is no longer my doctor because he doesn't believe that food will change my health. It's insane. So it works. I mean, but it's hard. The first four days are super hard because most of us are burning. The calories that we're burning is sugar. And so it's almost like you've been feeding your energy with kindling. And when you start to feed it logs, which is the fat, you know, and the protein, that transition is great. It's hard. But you just. A lot of people on keto talk about this for, like, once you get into ketosis, everything's easier. But getting into ketosis is hard because your body's not in ketosis. So it's a huge. A hump. It's a hump to get over. And the same thing with pulling all these foods that, you know, spike your blood sugar so quickly out of your diet.

I wanted to ask you quickly, too. What are your thoughts on, you know, certain vegetables? Because I was a guy who used to eat like, dude, I. Every, every part of my plate. I was like, I would have a huge. I would have spinach and I would have broccoli or cauliflower or kale or, dude, I was like, you know, five to ten servings a day. Like, I thought that's what I. I thought that was what health looked like, right? Like, always trying to get the greens in. Right. I have since, like, the only real vegetables that I really eat are, like, zucchini and cucumbers and, like, mushrooms. And my gut health is the best it's been. My inflammation is so much lower. My brain health is so much better. I'm not getting the brain fog. And I. I don't really know how to explain it because it's so crazy, because I'VE always, you know, we've grown up like, eat your vegetables, Eat your vegetables. So I'm, I'm just curious, what, what's.

Your experience been with that? Well, let me ask you, did you make any other changes but cut those vegetables out? Because that's the one thing. And this is more the point. This is what happens a lot when people go from the standard American diet to then being vegan and they're like, O my God, it's so amazing. It's like, well, yeah, but it, you could have gone omnivore or, or keto or, or carnivore there. It's more the act of you getting off the standard American diet that has made you have all these gains. You could have done any other diet and you would have felt amazing, right? You just, you're getting off that ultra processed food, right? So I, so to that point, I'm just wondering, did you also cut off anything else or was it just the vegetable change?

Yeah, so it was the vegetable change and then also cutting out grains.

So that does beg the question, which of them caused the most gut health, Right? You know, increase, right? I don't know that answer for you, but that, I'm only asking because I think, I think it really is like some people do okay with vegetables, you know what I mean? And if they do, great, you know what I mean? I'm not a guy, I'm not like a, I'm not dogmatic about like, like, what works for me has got to work for you. It's like, I really do believe we are bio individual. There's, I rarely meet anyone where the vegan diet truly works for, but I have met some and they're athletes. It's like, okay, I've never met anyone else. It's a very small percentage, but it's like, and even the people, when I used to have my meal delivered, I would meet so many people that'd be doing plant based. Then of course it was just called vegan. And I would see them and they'd be on it and they would be so overweight and they wouldn't realize, they would think it was healthier. I'm like, but look at you. Your body does not look healthy. You clearly don't look, you know you're not healthy, like because you're having all this other stuff going on. You know what I mean? But they would think that that was the answer and I'm just like, well, just let your body tell you, like if you're feeling good. And yes, you cut out Grains and those vegetables. Then to me, then that is that you don't even need me to answer because your body told you this works. Whatever you did, it works. And that is really ultimately the best lesson is it goes back to what we talked earlier. I want people to get more in touch with me what their body tells them. And the biggest, I think, mistake anyone makes is they get in their head about it. They think like, well, but so. And so, you know, you know, Joe Saladino says to do this and then Huberman says to do that and, and Asprey says to do that, you know, and it's very confusing because in most cases, everyone has got a different message. Huge. And. And. But you know whose message is not confusing is when you just kind of settle into your own body. And I'm always telling people that whatever journey you go down with, your health, do it like we talked about earlier, honor that journey. But, you know, the one person you need to listen to that's going to give you immediate feedback around it is your body. So if you start going plant based and then you suddenly feel like, like bloated and digestive, you got a lot of flatulence going on or whatever, that's your body telling you this ain't working. And if you start getting rashes, this ain't working. If you start having trouble sleeping, this ain't working. And that could be for any diet. I mean, there's a lot of people that they go carnivore and they're like constipated. And I know some people say, well, you just got to do it longer. And that may be true, but you got to listen to your own body. I mean, you got to. For me, what I do is I also don't eat that many vegetables now. And I agree with you, it's very confusing out there. But I will find that I still crave vegetables sometimes. And when I do, I follow that crate, I follow it. But then there's other times where I don't. Now I tend to default to something. I mentioned, Bill Schindler, I think, eats like him. I mentioned him earlier. He and I are kind of on the same page with this, is that, you know, every species out there has got an advantage in some way. Some animals have talons and claws and sharp teeth, and some have very short digestive systems so they can eat very acidic foods. And it's good. Well, we've evolved where a lot of. We really don't have those things. What we do have is a very powerful brain. Right. In a sense, on certain levels, that's our advantage. It allows us to think things, but also gets us in trouble. Right. But what that does in that brain allows us to create tools that then provide the kind of the solution that our internal systems don't have. So like I mentioned earlier, fermenting vegetables, right? Fermenting vegetables is a way of pre digesting and making that vegetable more bioavailable and, and easier on your system.

And what does fermenting mean?

So in our air, we have natural bacteria in our air. And what we're doing, I'm going to probably mess this up, but what we're doing with fermented vegetables is you can kind of culture them in many ways. You can add a culture to it. You can use like whey from, from yogurt, but you can also just do air culturing. And what you're doing, a lot of times they use cabbage and they're taking that green cabbage and they're mashing it till the juices of the cabbage come out and then they're removing the oxygen. So you're putting in like a mason jar and you're submersing the cabbage so that it's in the juices and then you're removing the oxygen from it. So then that way bacteria can't grow. And then you're making sure that the top of it is allowing air to come in and that natural bacteria starts to basically ferment that vegetable. And in many ways it's decomposing the vegetable, right? In a certain regard. But because it's submerged and you're not allowing the oxygen into it, it actually makes that vegetable healthier for you. It makes it more digestible. It, it brings the nutrients that are in, it makes them more accessible. Because that's one of the reasons why a lot of people tell you not to eat vegetables, is because those vegetables and grains and all those other things, they are living organisms and they have protection. One of the reasons why you can eat certain grains like corn and stuff, and then you see them in your poop is because that is their protect. They're protecting themselves because they know if an animal eats them, them, that is how they're going to grow more corn, create more like little vegetable babies, right? Is because that animal is going to eat it. It's not going to penetrate its, its whole or whatever it's eaten, and then it's later going to come out in the feces and then grow, you know, and propagate more whatever it is, grain or whatever seeds or whatever it is, right? So what we're doing is we're, we're tricking that organism to lower its defenses when we ferment. And we're bringing out the nutrients because it does have nutrients. They all, I don't think anyone will disagree with this is produce does have nutrients. It's just we need to figure out how to use our brains to access those nutrients in ways that don't harm us. And fermentation is a perfect example.

I saw a post from somebody who said, I think it was Paul Saladino who said that anything that you can find in like there's nothing in plant food that you can't find in or like plants that you can't find in animals in terms of like vitamins, minerals, nutrients, is that, is that true to your, to your knowledge?

I mean, I'm not, I mean he's, you know, he's. Dr. He's got a very, I mean he's got a very perspective, specific perspective. And I know he's got a brand that he's trying to, you know, grow right, Animal based brand. So he's not going to diverge from that. And you know, I mean that's, that's something you got to be aware of. Anyone is like, well, what is, is there a message around selling their brand? Which for most people it is and it's always important to just remember it's like you're only like, you know, like, like when you, when you see a documentary film, we tend to default to think, well, that's the truth of that event. But it's, it's a lens and I guarantee you're seeing a very specific perspective of that event. There could have been things outside of that lens that would have, have changed your perspective on that event, but you don't see them because someone pointed the camera at that specific perspective. The same thing is happening with diets. You know, Paul Saladino is doing great work and he's got a brand that he's pushing and even he started out with carnivore diet, right? And now he's calling it animal. But like he's adjusting things, right, to either distinguish it or to kind of honor the changes that he's discovered in his own body, which you hope is the case. But I'm just, once again I go back to what's good for one person may not be good for another. And either way, we still all have to unravel from this journey in our food. A lot of times why a family sees the same chronic disease and why they classify it as genetic is because they're all still eating the same way. It's not necessarily genetics that's making them fat. It could just be that they continue on the same path of eating the same food. At least that's what I tend to believe. Believe. And to think that that can't be changed is false. I mean, even you mentioned meat mafia guys. Brett, I mean, Brett. Brett is changing the course of his family by changing how he's eating because he got sick at such a young age. But he was eating the way he was taught to eat. But now that he's eating differently, it's probably going to. If he should have kids down the road, their kids will now completely. He could reverse that genetic, you know, thing that was going on for his family. Around, you know, around. I think it was his heart, I think. Right.

He had a ibs.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. I couldn't remember exactly, but whatever it was, it's like he's potentially shifting that for future generations, but it's got to start somewhere. So. So is. Is meat the only. Well, so here's another question. Is like, like, okay, is muscle meat all we need? Well, if you talk to Bill Schindler, who's an archaeologist, he's a professor of archaeology, he's looking back at historically, how did we eat, right? So we started out as foragers, then we became scavengers, which we did get muscle meat then, but not much changed evolutionary wise. What ultimately changed is when we suddenly got a tool. And it was very rudimentary tool, but it was a tool and it turned us into a predator. Now when you're a scavenger, the predator takes the prize. The prize, the choice, most nutrient dense stuff. They instinctively take the things that are going to give them the most bang for their. Their time and energy in killing that animal. Right. But when we became the predator, now we got that. And you know what it was? It was three things. It was blood, fat and organs. And once we got those, everything evolved, everything changed. Of course, took some time, but that is the point where they're like, that's where things really changed. We got fire around that time, which also helped. But that's what developed into language. It involved more tools. It basically got us to where we are now. And so from that perspective, those carnivores are saying, well, you only need muscle meat. I'm like, well, but we had muscle meat and as scavengers and it still didn't change much. So I'm just a whole animal. I just believe that it's the whole animal that matters. And then there's some people that'll be like, well, but I eat liver every day. I'm like, okay, so if we were a tribe of 32 people and we killed an animal, how many livers are there? There's one. How many hearts are there? There's one. You know, there's two kidneys, but they're small, right? So it's like, how much of the 32 of us are actually getting that specific organ? Probably not much. It's probably going to the people that are sick. It's probably going to the people that are pregnant. It's going to the people that need it the most. But what we are getting is whole animal. We're getting other parts. And, you know, we focus so much on the liver because it is nutrient dense, but the spleen has even, even more iron than the liver does. Right? The heart has Coq 10. Like, as long as we're spreading out that animal and we're intuitively eating and supporting those that need it when they need it, and as long as we're getting in the long run, I think we win. But this idea that those people that are eating ribeye and that's all they're eating. Think about that for a second. If we were ancestrally back in the day and we slaughtered an animal and all we ate was the ribeye of that, that is literally the definition of insanity. The amount of energy and potential death that we went through to kill that animal, and all we ate was the rib eye and we left the rest for buzzards. Like, that's insanity. And yet that's how people are eating. So I'm just. I just don't buy it. Now, like I said, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a scientist. I'm just. I've just been in the field long enough to see that people have very specific motivations around their products. People. People are looking to find a unique voice. And what's more unique than creating a diet named after you, like Adkins did or. Or Joe Saladino or Paul Saldino is doing with animal bait. I mean, everyone is just doing what either fits their paradigm or fits their pocket, their financial pocket, and. Or what is working for them. But I don't buy this one diet for all. I just don't buy it. Even in that society where I'm saying whole animal, even then. Cause even within whole animal. Like, I was just with a friend of mine who. Who's very ancestral, and she gave me all her fatty cuts of meat from her meat share And I was like, why? She's like, because I just find when I get too much fat, fatty meats, it doesn't agree with me. And she's just following her body. I'm like, see, See, everyone is a little different. And what works for one may not work for another. And we have to honor that, that not necessarily principle of like, well, everyone's got to eat this way. It's just, I don't agree with it.

Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway from this conversation is just always to remain curious and don't be so dogmatic about things and don't be so close minded because really, like, you know, you shared multiple stories throughout this podcast of people who, they went and one person just made a simple change. All they did was walk water. And then that just had this domino effect of, you know, make him making good choices, developing good habits. Then you also had somebody who tried the, you know, the, the diet that.

You mentioned for, for two weeks.

And his doctor was like, no, seriously, what did you do? Right. Like, he just was unhappy with where he was at and decided and he was curious on how he could make a change. So I mean, my biggest takeaway from this is just question everything, you know, try different things and you know, just, just listen to your body. Right? Like, and, you know, you don't have to live on just ribeyes and ground beef, even though they are delicious.

I mean. Yeah, and they are. They absolutely. And honestly, like, I will be the first to tell you, I never would have expected when I started down this path as a chef that I would be sitting here talking to you about whole animal and, and organ meats. I trained as a vegan vegetarian chef. And it's not that I was vegan and vegetarian when I trained, but I was very much like, oh, I know this will give me the edge as a chef because there are lots of people out there that are chefs, but they don't know how to make vegan or vegetarian food. Right. So I was looking for the edge as a chef that something that would make me stand out. And look at where it's taken me. I mean, it's like I didn't grow up eating this stuff, but I just instinctively know, know that there our society is not doing this anymore, and I believe we are suffering for it. And look at. And I know this is not a parallel thing. I know there's other things going on, but I find it very fascinating that in our culture, a culture that used to eat brain, that used to eat whole animal, you know, back in the day, when I say ancestrally too, I'm talking about our grandparents. I'm not even talking about that. Long ago, they used to eat more parts of the animal. Animal, like three. Three generations ago. Absolutely. They were eating way more part of the animal. My mom, when she lived in Brooklyn, in freaking the city, right? But they used to go get chickens at live poultry shops. So they would go to the place, there would be living chicken right there in a cage. They pick one, they go away, come back after an hour and a half, and then they would have this warm carcass all ready for them to go take home to cook. That is how intimate they were with their food. And that's just her generation, so she's in her 70s. But. But go back even another step, they're even more intimate with their food. They're eating more whole animal, right? And yet look at our society now. We are now at a place where people are. The chronic illness is so extreme, the amount of dementia, the amount of Alzheimer's. And I just have to wonder, is this connected to the fact that we don't eat brain anymore? Because there's this whole concept of like, supports like. And it's true. If you look at it from a nutritional standpoint, the nutrition that's in heart of that animal, axio is the nutrition that will help our heart. Coq 10 is in heart, right? The nutrition that's in the liver will help our liver. The nutrition that's in the brain will help our brain. And I was talking to someone actually just today who eats brain and they've eaten a long time in their life. And he is absolutely convinced. His family is scientists even, who just happen to have grown up eating very whole animal. And he is absolutely convinced that the reason why we're seeing so many of these health issues is because we're not eating these things. Because he's like, when I eat brain, I feel a focus that I never feel otherwise.

Wow.

And that says something to me. And so that's why I'm just like, look, I'm shocked as you are that I'm talking like this, but I truly believe in my heart of heart and all we got. And I'll stop here because I know I'm going off, but like, like, all we have is our instincts, okay? No matter what faith you believe in, I do believe in something bigger than us, okay? And I believe that it's our instincts that are our touch point to that bigger thing. And whether it's God, whatever you want to call it, I believe that it's our instincts that are unique to us. And it's in a sense, that bigger presence speaking to us of what will help us. It's like the angel who's got your back kind of concept, right? So when you get these instincts, it's now your choice. Just like with food, it's your choice of do you listen or do you not listen? Your choice. But you'll notice that you're going to keep getting these instincts. I just don't. This doesn't feel right. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to stay with this person. It just doesn't feel right. I'm going to stay with this person. Right? These are people in destructive relationships. There's people that are making destructive food choices. Like, you just keep getting these instincts. And I truly have learned in my life, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that my instincts are godly and that it is my job to listen to them. So when I get them, I listen and I really listen and I let them make the decision, the next decision. And so, yeah, I don't have the science to tell you, oh, a whole animal will solve everything. But I just instinctively feel. I feel so strongly that this is what we are missing and that this will solve a lot. And in many ways, it could even heal the world. And how it could do that is that if you feel better, if I can get you to feel better in your body. We treat people how we feel. So if you feel better in your body, then now you're treating people better. And once we start treating people better, now we have a better world. And now we have people that are actually listening to each other, respect each other. And now maybe we even have more curiosity instead. This kind of like straight line line of like, you don't believe what I believe, then f you. You know what I mean? It's like. Like we can change the world, but we have to first take. We have to feel like we have to focus on our health because our health will dictate every next decision.

That's a mic drop right there.

That's.

That's good, dude. I just want to say thank you for everything that you brought to the table today. Again, no pun intended. I really appreciate all that you're doing. I love your product. I love the mission behind it. When you see, when you. When you talk about pluck, when you think about the vision, where do you see it in five years, 10 years and beyond?

I want to. I want to do even more whole Animals, so, so I want to, I want to provide simple, delicious ways for people to get even more of that animal. I would love to get access to brain even. I want to make it like, you know how they're taking mushrooms basically, and they're like, they're like, well, this mushroom is for brain and this one is for virility. That like, I want to do that. But whole animal and, and just truly make it accessible and delicious. Because that's really the hurdle. Like, I can talk till I'm blue in the face, like, gotta eat more whole animal. But no one's gonna do it if it's not easy and it doesn't fit their lifestyle. Just like I'm not doing raw primal anymore, right? If it doesn't fit, if it's not practical, we're not gonna do it for very long. And so that is my mission is to truly to not only hit more parts of the animal, make them more accessible to people, but also hit other, other other types of animals. So do it for chickens, fish, buffalo, elk. You know what? Just hit more animals. Because it's also diversity of species that I think that will is also missing from our diet.

I love that.

Dude.

This has been an incredible conversation. Thanks so much for chopping it up with me today. I got one question for you and that's a question I ask all my guests. This is the Pure Ambition podcast.

When you hear those words, pure ambition.

Ambition, what does that mean to you and how does it apply to your daily life?

It's the path that has heart. Whatever path that has heart, follow that. That's, that's, that's pure to me and it's ambition. It's like you, you don't stay curious. Stay on the path that has heart.

I love it, man. James, appreciate all that you do. If people want to connect with you, they want to find out more about pluck. If they want to buy some. Where are you hanging out? Where can they get it?

Eat pluck dot com. We're also on Amazon. Just search it. Plucks. You can put pluck seasoning, organ based seasoning. It will pop up. Find us on socials at Eat Pluck and. And then if you want to find me personally, I'm at Chef Jamesbury. Love it.

Appreciate it, man.

Thank you. Dom, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you guys so much for tuning in to today's episode. I wanted to give you all a heads up too that I launched a free commute community on the Up Space app where you can join, ask me questions, connect with like minded individuals. Follow my four week running and strength training program that has some dedicated mobility sessions in there as well so that we can all optimize our health and fitness together. So if you're interested, head over to the App Store, download the Upspace app and join the Pure Ambition community today. Love you guys and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.

It.