The Easiest Way to Get More Nutrients Into Your Meals (Hint: It’s Organ Meats)

Introduction to Listening to Your Body 0:00

Everyone is basically on a soapbox and they're promoting their different perspective. But what I really encourage everyone to do, rethink what is my process? What is my journey with this food? And so to really like listen to your body more and listen, be more mindful of those choices and let your diet be whatever you want it to be. If you want to be vegan right now, be vegan. If you want to be carnivore right now, be carnivore. But give yourself the dignity of that process. And then here's what I want you to do is while you're in that process of whatever diet you choose, I want you to listen to one person.

and that is your body. So if your body starts communicating, hey, this diet's not working, then I want you to change the diet until your body is communicating that it is working. So then the question becomes, what is the communication of whether it's working or not? Well, if you feel nauseous after you eat, if you're getting skin issues after you eat, if you're noticing that you're always kind of happy trouble going to sleep. If you notice that your brain fog, if you're noticing that you have dark circles under your eyes, if you notice that you have some kind of irritable bowel syndrome, like you're not pooping regularly, you're not peeing properly, your pee is kind of like dark brown.

These are all signs that your body is not either assimilating what it's eating or it doesn't like what it's eating. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the integrative health podcast with Dr. Jen. We are going to have a really interesting conversation today about how to add in more organ meats to your diet. We're going to be talking to James Berry. He has 20 years in the culinary field, starting with a private chef cooking for celebrities such as Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Gerald Butler, Mariska Hart Hargitay of Law and Order and Barbara Streisand and John Kuzyks.

James is the CEO and founder of an organ-based superfood seasoning pluck. It's the first of its kind and an amazingly easy and delicious way for people to get organ meats into their diet. James is also a published cookbook author, having co-authored the recipes in Margaret Floyd's book Eat Naked and Dr. Alejandro's younger book Clean Seven. He authored the cookbook, The Naked Foods Cookbook, and he is the host of the podcast, Everyday Ancestral. Welcome, James. So excited for our conversation today.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on Dr. Jen. Yes. And we met at a conference and I love the product and my family uses it, but also James is so sweet and such a wealth of knowledge in the wellness. Thank you. Yeah. That was a great conference and it was so lovely meeting you. You were there with somebody else, weren't you? Was that one of your children? I think your son. Yeah. So we were at the Seeking Whole Health Conference and it's a Christian health conference. You guys should all go next year.

It's in Wooster, Ohio. And I brought my son Declan with me. He was so great. Manning the booth. Yeah. This is going to be a sales person, I think, or something. Right. I enjoyed meeting him. He was really nice. Yeah. He had a good time. It was fun. We stayed on a goat farm and we got to feed the goats and learn all about these like special cashmere bougie goats. So everything's bougie.

Meet James Berry and the Pluck Story 3:34

Everything natural has now become bougie. Yeah. Well, their, well, their wool is actually like cashmere. So like, it's like, yeah, yeah, the lady was telling us and I felt so bad though. She was holding up one of the baby goats and it like got her in the eye, like with its horn, but she was okay. I know I was like, I felt so bad, but anyway, that was, that was a good time. It was a, it was a very cute Airbnb. My husband's like, why do you want to stay here instead of like a regular hotel? And I'm like, cause it's a goat farm.

Like I want to learn about goats. Cause you know, we're trying to do the mini farm thing here. I'm trying to figure out what to do next. Well, and there's really, I mean, you know, it's a great area, but there isn't a lot of great, you know, hotels there, at least from what my experience was. So if you have the opportunity to stay on a farm, that's pretty stellar. Yeah. Yeah. It was really nice. She was super sweet and it had like a fridge and every, I don't know. It was like a mini like house thing that she had built for her, one of her parents.

But anyway, it was a fun time. So I, I want to get into kind of the meat of the conversation, right? And talk about organ meats. So Americans do not eat enough organ meats like at all. And we should though, right? Absolutely. It's really interesting to me because I guess I assume that I shouldn't have to convince people that organ meats are nutritious because they've been a part of the world's diet, not just American, but the world's diet for ever. I mean, in many ways, we wouldn't even be able to have this conversation had our Paleolithic ancestors not eaten three things, which is blood, organs, and fat.

Those three things that when our species became predators, this was also right around the time when we got access to fire, but when we became a predator, we got those three things that we historically had never gotten because those were usually the three things that the predators ate first. And it Basically gave us such a powerhouse of nutrition in our body because they're all such nutrient dense pieces that we got this kind of like nutrient shot into our DNA and eventually our brains got bigger in our digestive system got smaller.

So We suddenly couldn't eat the things that when we were foragers, we could eat. And now we had bigger brains, but it enabled us to get more tools and to have conversation, to have dialect that we didn't really have prior to that event. So it's always kind of surprising because it's an ancestral food. And I guess I'm still a little dumbfounded that there's such a lack of awareness around that. And I know. there's reasons for that. I know that historically organ meats in America have had quite the journey of they're seen as poor people's food, you know, they're seen as I think for many people when they think of organs, they they think of their own mortality.

So organ meats have their own stigmas to them. And as we live in this world where we have less and less contact with the origins of our food, like to give an example, when my mother was a child, This was in the 50s. So she was born in 45. So let's say early 50s in Brooklyn, New York, they would go to a meat or a poultry store or something and they would see live chickens and they would pick their chicken. And then that chicken would get pulled and dressed, you know, killed and feathered and all that.

And then they would come back a few hours later and they would have a still warm, but ready to cook carcass. So there was a direct relation of like chicken comes from that animal chicken, you know, like it's not just a single breast that's wrapped in plastic that has no skin and no bones. Like there's an absolute connection of the animal that's providing nourishment for you to live. And now we live in an age where, I mean, there's some kids that don't even realize that pork comes from a pig. Yeah.

Yeah. And we, so we want to get back like our family, why we, we got some acreage and a mini farm. Like, I want to get back to that. Like, this is where food comes from and, you know, more farm to table and that is getting trendier, which is good. So we have some chickens now and some turkeys and. We didn't do meat chickens. We're just doing chickens for eggs. And we got two turkeys and my son named one of them dinner time because we were going to eat his. Declan, the one you met, but he's my favorite turkey.

He like, I'll just hold him and he'll, he'll just chill. And I'm like, we can't eat him. So we're, maybe we'll get some meat turkeys for next year, but like, he's like, my buddy is so sweet, but maybe we will eat him. I don't know. I, we, our plan is to get. a few meat cows and have them beyond three acres fenced in. And then we'll send them to the butcher because I really think it is important to see where the food come from. And, you know, one thing I love about living in Tennessee is, you know, when we were in Ohio, all we saw is GMO crops everywhere.

And there was so much glyphosate and Even my patients, it's so bad for them. But here we just see cows grazing and the butcher that's in the town that we live at, we go there and we pick up fresh meat that was just butchered and the ribeye and filet, you know, they smoke their own bacon. And we get it for the week and bring it home. And we also have some frozen local meat, but when we talk to the kids about it, we like grass-fed meat because we know that they're taken care of and that's how it's supposed to be.

But yeah, there's really a disconnect. I think though, for me, the organ meat thing, is really hard. The best thing I'll do is get some of the blends that have heart and liver in the ground meat and I'll put those in tacos and for having spaghetti meat sauce and I don't tell the kids and no one knows so it's just kind of a fun thing I do. Yeah, and I get it. It's challenging because they have textures that most people avoid, you know, and they have flavor that people aren't used to. And then, of course, there's the visuals of them.

I mean, they just they look so different than anything we normally eat.

Why Organ Meats Matter 9:52

So I totally get the hurdles. I do think, though, that there's something going on that a lot of people don't realize. And I'm hoping that those that listen to this take what I'm about to share in and let this really like ruminate like the kind of society, the kind of food systems we've created. But basically, you know, when we slaughter an animal, when we slaughter a cow, I have gone to slaughterhouses and I've talked to the owners and I've confirmed what I'm about to share. But basically, when they slaughter a cow, the parts that you're seeing in those butcher shops, the different cuts, that's about 50% of the cow, maybe 51. The rest of that cow, like a lot of the organs, a lot of these very edible parts, you would think are going to other industry.

You would think they're going to pet food, which they do sometimes. You would think they're going to hot dogs, because we've learned that hot dogs have other parts of the animal. than just the meat. And you'd think they might be going to other industry like agriculture or zoo animals to feed zoo animals. But what was confirmed in a slaughterhouse in Wyoming is they said, no, we throw it out. We just throw it out. That's terrible. I think what I want people to take in is that what's happening in our society is something like 95% of Americans are nutrient deficient, but we're not calorie deficient.

So it's really key. This is not like a third world country where you're seeing emaciated people because they're not getting the food. This is we're getting an abundance of food. but we're getting the wrong foods because we're still suffering, we still have chronic illness. And so then when you have this animal, this cow that is, you know, you have the sun feeding the grass and then the cows can eat the grass and then they can process all the vitamins and minerals that that grass provides and it goes into their meat.

And so their meat is so nutrient dense and their whole ant, the whole ant, I'm saying the meat, but the whole animal is so nutrient dense from this process. And then we turn around and we slaughter that animal and then we throw out the most nutrient-dense parts of that animal. And then what happens? Well, we have chronic illness and then we turn to a supplement industry and we take supplements. And a lot of times those supplements are synthetic. So we're throwing out the most natural mother nature made multivitamins and then we're supplementing it with these man-made synthetic vitamins.

And it's kind of the definition of insanity because there's no industry out there where you would throw away 50% of the resources. It's a very privileged place to be at and it's the most inhumane thing you could do in the life of that animal is to not honor the entire animal. But I get that there are those hurdles and I am here to impart to people that we don't need to let those hurdles stop us, that there's other ways we could still get these nutrients in our diets. And I can, you know, share how you can make it extremely effortless, like how you can really like make it to your point so no one knows it's in there and really kind of help people ease these really nutrient rich foods into their diet easily and deliciously.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I was talking to our farmer in Ohio and yeah, things like tallow, like you could just ask the butcher for those things or lard because a lot of it Yeah, they have an abundance and they just get rid of so you can get that really inexpensive. But one thing in Ohio, you have to have like a special license to do grind organs into the meat because they weren't able to sell an ancestral like blend. Does that make sense? Have you heard of that? So because in Ohio, because I was like, hey, can you make me, you know, ground liver in the ground beef?

And she couldn't because of regulations at the state level. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, my guess is that what's happening because I know this happens in other states. So certain parts of the animal get they get labeled for human consumption and then other parts are labeled not for human consumption and then not for human consumption in the slaughterhouses that are set up for it. Those are the ones that go to pet food. And so it's possible that that's why they needed a special permit because they had to, they had to basically prove that that part of the animal is for human consumption.

And what that ultimately means is that it's being butchered in a proper way where it's not going to potentially harm anyone. Making sure that the animal is the whole animal, not just the muscle, but like the organs as well are of quality and won't hurt anyone basically if they eat it. Yeah. So if we're listening and we're like, well, we want to get some more organ meat in our diet, but it needs to be convenient. It needs to taste good. How, how do you incorporate this, especially with your background of being a chef?

Because cooking for the celebrities, they probably want the most nutrient dense with the less calories. So they look good. Yeah. Well, so the first and foremost step of getting organs into your diet easily and deliciously is really pluck. That's the first and easiest kind of like entry point. And that's because pluck is what I created and what you talked about earlier on. It's freeze dried and powdered organ meats. We use five of them, liver, heart, kidney, spleen, and pancreas. And we combine them with organic spices and herbs.

So every time you season your food, you're getting micro dosing of those organ meats. frequently because you're seasoning your food every time you eat, and then that's cumulative effect. And what we start finding is that people's chronic health issues just start to go away, like from skin issues to fertility issues to postnatal issues, like people that eat organ meats while they're pregnant tend to have better milk supply, healthier placentas, Certain issues tend to disappear from the nutrient density of these organ meats, but that's just step one, right?

And what I like about that for people, including myself and really you as well, since you articulated that you kind of tread on the organ meats lightly, is what I like about it is that you don't need to think about that it's organ meats. Like it doesn't look like an organ meat. It doesn't smell like an organ meat. It looks like a seasoning. So you can sprinkle it on your kids' favorite foods. And you're not dealing with any picky eating because you're not changing their food. Like if they eat chicken nuggets, sprinkle it on the nuggets.

If they eat pizza, sprinkle it on the pizza. My kids put it on popcorn. And it's just such an easy entry point to starting to shift the palette Yeah, shifting the palette and getting the nutrients in. Okay. So I have to share the story and I was sharing it with James earlier. So my daughter, I was like, here, try this seasoning. And she tried it. And she's like, that is so good. And I'm like, it's organ meats. And she's like, what? And she's 17. And she looked at the container and She's obsessed with it.

She uses it on everything now So I love it because she was like gross organ meats But then she liked it her palette liked it and she needs more micronutrients and she won't she doesn't like swallowing pills and You know, so I'm really excited to see as she uses it continuously over months how that will support her and her hormones But I will have a funny story about popcorn. So I love pluck on my popcorn and with some sometimes I put extra salt and butter but my five-year-old because it has some other spices in it you know like that makes little green flecks he's like you put the cow stuff in my popcorn he got so mad this one day because I was sneaking a little bit he's like you put the cow stuff in there because on the container it's a picture of a cow but anyway it was so it was just so funny because but another way you can put it sprinkle it on stuff if you have a kid that's a little at that ornery age and they can see if it looks like you know basil or like a little spice you could put in meat ground meat that would be like really good and when we even have we have a pure blend which is just the oreo meat has no seasonings in it that you can add to the seasoning that your kid already does recognize and love you know i mean that doesn't have like like for example laurys which i don't recommend that seasoning because of the ingredients but let's just say that's the one your kid likes because there's no green specks in it Well, then you could add the pure to the Lowry's and they wouldn't know.

You would just want to keep the percentage of the pure low and make sure the seizing is the higher percentage. But in no way do I want to just focus on pluck as one of the entry points.

Making Organ Meats Accessible 18:38

The other entry point into eating organs is, I would say, you already articulated one of them, which is just to buy the grinds that already have the organ meats in it. They're usually called ancestral blends, and they have typically between seven and 10% of the organ meat in it. And it's usually only liver and heart, like you stated. But here's a trick for people that don't want to spend the money on those grinds, because they tend to be about $5 more than normal grind. ground beef sometimes depending on what quality of ground beef you're eating like if you're buying just standard ground beef then it's going to be even ten dollars more but if you're buying grass-fed ground beef it's about five dollars more five to seven and so if let's just say you're like well i don't want to you know i'm kind of watching my wallet and i don't want to Invest in that way what you could do then is purchase a liver of frozen beef liver and you could get that at a farmers market to go to your local international market or just simply go to your local farmer and ask them hey can i buy the liver stream.

And when you do keep it frozen so you're gonna get it frozen just keep it frozen and then every time you have any kind of ground meat whether it's turkey lamb beef pull out that beef liver and create it with a cheat you know just with a grader that you would use for cheese and just great. And for every pound of ground meat, you're grating about one to two tablespoons. And that's it. And then you put it back in the freezer. So it's not overwhelming because it's still frozen. And then every time you're doing any ground meat, that's what you do.

You could even do it into a sauce if you're making spaghetti sauce. And so that's a really nice option. It's a lower cost option. It's a great idea. I'm going to have to do that. Yeah. So super easy. All right. Ethical question. Well, not ethical. I guess that's a little dramatic. Okay. If you do that, if you're doing this, if you're shred, now I said, I don't tell my kids if I mix this stuff in, it's just my little, not, I hate saying secret. It's my cooking secret traits. What if you're having people over?

And you put some of that liver. Do you disclose to them that it's that there's liver in your stuff or, or no. Cause it's just like, whatever. Like you serve hot dogs. Yeah. If they're meat eaters, I don't, I don't think it matters. But if they're, if you have someone who's a vegan and absolutely you should just suppose it, but that, but they wouldn't be eating it anyway, because. Cause you would say, Oh yeah, I know. You know, I'm just kind of teasing, but yeah. It was funny. Gosh, my think my husband, he like found some frozen breast milk and put it in some pancakes one time.

And it was I think it was like Mother's Day or something. And like, he was like, I made this with breast milk. And he told my kids after the fact, and they were so mad. And I'm like, it's Better than you drink that all the time. Yeah. I mean, I could have sold my breast milk for like $20 an ounce, I think, you know, to the bodybuilders, but instead I donated it. So anyway, I'm kind of teasing about that, but, or you can have your friends eat it and be like, guess what? You just got extra liver and nutrients.

And I think, I mean, just to, you know, just to build off of your example, though, like, I think the breast milk thing is, it's funny and it's, it's, it's great for in the family, but let's just say you were having a test over, then that would be a little weird, right? Cause then you want your breast milk, you know, that's feels a little invasive or something. Yeah, organ meats are, you know, that's such a different beast because it's like, well, it's you're already eating the the muscle of the same species.

So it's not like it's a different species or something weird like that. It's just it's just it's just a part of the animal. But I do I think what's really important around it is similar to your experience with your daughter is is if you think there's going to be a bias like that, the person is just not even going to be willing to try it. Then don't tell them to after they've tasted it. So then that way they experience the process of eating the organs without the bias against the organ meat. Because that's ultimately, people have a case against organ meats, even though they've never tasted it.

And I think it's so funny because I could bring people a dessert they've never tasted, an exotic dessert that they've never tasted. And most people would be like, oh yeah, I'll try that. But then you bring them an organ meat that they've never tasted and like, I can't do it. So it's such a stigma that we kind of have to get over. Yeah. And I think that because we live in the US of ultra processed food and our palates are hyper palatable to all this processed food, it's been so detrimental to organ meats and real nutritious food.

It's frustrating. Well, and it's, and it goes back to what we were just talking about, which is the palette. So here in the U S we're very skewed towards salty, sweet. Everything you buy in the store is basically salty and sweet, almost 90% of it. The issue is, is that to have a really robust palette and an adventurous palette, you also have to be willing to eat bitter and sour. And then the fifth one is umami, which organ meats are umami. Other things are also umami like mushrooms and tomatoes and muscle meat as well.

But organ meats, particularly when they're freeze dried, are very pungent in that umami flavor. Well, when you start to get more than just salty sweet into your diet, your palate starts to expand and you start to taste the other flavors differently so like what one of the comments we get from people who are using pluck for the first time is they say that night for the meal that i made my family and it's a meal they commonly make every week or something they said my family asked for seconds and they kept complimenting me on the dinner And they said, all I did differently was just add pluck to the meal.

I didn't do anything else different. And I said, well, that's because of the umami in pluck. It brightens the flavors of everything else that's in the food. So it actually makes your food taste better. So in that sense, we also get a lot of feedback from parents who have kids that are either spectrum or just picky eater kids. And those kids, we get the feedback that. All they do differently is just start adding pluck to those kids' diets and they start becoming more adventurous. And that's because you're shifting the palate away from that salty sweet.

And I'll use an example of even when I was a kid, I grew up eating Skippy peanut butter. And if anyone reads the back of Skippy peanut butter, it's not peanut butter. It's candy. Like the first ingredient is sugar, I think. Yeah. I don't even think peanuts is the first ingredient. And when you taste When you grow up eating Skippy and then taste real peanut butter that's just peanuts and salt, the regular peanut butter tasted gross to me. Right. And it was not until my palate shifted that I then realized, oh no, it's the Skippy that's gross because it's so sweet and it tastes, it doesn't even taste like peanuts.

Whereas the other one had more of a peanut flavor. And it really was my palate had to change, not my psychology. It was my palate. And it was through the change of the palate then my psychology around it changed. Yeah it's like with sugar we have to like reset that palette and I've tried to explain to my kids I'm like try not eating sugar for two days and then when you eat sugar again it's like so sweet you know because you're resetting that palette but it's I'll tell you it's hard you know with with kids and getting them to eat nutritious things.

So I do like that just sprinkling it on, like you said, a little bit of microdosing throughout the meals can be very helpful to get the organ meat in. And I will tell you, so I just got back from a conference and I've done this a few times at conferences where I do a cooking demo. And usually what I do is I show people liver three ways. And so what I'll do is I will bring frozen liver and I will chop it up into very tiny pieces and I'll say, okay, everyone, I want you to first try the liver raw.

And at first people are like, but I explained to them, I said, liver is its least potent. So it doesn't have a strong taste when it's raw. It's still stronger than muscle meat, but it's not as strong as when you cook it. So then after they've tried it raw, then I properly cook it, meaning I don't overcook it, which most people who have a grossness towards liver, usually what you do is you ask them, well, who cooked it for you and how did they cook it? And you learn that it was someone that was very traumatizing for them and or that the person overcooked the food.

And so it was like pasty in that, that gray kind of color. Like, like traditional liver and onions that like my grandparents would eat. Yeah. Like overcooked. Yeah. Yeah. Usually most, the majority of people experienced it overcooked. So what I would do is I would properly cook it where it's still slightly pink, not, not red, but slightly pink. So medium rare or? Yeah, kind of medium. I would say more medium. Is it chunks or like a big piece? How do you, because I really don't know how to cook the chunks or big pieces.

But I would make sure that it didn't get, I would still make sure that it was kind of medium to medium rare. Okay. and what happens is because when you pull it out of the pan it still keeps cooking so if you keep it at that medium rare then it cooks and it's still now it's medium but it's still kind of nice and moist and not that chalky dry and so then i will let people taste it that way and they were like oh this is really good. And then I took those liver chunks and I then would make a pate. And so that would have like onions, caramelized onions and different vegetables in it.

And so people tasted it all three ways and it was really wild. You see people that historically have really disliked liver and they all say they liked it. More people than you would think say they liked all three, but most everyone, every single person leaves going, I liked at least one of the ways.

Cooking Tips and Family-Friendly Uses 28:38

And so it just goes to show you that this kind of like bias we have against these organ meats is really unfounded. It's the idea of it. But when you actually get it prepared properly and you get it in the texture form that fits your taste, it's quite good. Like even another trick is to think about species. so we're talking a lot about cowl but you could have chicken hearts for example chicken hearts are incredibly like bland like they don't have a strong flavor so and they kind of take on the flavor of whatever you mix them to and some people even would say that they're slightly sweet so they don't taste like beef liver at all and this is chicken hearts though so chicken hearts they don't even taste like beef heart.

So chicken hearts and they're tiny like mushrooms. So what you can do is you can dice them up just a couple two or three dice them up just like you would a mushroom and then throw it into your spaghetti sauce and no one will know it's there. And yet what you're doing is you're helping to support that palette change in people. You're starting to get there's nutrients in the people and it's wild you see people transform in every way from they get better sleep they start to feel better in their body their palette gets more adventurous so it's it's it's really an incredible tool and like I said it's mother nature's multivitamin so it's unadulterated there's nothing isolated there's nothing separated from it it's as mother nature intended so not only is it a multivitamin but it's also incredibly nutrient sorry it's incredibly easy to to to digest like easy to absorb so it's nutrient rich but also easily absorbable because it's as nature intended Yeah, that's amazing.

So paté, how do you cook that? Do you have any tips? We have lots of recipes at eatpluck.com and you just click recipes. But the paté is a really simple one and people are always blown away at how good it is. But so what I do is I start with a fat and usually I'll use ghee because ghee is clarified butter so you can actually cook it at higher heat and it won't burn. Cook it in some ghee but you could also do it in lard because what's nice about the lard is lard coming from you know pig is high in vitamin D and then the liver is high in vitamin A and vitamin D helps you absorb the vitamin A.

So they work together. It's synergistic. So lard is a really good one to cook it in as well. But you just saute some onions initially. You maybe add either sweet potato or carrot. Something that's sweet that's going to have some texture to it as well. And then I usually add a little bit of garlic. Sometimes I'll even put in some chopped celery. And you just let it all cook so that it's soft enough And then of course you add the liver as well in chunks and you want them all in uniform sized chunks so that they cook evenly.

But then once everything is ready, then you throw it in a food processor and you add a bunch of butter. That's it. And you blend it all up and then you can eat it with your favorite vegetable or cracker. And it's so good. It's so, so good. Yeah, this is embarrassing. I want to like pate more. I had a friend that made really good pate and then I bought some at a store. It was like grass fed. I think it was from chicken liver. And it just sat in my fridge until it expired. Cause it's like, I'm like, oh, like it's hard to like take that step into like, you know, getting your palate back refined to that.

For some reason, that's something that I really need to add into my diet, but I'm hesitant. So I think after this podcast, I'll have to, I'll have to do that. And was that something like, I know you're doing the seasoning pluck, like how much liver organ meats does your family like eat a week? We just use the pluck, honestly. I mean, I think very much like I created this product for myself and my kids, my family, because I wanted them to get nutrient rich foods in their diet every day. And I didn't want to have to fight over it.

I didn't want to have to make a pate or something like that and then have them not eat it, which happens all the time. Oh my gosh. So many moms and parents I talked to are like, yeah, the only person who's eating the pate is me and no one else. And that doesn't serve us. I've been in this business, as you mentioned at the top, over 20 years, and I'm very disillusioned by most health products. I think most of them, they are the illusion of health. They're not really healthy. And ultimately, when I look at health, what I am looking for is not the thing that I'm gonna get so much of.

I could care less about go big or go home, which is a very American kind of mentality. I look for what are the things that I'm doing daily. So I look more for the health modalities that I can do frequently because that's what moves our needle the most. And I use the example of like, I don't know, brushing our teeth. If it took us two hours to brush our teeth, I guarantee most people would not brush their teeth. We'd have some funky teeth out there, right? But the fact that it's two minutes makes it very doable and something that you can do multiple times daily.

And so I'm always looking for the health modalities that not are, first of all, that fit these criteria. One is that they're, they're things that are found in nature. Cause I don't, I think that their laboratory made stuff has its place, but I don't want to have that be the default. I want to first go to nature. And then if nature can't provide me with everything because of how we treat our agricultural systems and whatnot and environment, then I want to supplement, but I don't want to supplement before I first tried natural real food.

So real food is the first thing I do. And then the second thing is I'm now looking for how easy is it? And then how delicious is it? Because it needs to hit both of those. If it's just easy, but not delicious, I guarantee you won't do it very long. If it's delicious, but hard to do, you won't do it for very long. So it has to hit both. And then from there, I just make sure that I can incorporate it, that I stack it. I habit stack it so that I'm making sure that's why Pluck works. Because I already season my food.

There's no new habit. So I'm just swapping out one seasoning for another. And now I'm getting all these nutrients in that I previously wasn't. So I'm always looking for health modalities that achieve that outcome because otherwise it's snake oil. Even it could be the most amazing health modality out there, but if you don't do it, it doesn't work. Yeah. Well, I love your honesty about your family because that's so many of us are there, right? I mean, I've seen families where their kids eat perfect and I'm like, good for you.

This is not my family, right? Like it's hard. And then I agree with you about the habits. And I see this a lot working with patients and you know, practicing motivational interviewing, like what is actually going to get them to move the needle and you know, what are the stumbling blocks that is preventing that? So, you know, stumbling blocks for organ meats. We spoke about there's a lot of them. So yeah, this is a great solution. Yeah. And that's key. It's just, and I personally, you know, I really emphasize to people, yes, I made a product, but I am not here just to get you to buy my product.

I genuinely believe that the nutrient density in organ meat is what we are missing in our diets. And I really do believe that if we got it into our diet, we would feel better in our body. And when we feel better in our body, we treat people better and we would have a changed world. So I believe the lack of these nutrients is contributing to the turmoil of our current world. And so I really do. My mission is to try to help people be healthy. And I am doubling down on orgamates because I believe that Mother Nature got it right and that we don't have to do anything beyond it.

We just got to eat it. But I get it that there's hurdles and we've identified all those hurdles in this podcast. And so that's why I created a blog because I was trying to just make an easy entry for people to do it. But in no way do I believe that that's the only way or that that's the place you should stop. There's however you get organ meats in your diet, whether it's through supplements, capsules, whether through some of the suggestions we just gave today or through PLUC. I personally don't have an attachment towards, but I do have an attachment towards you feeling great in your body.

And I truly believe organ meats will help you achieve that. Yeah, I definitely agree with if we all got the right nutrients, we would all be nicer to each other because seeking out if our palate is disrupted or just craving sweet or salty. I mean, a lot of that is ultra processed food and then you're on a blood sugar roller coaster and then your body's stressed out and you will be more grumpy

Food, Palate, and Emotional Health 37:18

and irritable, right? Like that Snickers hangry commercial. Yeah. But honestly, so many of us are not metabolically flexible. And, you know, if we are not getting the right micronutrients, then we will crave just more food trying to get that, right? We won't ever be satisfied. Well, let's talk about the intersection of food and emotional health, because you're touching on that a little bit, how food isn't just fuel, it's tied to our emotions and habits. Absolutely. I mean, one thing as a chef over the years, whenever I had a new client, how I would approach that client is I would say, okay, talk to me about when you have a really hard day.

What food textures do you gravitate towards when you have that hard day? And the reason why I go to texture is because I actually think that when we are talking about food, that we confuse flavor and texture. I actually believe that we are texture hounds, that it's actually texture that we crave more than it is the flavor. Flavor comes into play, but texture tends to be more of a driver than we realize. And so, for example, like when you have that bag of chips, Well, those chips are laboratory made.

It is a process overly ultra processed food and it's designed to kind of blow out your flavor, your taste buds. They're extremely salty and or enhanced flavor that just blow outs your taste buds. So when you have that bag of chips, you really only taste like the first three or four chips. thereafter, it's just crunch. It's literally, you're just chasing crunch. And then your body keeps eating the whole bag because, ancestrally, flavor has equaled nutrition. So our body is designed to think that if something's flavorful, then that means it's going to be nutrient dense, but that bag of chips is not nutrient dense.

And so your body just keeps eating, chasing the crunch, And eating the whole bag because the nutrition never lands and our bodies are being basically tricked. And so if you don't portion control that bag, you will eat the whole thing. And you won't realize till after you're done with that bag, how stuffed you are because you're not giving enough mindfulness and room for your body, your body's stomach to catch up, to communicate to the brain that it's, it's packed. It's full trickery. It's awful.

Yeah. So it's really key though to a, for anyone out there that's feeling overwhelmed with food choices. I completely get it with the way social media is right now. And you have all these different influencers saying eat vegetables. No, don't eat vegetables. Eat carnivore. No, don't eat carnivore. Eat animal bait. Like everyone is, is basically on a soap box and they're promoting their different perspective. But what I really encourage everyone to do is to rethink what is my process? What is my journey with this food?

And so to really like listen to your body more and listen, be more mindful of those choices and let your diet be whatever you want it to be. If you want to be vegan right now, be vegan. If you want to be carnivore right now, be carnivore. But give yourself the dignity of that process. And then here's what I want you to do is while you're in that process of whatever diet you choose, I want you to listen to one person. and that is your body. So if your body starts communicating, hey, this diet's not working, then I want you to change the diet until your body is communicating that it is working.

So then the question becomes, what is the communication of whether it's working or not? Well, if you feel nauseous after you eat, if you're getting skin issues after you eat, if you're noticing that you're always kind of happy trouble going to sleep, if you notice that your brain fog, if you're noticing that you have dark circles under your eyes, if you notice that you have some kind of irritable bowel syndrome, like you're not pooping regularly, you're not peeing properly. Your pee is kind of like dark brown.

These are all signs that your body is not either assimilating what it's eating or it doesn't like what it's eating. The one that we probably all feel more so than we really should is we feel bloated after we eat. And that is the clearest sign that what you just ate is not agreeing with your body. That bloat is a sign of something is not working. yeah and what's frustrating is like you said everyone has a diet they're all trying to tell you how to eat and then also we have normalization of symptoms like bloating like you know like i start out with a flat belly and then i'm bloated by the end of the day that is not normal not you know and and that's also hard we're Like, you know, like social media influencers, the new symptoms instead of changing our food.

So then we actually will change our diet away from the ultra processed food. And those companies have a lot of money to spend on advertising. Absolutely. Yeah. So even like, so when I kind of break down my ideal food pyramid, once again, I really try to simplify things because I think things are way too complicated. But ultimately what I'm saying, what I just shared is that I want you to listen to your body's reactions to whatever diet you are following and then get out of your head about it and then choose the diet that your body agrees with because your body will not lie to you.

But then when we think about the food pyramid, there's three principles. of my food pyramid that I would advise and what is my North Star, which is the top of the pyramid. I choose foods that have flavors found in nature. So that's not natural flavors. It's foods that have flavor that is found in nature. So key is if it has a food flavor additive, I try to avoid it, which is really tough. Because most processed foods have added flavor. But I'm telling you, if you follow this principle, it will change your entire life.

Next middle of the pyramid is I choose foods that are nutrient dense. Not fortified with nutrients, but just real food that's nutrient dense. And then here's the bottom of the pyramid. And this is the one that most people struggle with and no one really even talks about. which is then I make mindful choices. Like I mindfully eat. And how do we be more mindful? Well, we listen to our body more. We check in with our body. We maybe say a prayer before we eat to slow down and not just go right into eating.

But maybe when we're actually cooking the food, we're not just rushing, but we're actually thinking about what outcome do I wanna have from this? Like, how do I wanna feel from eating this meal? How do I want my family to feel from eating this meal? And we're being more intentional and mindful about not only the foods that go into our body, but the ones that go on our table or in our kitchen. And that mindfulness will create a little bit of space for you to start noticing your body's communication.

And you'll start to give that time for how does this like, I just ate some ice cream and I was really craving it and I wanted it and I'm going to just enjoy that ice cream I just made. But now, let me mindfully, as I've been eating this ice cream, just feel, how do I feel my body as I eat this? So that you can apply that mindfulness or that learning into the next time you have that choice of, do I want to choose this ice cream? Because last time I ate it, it didn't feel very good. You know what I mean?

So that mindfulness is game changing, but you, but to do it, you have to like create space. You have to be kind of a little bit more conscious at first of the choices you make. And the more you do it, eventually it will become something you don't even have to think about, but you will have to be mindful of mindfulness at first. Definitely slowing down, which is hard for people to do, but slowing down, not rushing to eat, really paying attention to where your food's coming from and how it's nourishing your body are definitely key.

So I love that. Well, James, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. This is such an important topic. Really is. We need to talk about organ meats more. And I love that you just created out of passion and need a product that is delicious. I will say I love it on popcorn with butter. So good. And I actually have a code to save some money on your order. You can use code Dr. Jen. And James, we would love to hear more about your awesome podcast and where to find luck. Yeah. So yes, please join the conversations at Everyday Ancestral.

That's our podcast where we kind of highlight the best of the past. And that could be directly within our lifetime or even our ancestral past. And we make sure we don't forget it and then we bring it into our present day. And you can find that podcast on Spotify, Apple and on YouTube, but you can go to our website at EatPluck.com and we have a podcast tab. We have a recipe tab. We even have a blog tab that puts out some really interesting articles to get you really informed about the different choices you're making in your life.

And then you can find us on socials and our handle is at EatPluck and mine is Chef James Berry. And We love hearing from you, so please don't be shy about reaching out and letting us know how you're plucking, you know, your, your food. What are you putting it on? How do you like it? you're serving it to you know any stories we always love hearing yeah right before the podcast i had it on some eggs with some bacon the garlic one so good because i i actually i didn't have time before recording to cook like a hand patty meat from the butcher shop that we just picked up didn't have time to make it so instead i just cooked bacon eggs and put some organ meat on there it was delicious i I love it.

Yeah. And once again, it's so easy. And now you're getting those micronutrients frequently, which cumulative effect. I, I, I'll leave everyone with I saying we make it it's easy peasy without the queasy. That's what pluck is easy peasy without the queasy. Yeah. And James is a wealth of knowledge and a really great guy. Really love supporting him and his company and really appreciate all you're doing for the health of the people. I mean, health is so important and you're really pushing that line to get people healthier.

Thank you again for amplifying the message. And thank you all for listening and watching. I'd never take it for granted just being able to have these opportunities. So thank you again for having me. Yes, of course. Thanks so much. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website, www.doctortalks.com.

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