The Most Nutrient Dense Food You’re Probably Not Eating | James Barry

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey everybody. Welcome to today's show. I've got chef James Berry on the show today. It's going to be a great show. You know, we're all about building resilience. I think that should be the focus as opposed to trying to run and hide or avoid all the germs and all the toxins and all the EMFs and all the chemtrails and all the things. I mean, do what you can. I'm all about trying to do a good air purifier in your home. I'm all about getting the mercury fillings out of your teeth and quit swallowing mercury every time you swallow your saliva. I'm all about trying to avoid the glyphosate. Get bio organic. Obviously, we try to do the best we can, but it can get to be overwhelming. I mean, someone just sent me a video the other day about a regular toothbrush. How many microplastic fibers are coming off the bristles of your toothbrush into your gum line? I mean, it's literally everywhere you look. I mean, air pollution, I just read an article on air pollution and, and the toxins in that and, and, and cardiovascular disease causing heart attacks, basically. And I mean, what can you do outside in the air? I mean, you're gonna move to a whole pristine wilderness environment maybe, but most of us, that's not practical. So do the best you can with avoiding the germ and toxin. But I would not make that your number one focus. For me personally, it's building resiliency in the body and in the mind. And we've talked about that plenty on other shows how, how resilient the physical body can be when your mind is lined up with truth. But we don't want to ignore the straight up physical stuff either. Obviously that's the food mostly. And the food's not what it used to be. And I've talked about this ad nauseam. Our food, mineral and vitamin and phytonutrient, all the trace minerals, those values have just declined exponentially downward over the last hundred years since modern food started coming onto the scene. And your average American eats nothing but modern processed food. But even if you're eating organic at the grocery store, that apple was probably picked somewhere south of here. And it was picked two weeks early, three weeks early, that strawberry. Unless you're blessed enough to live in a temperate climate where you can grow all these things year round. Otherwise the nutrient value is really depleted because the soil depleted. We've talked about that before. Regenerative farmers are trying to bring that soil Microbe soil life back. And when they do that, nutrition goes up in the, in the produce and in the grass that the cows are eating. But we're in this early stage of getting regenerative farms back on the mainstream where more people have access to it. So a great way to bridge that gap is organ meats. And an even greater, better, easier, but way to bridge that gap is pluck. And that's a, basically that's in a, like a salt shaker, a spice shaker. You just spice your food with these different varieties of spices that have blended into them. Freeze dried organ meats from grass fed cows. Talk about a powerhouse of nutrition. So we're going to talk about that today, but we're also going to talk about a man's journey and his awakening to some of this truth because he was a chef for 20 plus years and just recently came into some of these understandings. So we're going to hear the whole story. And I love highlighting these stories for y' all because it's a positive, uplifting thing. There's so many people out there that are waking up to truth and walking in it for the benefit of others, not just for their own self centeredness. That's where we've got into this whole mess is being so self centered, self protective, all about my bank account and my well being and my, my everything. And there's people that have woken up to the fact that there's got to be a better way of how to love our neighbor, still make a profit to pay your bills and feed your kids. But there's a way to do things righteously. And when we find those people, we love to highlight them to encourage y' all and so you can support them too. So Chef James Barry, welcome to the show. Appreciate you coming on. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Oh, thank you, Dr. Ben. It's, it's a pleasure as always. I love, I love when we run into each other at conferences and, and thank you for that amazing commercial. I think we're done go out by Pluck. We're good. Yeah. [00:04:15] Speaker A: And by the way, I forgot to mention you can buy Pluck here at the Merck if you live locally here in Lubbock. We've got it. We carry that. But also E. Pluck.com is a website. But James, before we get into that, really I do want to just give you an opportunity to share your anything on your heart number one for sure. And we'll get into Pluck and all the amazing power pack nutrition that's in Pluck, but just your journey as a Chef. And even before that, just a little bit of your, your story, your testimony. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's been quite the journey. You know, I did. Maybe there's people out there that feel very challenged to eat organ meats because they didn't grow up with them. Well, I wanted you to know I'm, I'm you because I did not grow up eating organ meats. I, if anything, grew up eating a very standard American diet. I, I, I always joke, and this is more than a joke, it is truth. But, but it's a joke too, because my mom, I want to be kind to her, but we knew dinner was ready because the smoke detector went off. That, that's, that's how my household was. Everything was bland, cris. And, you know, and like I said, you know, standard. So I would say that I was a very picky eater and really did not step into being more adventurous until I went into culinary school. Now why I went into culinary school is it took me a while to really listen to my heart around that. So I loved cooking from around the age of 7 on up. When I was in junior high, I took a culinary class that I loved. I excelled at it. In fact, I loved it so much, my mom said, can you please let him take it the after school version of it too? So I did it in school and then after school, so I did twice. But I love it so much. And that teacher for that class really is someone I still carry in my heart, just where she supported that passion. But for some reason, I never saw cooking as a career. Uh, and I think it's, you know, if people are younger listening, this, you may not remember, but those of us that are older may remember. You know, back in the day, there was no celebrity chef. You know, it was, it was what, basically PBS was the one show that had, you know, a chef on it. And it was Julia Childs. She was the one chef that was on there. And maybe the Frugal Gourmet, I don't know. But there was, there really wasn't this sense of like, oh, become a chef and go rule the world like it is now. So I just didn't see it as a career. I, I didn't want to own a restaurant and work nights and be away from my family or, you know, this is at 12. I'm thinking this. So I didn't have a family then, but either way, I was thinking about the future. And I was thinking to myself, I don't want that for my future. I don't want working nights So I just did as a hobby. [00:07:10] Speaker A: And. [00:07:11] Speaker B: And then 911 happened. And that really, you know, that's our generation's Pearl Harbor. And it just. It really made me question purpose, why I was here on this planet. And this was in my early 30s. And I just. I audited my life. And in the process of that, I looked back at my childhood and I said, what did I love then? Because I think when we're children, it's pure, you know, what we're passionate about. What really excites us, I think, is, in my opinion, closest to our core. And so I identified the cooking and I said, well, let me do some new research. You know, we live in a different world now. What would that mean to be. You know, have that be my career? And I was already living in Los Angeles. I was already kind of involved in the entertainment business. And I really did like that world. The idea of taking a. An idea and materializing it and something someone could touch, watch, or. Or enjoy, participate in. And I thought, well, what if I was a private chef? And so I started looking at the options to become that, because I really. I. I really wanted to help people. I. I was aware of my own issues with food growing up, and I had really come to think that that was. That was the. The best way to help someone is. Is through their health, maybe similar to you. I mean, I think that's hopefully what motivates someone to become a doctor, is that we can. If we can help people feel better in their body, then they treat other people better, and we create a better world. That's kind of the progression of thought I had around that. And so I went back to culinary or I went to culinary school, got out and talk about, you know, alignment. I clearly had tapped something because prior to going to culinary school, I was working as an actor and trying to get that. That career going. And I would work very hard, and I would maybe get back 20%, maybe. And when I went to culinary school, still worked hard, but I got back 200%. It was an amazing period of my life where I would literally think it, I want to cook for a band. And no joke, a week, two weeks later, I would get a call out of the blue, hey, we're looking for a chef to come on the Vans Warp tour. Do you have any availability? I don't even know how some of these people would find me, but I would just get. I was just manifesting things left and right. And so that really. That was an incredible period. But it didn't make me think, okay, I'm on the right path here. Like this is, this is the heart path. But I'll pause for a second if you have any questions. [00:10:07] Speaker A: No, that's great. I just want to point out to the audience how cool it is when, you know, how I would see that is God put that in you, this, this gifting and calling and it just naturally flows out of you. And that was flowing out of you early in your youth and who knows, your own thoughts, but obviously the world too, I'm sure, helped influence and shape a path. But then boom, having that moment where you go back to your true, true you, the true identity, you know, what God put in you, that naturally flows out of you. So that's in all of us guys, I think. And we, we've got to trust that we can walk in that thing and there'll be provision, there'll be doors will open, you know, connections will be made. And that's kind of what I'm hearing in your, in your story. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and if I skip ahead even, because I, I, I did cook for some very big celebrities. Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Gerard Butler, Barbara Streisand, even briefly. You know, I mean my, my resume was amazing, but yet I still wasn't satisfied. I kept feeling like, you know, I'm, I'm not here just to help that 1%, you know, I feel like I'm here to help the 99%. And so I, I left working for Tom Cruise. I started a meal delivery service. And then that is a whole other story of just killing me because I didn't really know how to run a business. I knew how to cook, but I didn't know how to run a business. And so I just muscle through that thing, grew that business for eight years and my health was taxed. I had to get out of that. And I sold it for very little money, but was more focused on just getting my health back and, and, and really giving more time to the family we were creating because we just had my, our second daughter when, when I sold that company. And what's interesting, and this is where I really, really feel like God came down and touched me, is so during that time when I was, I basically was a stay at home dad for about four years, getting my health back, sleeping a lot, you know, starting to work out again, you know, really being more mindful of how I spent my time and very much committing to my house, my family and the household. I got an idea and that idea was that so as a chef, I'd always been about Flavor. I love flavoring things. But now that I'm a father to two young women, I thought to myself, you know, this isn't a game. We're not. Our world's not as clean. It's toxic. As you mentioned early on, the food that we are being sold is not as nutrient dense as it used to be. You know, the definition of people, the way people sell us, health doesn't feel aligned with how what I feel health should be. And, and I just thought to myself, you know, what is the most nutrient dense food? Like, what are the foods that are going to give us the biggest bang for our buck? And I, and I'd studied or I had learned about organ meats when I was in corner school, but I never applied them. Not to any of the celebrities I worked with, not even really to my own diet, really. But I knew about them. And so then I started doing more of a deep dive. Like, what's going on? Like, if these things are so nutrient dense, why aren't people eating them? And I kind of identified, okay, there's three main hurdles. People think they're gross, whether they've tasted them or not. They just think they're gross. Two is they don't know how to cook them. And then three is there's a. They struggle with sourcing them. And I would say the fourth is that they might know to take them and they're taking them in supplement form, but they're inconsistent with that. And then supplements, in my judgment, should be an after. Like, that should be a second or third step, not your first step. I believe food should always be the first step because we get. We get certain inputs from food that you cannot get from a capsule or a tablet. You know, one of them being the communication pathway that happens within your own body. When I put salt on your tongue, your body reacts to it. Maybe the first time it tastes good, the third time, not so much. And the fourth time, you probably will slug me before you let me put more salt in your mouth, right? Your body has a visceral reaction to what it's being given. And that's a communication point that's been developed for hundreds of thousands of years. When we take a salt tablet, we get no communication. You just swallow that thing and no response. Maybe 30 minutes later, you feel bloated and you. Maybe you can't even remember why you feel bloated. And you're like, oh, wait, wait, oh, I got too much salt. So. So I'm all about capsules and supplements have their place, but let's first focus on the food. So that was my motivation for trying to figure it out. And, and, and that's where I really feel like God stepped in because I, I came up with the idea for Pluck which is basically taking freeze dried and powdered organ meats that already existed on the market, but turning it back into food. Because the only way you were people really getting organ meats is if you ate them, which is very few people, or if you did capsules, that was it. Just two options. And I was like, we're missing something there. First of all, you can't give, you know, kids capsules really. And then if you open them up, they're pretty, they do taste pretty strong because when you freeze dry them, they get really intense. So I, I, I, I had this idea, you know, what if I make them taste good and, and they're still preserved? You know, you can put it on your, your counter, you can put in your drawer and it's not going to go bad and you can literally just sprinkle it on anything you eat. And you know, that, that, that blew me away when, when I came up with that because I was shocked to be coming out with a new food that's not a laboratory made food in the year 2000. Because I came out with this around 2000. We're about six years old as a company and I conceived of about two years before that. So you know, around 2015. Well, maybe 16 is when I conceived of it, you know, so to come up with a real food that's not laboratory made, that just feels like godly, you know, because it's, this doesn't happen anymore and everything's synthetic these days if it's new. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's incredible. Well, what, give some examples of the different flavors. And so what'd you start with? What have you added more recently as far as your product line? [00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, so the focus has always been, and it will continue to be about how do I support my kids, myself, our families, our individuals into getting these very nutrient dense foods into their diet easily and deliciously. Because if it's not easy and delicious, it's not sustainable. That's basically what I've come to in my 22 years as a chef. And so I started out with one product and that's our original and that's to this day still our bestseller. It's the yellow container. And that one is just a seasoning that I had used a lot as a chef. It was my tried and true kind of all purpose seasoning. And so I stepped you know, forward. My best foot forward. And. And then we, a few years later, we came out with what's called Southwest, which is more of kind of a barbecuey flavor. It's. We then came out with zesty garlic, which I really love that blend, not only because it tastes delicious, but because it has no nightshades and no seeds for anyone that's sensitive to that stuff. And that's a really. If anyone is aip, which is usually those people are sensitive, those two things. AIP flavors are typically turmeric centric. So to come out with a seasoning that doesn't have turmeric in it, that's AIP is incredible. So that's a favorite of mine. And then from there we kept going. And recently we, we've come out with habanero lime for the people that really like spicy. That just takes it to a whole other spice level. And then we have chimichurri, which is one of my favorite flavor profiles. When as a chef, I was always making chimichurri sauce. That's a Latin herby sauce. And what's really cool about this seasoning is it, it really is the fastest way you can make chimichurri. So you can either sprinkle chimichurri seasoning on your food, on your steak, or you can put it in a bowl and then add olive oil to it. And you right away, in 30 seconds, 15 seconds, you have chimichurri sauce. That's how easy it is. But. And then we recently came out with our, what I think is game changing one, which is just a salt replacement. We call it lion salt, and it's just salt and organs. And it doesn't taste like organs. It's, it's. It adds no flavor. It's just salt with maybe a little bit more depth than most salt would have. And what's so cool about this product is that if you are someone who just needs to pull back a little bit on your salt, well, a, this has less salt. You could literally use the same, you know, half teaspoon of this compared to other salt. It's going to have less salt because it's. It's 40% organ meats and 60% salt. So right, right there, it's going to be less salt than anything else out there, but then you're also getting the amazing nutrients from seven organs. So in the lion salt, we have the five organs that's in all of our blends. Liver, heart, kidney, spleen, pancreas. But we also have brain and we have collagen. So you're getting seven organs in lion salt. So I don't know. For my money, that one's a really cool one to add to your daily use. And then we have what we call our category of pures, and those are just the organs. No salt, no seasonings. We have pure organs, which is the five organs I mentioned. Then we have brains, separate, and those ones are more precision. If, let's say someone's working with you and you say, hey, you know, you're anemic, we need to, we need to really get some organ meats in you. And we, and I want you to do this daily, and I want to have controlled amounts. Well, then the pures are the, are the ones for you to do. And with those 1, 1 teaspoon of pure is equal to 2 ounces of organs. So you, you can measure it and talk about something that moves the health needle really fast. Those pures, if you're, if you're anemic or you got something going on, like low B12, some those, just watch out because in a week, you'll be right where you need to be. You know, it moves fast because organ meats are so nutrient dense and they're so absorbable. They are truly, truly God's multivitamin. And, and so they are very effective. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Well, maybe talk a little bit about that nutrient profile in the organ meats. You know, I tell people they can just do a quick Internet search. What's the best food source for B12? What's the best food source for copper, for iron, for almost saying B vitamin? And beef liver is going to be basically in your first or second on the list of the different foods that have all these things. I mean, beef liver comes up all the time for almost every nutrient. So it is a powerhouse for a multivitamin. And, guys, this is what our ancestors took. You know, some tribes in particular, Weston Price found, would preferentially give these organ meats to the women of childbearing age because of that nutrient profile that they knew those mamas would make healthy babies that survived that vulnerable first year, first two years, until they could start to eat some of that on their own. So it's just been a known ancestral wisdom that these organ meats are where it's at as far as the nutrient profile goes. But, James, can you speak to that a little bit about. And I know you have it on your website, just all the micrograms and milligrams of all the different vitamins. I mean, guys, literally, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, I'm looking at his website right now, which again is eatpluck.com but phosphorus and zinc. Can you just speak to the multivitamin kind of nature of the organ meats? [00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the way I, the easiest way I like to explain it because, because I, I always find it interesting when we try to break things down into vitamins. I get a little nervous about that as a chef because I, I worry sometimes that we are taking, we're moving away from the whole, and we're just breaking isolates. Right? And I know you talk about this too, because when we focus on just one thing, let's say protein, right? Then when people just focus on protein, then it reduces the whole down to a chicken breast with no skin, grilled, boneless. Right? And, and, and so what happens is people start eating. A lot of us define health as what we've removed. So, oh, I don't eat sugar, I don't drink alcohol. Right. We talk like that way, but we don't as much look at, well, what then? What, what are you eating? Like, what is it you're doing then? And, and what Any of us that are old enough know that when, for a long time health was a grilled chicken breast, skinless, boneless, steamed vegetables, and some kind of baked potato or sweet potato, that was the definition of a healthy plate. And when I look at that, I say, well, we're missing a lot there. And, and what people experience physically is they find that they start eating this way, they might still have cravings, they might divert a little bit for, but for the most part, they try to stay true to that type of diet. But then they get tested and they still find that they're missing nutrients. And then what happens is instead of then going back, well, what did I pull out of the food I'm eating? They, they just move forward and they go, okay, what supplements should I take? And we get stuck in this cycle of chasing that isolated vitamin or mineral. And so the way I like to talk about. So first of all, just know that what science tells us we need in a prenatal, right? So what we need to create life, it's all in organize everything that the prenatal lists. It's all in organize from the folate to the choline to the copper to the, the, the iron, the, the vitamin A, B, even C is, is, can be found in spleen D, you can get from vitamin D, you can get from lard, from bacon. You know, so there's so many, so many nutrients when you get the whole animal. And I like to also talk about. And this is why I get nervous, is when people. Because, because we, we kind of. I'm sure you see this in your practice all the time. We're kind of all chasing that magic pill. So what happens is we're like, oh, I'm. I should eat meat. I'm supposed to eat steak, right? Or, or actually, I take that back, I'm supposed to eat beef. And then they only eat steak. And then. And then it becomes, oh, I'm supposed to eat organ meats. And then they only eat liver. And I'm, I'm a big, big fan of like, let's, let's go. Let's go backwards. Because never ever in the history of humankind have we eaten the way we are right now, where we are just eating parts of an animal, specifically parts that have been stripped. Like I mentioned with the chicken breast and the no skin and the no bone and these isolates. And then it extends even to the powders, right? They're all isolate powders. The proteins that people are getting in bars, they're isolates. And we're moving away from this whole concept and then wondering why we're so nutrient deficient. And so I like to really emphasize as much of the animal as possible. And that's how we are at pluck. Like, we're not stopping at the liver, the heart, the kidney, the spleen, the pancreas. We're getting you the brain up. Coming up soon are going to be the testes. Coming up even sooner will be the frt, which is the female reproductive organs from the cow. We're also going to be trying to get lung in the product. We're going to try to get bone marrow. Like, we're trying to get as much of the product as possible of that animal as we can, the whole animal into your diet. We're going to have a sardine product. It's going to be the entire sardine, not just the filet, but the head, the bones, everything. We're going to have a poultry product that, you know, all those parts that come out, you know, come in. So when you buy a whole chicken, it's the giblets, it's the neck, the, the gizzard, the liver, and the heart. Those four things people usually toss if they even get a whole chicken. And so we're gonna take all the entire giblets, maybe even the, the, the feet or the chicken paws, and we're gonna put those in a seasoning as well. So we're going to have a poultry blend eventually, too. So these are all things that we're working on. But that's our goal is, is let's move away from these isolated parts and get back to that whole eating. Because as you mentioned ancestrally, if we were a tribe, this is usually how it would play out. We would, the warriors would go out to hunt. They would maybe be, you know, five or more people, people, they would fast while they went hunting. Because fasting, if anyone's fasted, it sharpens your skills, particularly when you're hunting. You want to be sharp, you want to, your hearing wants to be intensified, your eyesight, you want to be really sharp. And so they make the kill and now they need to replenish their stores. And so what are they going to eat first? Well, they're going to eat something that can be eaten raw safely, right away. It's either going to be the heart or it's going to be the liver. And it's also a way to honor the animal's life that you just took. So usually they would do the heart for the, in that case. Right. But both of those organs were seen as life giving organs. And so that means once they've, you know, dressed the animal and they're carrying it back to the village, there, there was no heart or liver, whichever they ate. So now what, what do you give these pregnant people? What do you give them? What, what happened to that super food organ? And here's something maybe a lot of people don't know. Spleen, for example, has higher heme iron than, than, than liver does, you know, pancreas, has natural digestive enzymes. The heart, if it's still available, has coenzyme Q10 which is going to, you know, support, support basically energy, function, you know, so, so there's, there's so much more than just the isolated parts. And I just welcome everyone, whether you're using pluck or not, just to start looking at your diet and going, well, am I, what have I removed and am I eating these isolates? The chef James is talking about? Am I just eating the breast? Well, one thing you could do is, okay, maybe next time instead of just getting that chicken breast, get it with skin on. You can still find boneless with skin on, or get it with bone and skin and cook it that way. And then maybe next time get the thigh because the thigh is more nutritious. And then once you've done that, you're getting, you know, you're building your taste for it. Get the whole, the whole chicken and cook that every now and then. Because when you cook the whole chicken. Not only do you get to pull from all the different parts, but then once you are done with and you just have the carcass, you get to turn that into bone broth and then get even more from that purchase, get even more nutrients that you would not have gotten if you just ate the meat. So that's what. That's what I'm trying to help and support people in doing. [00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, it reminds me of this study. I read a couple different studies over the past few years, and this is more related to plant compounds. They were trying to identify all the different nutrients. And, you know, there's like a. Roughly 150. When you. All the vitamins, all the minerals, all the trace minerals, you add them all up, you know, 70 plus probably trace minerals and another couple dozen vitamins. But it was in that 100, 150 range. You know, some of the phytonutrients, salvesterol is one the different bioflavonoids and vitamin C. But basically it was 150 named nutrients in the food out of what they were estimating 50 to 80,000 other nutrients in the food that we haven't even named and the synergistic ability of those things to work together here. We always talk about whole food versions of vitamin C versus just your synthetic ascorbic acid as being the ascorbic acid just being the outer shell of the car versus all the inner working parts of the car, the steering wheel, the brakes, the transmission, all the things in that whole food. You have all the bioflavonoids, all the. You have tyrosine, you have copper in the middle of that tyrosine. I mean, it's a whole food versus just that outer shell, similar to what you're talking about with the animals. You know, we value the muscle meat. Give me the T bone or the filet mignon. And we've. We've thrown the organ meats to the dogs where ancestrally the. The organ meats were valued and the muscle meat was probably fed to the dogs a little bit. Were completely upside down. Go. Go ahead. If you're about to. [00:32:21] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna say, I mean, 100. And it's interesting if you go to an indigenous culture these days, and I know Mary Ruddock, for example, she travels and spends time with different tribes. The. They'll. They'll eat the whole. Let's say the whole goat. And the. The tribe leader will get, for example, the eyes. So there's two eyes, and the tribe leader will get both of them sometimes. And if you're visiting, you might get offered one of the eyes. And it's a prized, prized piece of that goat that they do not take lightly. And it just goes to show you that, that, you know, I was just in Mexico City and, you know, we think of Barbacoa, for example, as just the meat here in the US but in Mexico City, when on the streets, when it's cooked, you know, the way it traditionally they. What the guy does that was doing it on the streets is he cooks the entire goat. Organs, bones, everything gets cooked down and then they do have just the meat. But it's. Keep in mind, it's not like when you eat the whole animal, you're getting connective tissues, you know, collagen. You're getting all this stuff mixed in. You don't need to take, you know, collagen, isolate. It's all in there. And then if you want them to add the organs, they've got them all grinded up, cooked, and they just add them almost like a topper. Because that's the other thing. You know, this idea that we need to treat organs like we do muscle meat is just false. Like, no, in no world do you have to sit and eat or, you know, liver for dinner. It's not really meant to be this thing that we do once a year or once a month, you know. Yeah, you get a, you, you get a blast full of nutrients when you eat it. But, you know, it's, it's meant to be in like little bits added throughout, you know, your time. And that's why I'm a big advocate. That's why I love pluck. The way it is is because it's, it's about micro dosing those organ daily. So I'm more interested in how often you do something than how much of it you do. Because to me, that's what's going to move the needle. Most hunters, they'll have the organ that. Most of them, they keep the organs in the refrigerator for all year. They sometimes don't get to them. And if they do get to them, they eat them all at once because they're so intimidating, right? Because particularly, it doesn't matter what animal, they're usually pretty, pretty large. And I always tell people, look, leave it frozen. And then when you want, when you're having any type of ground meat, whether it's turkey, lamb, chicken, does not matter what species, just anything ground, pull out that frozen liver and grate it with a cheese grater. Just grate it right into that ground Meat. If you have a pound of meat, it's about a tablespoon to 2 tablespoons max. You know, mix it in really well and then put that frozen liver right back in your refrigerator and then you're getting a little bit of. Every time you eat that ground meat, which is for most people, it's going to be weekly, if not bi weekly. So. Yeah, I'm a big fan of like pacing yourself. Don't. It's not about how much you do, it's how often you do it. And then you said something that's really important that you know, we, we have to give God nature credit for this because, you know, he did it right. Like so when we get these, when we get nutrients from food, it's got its co. Factors, it's got the, the minerals that support the mineral absorption. So they're not isolated, it's in a hole. So for example, B vitamins. Yeah. If you're taking B vitamins, your doctor usually tells you, oh, eat that with, you know, take that with food. And they do that because they are fat soluble vitamins. So you need, you need some kind of food or fat to, to absorb it. Well, when you're eating it as a real food, when you're eating it as an organ meat, it is a, it already has the fat. It is a food. You don't have to worry about adding something new. God got it right originally. So I'm, I am a big fan of like, let's start getting as many nutrients as you can from the whole animal. And then if you work with Dr. Ben and you find that you're, you know, you're deficient somewhere, no problem. Then, you know, take the supplement. But first get it from the food. And I just see people skipping that step. They, they take the isolated food, oh, I'm only eating ribeye, or I'm only eating the chicken breast, then there's something wrong and then they keep going to the next, you know, modern solution and they, and they're not really looking at the, the kind of root cause which is because they're not eating the whole grain or the whole vegetable or the, or the whole animal. They're just, they're just getting isolated pieces. [00:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Amen. God got it right the first time he put it all in there. We just got to trust it and get it into us. That story about the goat eyeball reminded me of Wes Nay Price's book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, where he documented his findings over 10 years traveling the world, living with all these ancestral tribes but one of the stories he talks about these Canadian explorers, these two men, I think they were surveying part of the Canadian wilderness for maybe mining company or something. And they had packed provisions for two years. They were planning on being out on this plane surveying. And a lot of that food that they packed was just canned modern food, Dr. Price called it, and white flour and white sugar. And after a number of months out there in the wilderness, one of the gentlemen started to develop eye issues. Symptoms in his eyes where he couldn't see very well, and then pain very, very painful. This, this guy described this to the point he couldn't really see. His partner had to sort of lead him down the trail. And at one point they ran into a bear in her, her cubs. And, and the, the one guy took off. The guy that could see, the other guy that couldn't see and was in excruciating pain. He just sat down on, on the ground and expected to be devoured by this bear. And for some reason wasn't. The bear went on about its way and this guy was just sitting there just in pain and couldn't see. And he felt a, a hand on his shoulder and turned out it was a Native American up in Canada that had been tracking and following these two guys. And he could see just his. The guy's eyes were red and, and just you could tell and through. Even though they didn't speak the same language, he could tell. This guy's got eye problems. The guy went, the native went to the river, built a little rock canal in the river with, with stones and, and then went up river and kind of herded a bunch of fish into that little trap and got some of the fish out, brought it to the guy, got the eyeballs and fed him the eyeballs of that fish. And very quickly, I forget exactly the number of hours or days, but quickly the guy's eyes completely healed. And now we have a name for this problem. It was a vitamin A or retinol deficiency called Xerothalamos. And it causes extreme inflammation and pain and even blindness. And the eyeball of the fish is the highest source of vitamin A in that animal. And I mean, I think he ate the whole fish too. But this specifically, the, the native told him, be sure to eat eyeballs every day until resolution of your symptoms. There's an. Just a wisdom there, eating that whole animal, but those eyeballs in particular, that story made me think of that. [00:40:02] Speaker B: Oh, it's, that's an incredible story. And, and I remember that one from the book as well. And, and it, what it is also fascinating to me is that ancestrally around the globe, different tribes would come to the same conclusions. You eat the whole animal. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:20] Speaker B: You don't waste it. And yet none of them spoke with each other. There wasn't some nutritional facts panel that they were going off of. No, you know, Surgeon General, it was because they saw it worked. And so it was this unspoken language of like you, you, you use the whole animal. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:38] Speaker B: And, and by doing that you're, you're, you thrive or whatever, your health is more optimal. And you know what? I, I really find it fascinating that if you look at, you know, industrial food and we always focus on just ultra process, but I really, that's why I'm kind of now more using that language of isolates because you'll even sometimes in the name. It's like, I think we, I think we're, it's, it's an extension of that, that chasing them, the, the magic pill, you know, like there's one food out there, if I can just find what that is. And you know, you have all these people saying, just, just get protein. Just use this superfood or that superfood. And it's like, I just, I fear that we're just products of the industry because the industry wants, I mean, you know, this, the industry wants us to go down this path because when you, for example, if I sell you just an apple, you know, I, I can only make so much money, but if I take that apple and I process it in some way, cook it, cook it down, make apple sauce with it, whatever it is, if I process it down, maybe get pectin from the seeds, now I can charge you more because I can break down the pieces, process them. And now it's a totally different product. And it makes it just easier for me to mark. You know, I can market it, say, oh, the pectin is for this or this applesauce is already pre digested, you know, whatever. I can sell some kind of marketing story and then I can increase the price way beyond what I would have made if I just sold you the apple. [00:42:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. This just reminds me of another conversation I had with Jamie Winship, which is totally spiritual but not related to food at all. But kingdom versus empire. And the empire mindset is all about separation, where the kingdom's all about connected and there's a scarcity mindset and a self centeredness and profit driven. That's an orphan mindset. Trying to just always make more money for yourself. That just totally reminded me of falling into that category. So I mean you really can't disconnect the natural and the spiritual I don't think because there's so many concepts in the heart motive behind what drives people. It interplays in everything, especially our food production. It definitely can. As we see there's, I mean nobody's even eating food anymore. Processed food, like substances and even in the quote unquote health food space like James is laying out here, you know, you got to be careful. Just, it's so simple. It's a matter of trusting that design. [00:43:07] Speaker B: I think there's a, there's a quote I'm, I'm working on a talk I'm going to be given soon and I, I was, I heard this one quote from Seth Godin, marketer Seth Godin and it was, it inspired me around this, the quote I'm about to share. But the idea is that health isn't a destination someone else can map out for us. It's something we make meal by meal through the choices we, we repeat. And I, I, I feel like what's happening is that when we follow this cons, you know, these concepts that we're being inundated with right now of these, these isolated concepts that we're basically surrendering to, to this mechanical way of, of looking at food and, and, and humankind is almost like we're robots. Just give us the, the goo that has the nutrients we need and then we will, you know, mechanically get to the next day. And it's, it's, we're losing agency from it. So we're, we're losing the reflection of what happens when I eat the food, what communication do I get? You know that neuro lingual response that I talked about with the salt, like when we don't eat our food, consciously connected listening, then what happens is that we don't get those communication points or we overeat or we like, like one of the tricks that happens with the ultra processed food is so ancestrally flavor equal nutrition. So if I ate a real strawberry and at my mouth, my, my, my, my base of my taste buds tasted that, that strawberry, that flavor told my body ancestrally said okay, this has nutrition in it and I would eat it, but I would also know when to stop because I wouldn't, you wouldn't eat, you know, a whole bushel of strawberries. Your body would literally say okay, I'm good. Right? The same thing happens with apples and other foods, right? You just know when to stop. When it's a real food with no added weird flavors to it, you can't say the same about a Pop Tart that's flavored. Strawberry flavored, right? Or chips or cookies or anything that has artificial or natural flavors. Basically, those flavors are tricking your body. It's making you think that there's nutrition in it. Through that strawberry flavor of the Pop Tart, your body then goes, oh, okay, I'm getting flavor that equals nutrition. And it does. It just keeps eating because. But the nutrition's not there. And then that's why you eat the whole box or the whole bag or you eat way more than your stomach can handle. And it's purely that trickery. It's, it's. The industry knows that we have human, you know, communication point. It understands what triggers the, the chemicals in our brain. It understands how our taste buds work and what they fire off. And so they're, they're basically manipulating us into thinking that we're getting something that our body instinctively, you know, would know if it was eating real food, that it's not or it would know when to stop. And so that's yet another reason why we, we have to move back to eating real food. Because we need to, we need to get in touch with what does our body need. What does my body need? At the back of a jar with capsules is not going to tell me what my body needs. I know what my body needs, you know, and I have. And the only way to know that is you got to go inward. You can't just be looking for the answers outward. [00:46:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. That's awesome. James, real quick, I mean, I wanted to get to this and we got 10 or 15 minutes, but obviously Pluck's amazing. Guys, everybody needs to go to eatplug.com, check out all the, all the stuff, especially that salt. That sounds awesome. I didn't know about that. So we're going to get that in our store here. But can you speak too, from the chef part of you to the mom and dad? I mean, I cook at the house some. Jamie, of course, cooks a lot. But just thinking back, it wasn't super long ago when our ancestors, meaning our grandparents, you know, you go down to local market and there was the whole chicken or you could talk to the butcher about X, Y and Z cuts of meat and people cooked. And I mean, we've, we do, we talk a lot here. Sue Becker's been on many times about fresh milled bread products. Fresh milled grain. Mill it yourself. True whole grain. And then bake your stuff or sourdough it or whatever. So there are these techniques and ways to do things, but a lot of that does intimidate people. But do you have any tips, thoughts, advice? I mean, I love the frozen liver. Just grate it with the cheese grater and your ground meat. But just some encouragement or anything for those folks wanting to try to get back to the kitchen for the benefit of the kids in particular in their lives to, you know, make that a little easier or some tips there? [00:48:15] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one. One of the big ones is don't. Don't shame yourself. Just, you know, like, don't assume just because we eat that you need to love to cook. A lot of people set that standard, and then when they don't love it, they feel, like, discouraged, and they shame themselves for it, and then they don't want to go in the kitchen. And now you find yourself eating out a lot more than you'd like. So, first of all, let's stop shaming ourselves, and let's make sure that we. Instead of looking at, like, oh, this is something I have to love, let's just look at it. It's like, it's just something you got to do. So how do you shift the environment to make it so that it is something you want to do? And so I always recommend people make sure there's lots of natural light. Put on your favorite podcast, you know, talk to your favorite friend, listen to your best, you know, favorite music, whatever it is, and then find what works for you. You don't have to necessarily go off of recipes. You know, a lot of times it's just a formula. You know, okay, I know I need, you know, protein. I know I need vegetables. I know I need resistant starch, whatever it is your diet, you know, dictates, but just build it off of that formula. And one of the things, like, I also like to tell people is there. There's an underused tool that is, honestly, my judgment, one of the best and most effective movers of health. And that's meal planning. It's incredible when you meal plan, how much easier it makes your life. For example, if you go to the grocery store and you find yourself buying stuff you don't really want to have in your. Your kitchen, you're probably doing impulse buys when you're there. Well, when you have. When you meal plan and you have a grocery list that's set off of that meal plan, there's usually not Oreos on that list. There's usually not chips that are a dollar off. You know what I mean? You're basically getting what fits the meal plan. And, and so right there you're more kind of, you know, you're more compliant to whatever it is, you know, the health outcome you're trying to achieve. First of all with meal planning, secondly is there's, you can plan for your work week. So I always tell people like, don't do this in isolation. Look at your schedule. Okay, on Tuesday I got, I'm working from the morning all the way to five and we got, I got to have dinner on the table, 5:30. Well, that tells me you don't want to have a complicated meal that day. And that's probably a slow cooker meal. So what I usually do is if I, if I know I gotta have a fast turnaround as I start that food in the morning, it's cooking all day, and then when I'm done with my work day, it's ready for me. Maybe I throw some greens right on top of, let the residual heat kind of wilt those and I'm done. But let your schedule dictate the meal plan. And then the last one I would say is I think we're all feeling the hurt of how expensive groceries have gotten. And so I don't want you to feel stuck and thinking, well, because, you know, meat is so expensive, I'm not going to get this or I'm going to get canned stuff or I'm going to get kind of more of that ultra processed stuff. There are ways around it where you can still keep it as a whole food. One is to join a csa, you know, or a meat share you can get. Yes, you have to put more money out up front, but in the long run you're paying sometimes 6.99 a pound for everything. I mean, it's incredible how cheap you can get that opposed to 14.99, you know, is what you would find at the grocery store a pound. So that's one thing. And then don't be afraid to try these kind of intimidating or foreign cuts. So let's talk about tongue. Tongue is usually found in the freezer aisle because you know, they're trying to make sure that has a good shelf life. But you can, that animal that's 100 grass fed, whatever, whatever kind of health paradigm you're following, that animal has a tongue and they're selling that tongue. It's, you know, whereas the ribeye is 24.99 a pound or something close to that. You can get the tongue from the exact same quality of animal for six to seven bucks a pound or even less. And the tongue is a fascinating one because you think it's so intimidating. By the way it looks. It's got this outer skin that's looked like sandpaper. It's really thick. All you gotta do is you just pressure cook that or slow cook that in some water. That's as complicated as just put some liquid in there enough that it's. It's not even covering the tongue, but at least just up to the tongue. And then just cook it. And if you slow, if you pressure cook it for about an hour and a half, you pull that out, let it cool, and then that skin, that outer skin just kind of peels right off. And what's underneath is this beautiful, delicate muscle that shreds really easily. So this is perfect for taco night. You know, it's like carnitas, but here's the power of it. The tongue, as I mentioned, is cheaper. So now you've lowered your grocery bill. It's actually more flavorful than most other cuts of muscle meat, and it's more nutritious. So you've literally just hit three, three birds with one, with one tongue, if you will. You've literally made it so it's cheaper, more flavorful and more nutritious. And I promise you, the first time's always the hardest. But thereafter, tongue is one of the easiest parts of the animal to cook. And once you get in the habit of just learning how to do it, you'll. You'll want to do it and, and you'll. It will start to be your go to. And you will feel better for it. [00:54:04] Speaker A: That's a great tip. And guys, veritas wellnessmember.com which is our website, but you can join the wellness program there, and the wellness Navigators talk about this kind of stuff. That's what they're there to do to coach you, encourage you, walk with you. There's meal plans on there. The meal prep thing James mentioned, that was game changer in our house. Nicole, one of our wellness navigators, Nicole really helped my wife Jamie just come up with a binder, a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday binder. And each night of the week had a different theme, like Taco Tuesday. But you put all your taco recipes, 4, 5, 6, 7. I mean, there's lots of taco recipes, but get your favorite ones. Just put them under that Tuesday binder grinder, and you just run through that. You know, every fourth, fifth, sixth week, you're back to the top. But get and do that for every week and then it becomes just. You go to your grocery store that on the weekend or whenever and buy for the week, you don't have to think about it anymore. And just like James said, when you know it's a tight schedule, you're going to work right up until dinner time. Slow cooker. I mean, there's so many cool tips and that's what the wellness navigators are there for, to help help you in those areas. And they've got all kinds of resources and recipes and all the things to help you. So if you're not a member, I'd encourage you to check that out and get supported because as the name of this podcast, you're the cure. The body knows how to, to fix itself. It knows how to repair itself, detox itself, kill germs, kill cancer, self repair. You know, stem cells are in your body already. They just need to be woken up, they need to be equipped, they need to be nourished and told to go where and fix what. It's all in there. It's all in the blueprint. It just needs stewarded. You need the knowledge, you need the stewardship and you need the ingredients like pluck. Eatpluck.com the original, the top seller. Zesty garlic, Southwest habanero lime chimichurri. The pure organs, the pure brain, the lion salt. It's all amazing flavor. James, I'll give you the last word. Thank you so much for coming on the show and encouraging our audience to get back to the, their ancestral ways of eating. [00:56:10] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. You know, and I forgot to mention the one cinnabrain. So that is a game changing one because that's cinnamon with actual brain in it. And going back to that kind of like supports like that you, you mentioned with the eyeballs and help the eyes of the, the man in the, in the book, you know, ancestrally, this has been a known thing forever, which is, you know, the part of the animal you're eating is going to support that part in you. And I always think it's interesting because when we talk about feeding, you know, kids first foods, people are always like, oh, we'll get some liver in there. And I, and I think that can be beneficial. But you know, liver is a detoxification organ. It's definitely something us adults need. We need to support and detoxifying this, this modern world. But what is a baby, you know, what is a young child developing? They're developing bone and brain. Those are the two primary things that they're, they're developing. So for my money, it's like get Them, that brain in there, and it's hard to get here in the US but that's why we sell it. I. Exactly why I put it on the pluck menu is because I want to support people in getting these ancestral foods that are, you know, our great grandparents were eaten, and we're not eating them. And so get the pure brain, get the cinnabrain, you can mix it into their food. And then for the bone marrow, get some bones, you know, make sure that the butcher cuts them like the. What they call that the boat cut or where it's. It's the. The long cut. So you can get access to the marrow and you just roast it. It's really quick. I mean, even a simple roast for about 15, 20 minutes, and then you. You have that bone marrow and just put it. Put it in their food. So really start thinking about not only eating as much of the animals possible, but what stage of life you're in, you know, and letting that dictate what your body may need. And the other piece, too, is. Is. I would just say, and Dr. Ben said this so well, which is you. You are the cure, right? You are the advocate of what your body needs. And so no matter what diet you follow, no matter what you choose to eat, always go back inward and say, how does my body feel about what I just chose to eat? And let your body dictate your next. Next choice because it's not gonna lie. Our heads, our brains, our very large brains will. Will. Will manipulate situations, but the body, that. That pretty much will be honest with you. So if something doesn't work, you're gonna feel bloated. If it doesn't work, you're gonna have, you know, acne, really bad acne or something like that, or you're gonna have, you know, headaches, or your body's gonna react. So I want to just leave with just reminding everyone, just. Just to go inward and listen. Listen to your body's reactions to the choices you're making. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's so good. I can concur 100%. I mean, a doctor can give you his best guess, but ultimately, you know, what's going to. What resonates with you. So listening to your own body is one of the number one health tips I could give also. So thank you, James, for that. And just again, I want to remind people, Pluck is available here locally at the Merck, as well as, you know, bone for bone marrow and bone broth, the organ meats local producers sell through the Merck. So we've got Whole chickens. And we've got various beef producers. Of course, the raw milk is here too. We've got whole grain and five gallon buckets and smaller bags. Don't forget, forget the local. Shop here if you're local and even if you're not local, if you ever come to Lubbock, we'd love to say hi. This recording studio is actually upstairs in the Merc here. So I'm about to run downstairs and give me some pluck. I'm so motivated to get after it again. But James, thanks a lot. I'm sure I'll see you on the road. Well, Weston Price in D.C. we'll see you there and I'm sure some other places. I really appreciate what you're doing, guys. Again, James is an example of people that are following the calling that God put in their heart and they're doing it for the benefit of society, for the, for their neighbor. It's a kingdom enterprise. Whether he knew that language or not, that's exactly what he described. And so yes, this year on the podcast, we've been exposing a lot of the darkness and I think we need to do that. So we get our head out of the sand and we start to wake up to some stuff. But it's not to be fearful, it's not to be mad, but just a recognition that hey, this, the empire has been doing their thing. But there's a lot of people who are listening. I mean that, that idea that just came and we talk about it so much, that creative flow will come, I believe, from God. When you're trusting and not just chasing the dollar, chasing some fear based modality, that's an Empire technique. So, James, you're a great example that appreciate you and who you are as a person and what you're doing for all of us by producing great product. So thanks again for coming on the show. [01:01:03] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:01:04] Speaker A: All right, everybody, we'll be back next week with another great show. Bye bye.