The Most Nutrient-Dense Food Your Eczema Kid Isn’t Eating with Chef James Barry

Hey team, welcome back to the Expo Kids podcast. I'm your host, Andrea McHugh, and when a family comes to me and their child is itchy and uncomfortable and they're not sleeping, food is always where we start.

And it's not the whole answer, not by a long shot, healing has to be this holistic plan. But food, is the first step. When a little body is in this state of dis-ease, this is where, we need to get dialed in first.

this is what I want to shout from the rooftops. This is the reason that this entire show exists is I wanted you to know that you can do this. You can reverse the situation and it starts in your own kitchen at home.

And today's guest has a really good way to begin. His work is built around a superfood we talk about here all the time. It's one that isn't exactly what comes to mind when you think yummy or easy or convenient and its organ meats.

and I saw firsthand how powerful they can be. When my third baby was struggling with severe, severe eczema and by the time she started eating solid foods, I knew many of her micronutrient levels were very, very low.

And I did some research about what could fill those gaps and organ meats came up again and again. It makes sense. I mean, we've been eating this way for thousands of years.

We've being eating nose to tail forever. quote unquote, supposed to be doing, right? And that's what I did. I started giving her chicken liver pate every day and I tracked her levels and that one daily habit completely transformed them.

And I saw it in her skin too. It didn't completely heal her, but it got significantly better just from that 1 daily change, that1 daily have it that I think goes a really, really long way on kids' plates.

This is why I'm personally such a believer. and I know organ meats are a tough sell. I don't personally enjoy them, I do not personally regularly eat them even though I should.

Honestly, neither did my guest that I have today and that's exactly the reason I'm so excited to have him here. James Berry has spent more than two decades as a chef, including years cooking privately for people like Tom Cruise and George Clooney and he's a published author.

the host of Everyday Ancestral Podcast, and he's the founder of Pluck, the first organ-based seasoning line. What I appreciate most about James is he is a dad.

He's a Dad first and foremost, becoming a father is what made him take nutrition really seriously. You can hear it in everything that he says. he knows what's on the line when you're building a little body from the ground up.

And he brings so much wisdom and gentleness to parents that are really trying to do that well, which is all of you. And we cover why organs pack such a punch for the skin, why they're worth the effort, what to watch out for, and his clever, low-stress ways to slip them into meals your kids already love.

This is such an illuminating conversation, friends. I can't wait for you to hear it. Let's get into it! Is your child struggling with itchy nights and endless flare-ups?

I'm Andrea McHugh, mom of four and host of Eczema Kids. Here, you'll find natural solutions that actually work so you can heal your children's eczemat without steroids, without the overwhelm, Let's get into it.

So everyone that is tuning in today is doing everything right. And you're buying the clean detergents and you are reading all the labels and just trying so hard.

That's why I'm so excited for today's guest because he's created his entire company on the foundation that we talk about all of the time here. Healing the skin starts on inside with what's on-the-plate.

and not just taking things out, but putting real nutrition back in. And our guest today is James Berry. He's a chef, he's the published author and the founder of Pluck.

It's first ever organ-based seasoning line, and he spent over 20 years in the culinary world, including cooking privately for people like Tom Cruise and George Clooney, which I would just love to hear about that as an aside.

And he hosts the Everyday Ancestral podcast. And what I really like about James is he's a chef first and there's no list of rules with him. He makes it taste good and he gets what busy parents really need for food that works in real life.

So, James, welcome to the show. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Again, I'm so excited to talk to you because seriously, Oregon meats is such a hard sell.

And we talk about it all the time here. I mean, it's one of my foundational things that we talked about. This is really, really required for eczema reversal, but also just healthy, happy kids.

For us, we're talking about kids that are in this place of dis-ease, right? So we have to put in some extra effort and extra intention to then get them back into this place of clear, calm skin, health, like being able to be outside and go to the birthday parties and just do the other things that a lot of people take for granted.

So everyone that's listening is coming from that place. It's like they're trying so hard. They're maybe not getting the results that they really need.

I do. I talk about it all the time, like start here. Like I have to tell you, my third baby was just flat out born with eczema and she's got worse and worse, and this time went on.

And by the times she started eating solid food, you know, I knew her like zinc levels and her magnesium levels, in her iron levels are like so, so depleted.

and by time she starting eating real food I just made her chicken liver pate, that poor child. That's what she ate for her solid foods. And it just transformed.

It transformed her nutrient levels that I was tracking and it transformed, I mean, her skin, like what you could see clinically. So just with that, you just want to know like, what does real nourishment mean to you?

And why are so many kids missing it today? Yeah, I'm so happy you had that result, by the way. I mean, so many parents are faced with kids that they're feeling anxiety around because they've seen kids dealing with these ailments and they are feeling helpless and are looking towards supplements or towards medical solutions and it's like, All you gotta do is look towards well what are we eating like like let's start there first there might be a reason for.

You know the supplements or the pharmaceuticals at one point maybe but before we take that leap let just look at what we and I really do look it. food like that.

As you mentioned, I've been in the field 22 years. I have seen trends come and go. When I first got out of culinary school, it was the fat flesh diet was a popular book.

Adkins was huge then as well. And I just never gotten on any bandwagon. No, i really believe that The dogma that we should be exhibiting is not around a specific trending diet, but it should around eat real food.

That you need to have a ground and you have basis and that's where it starts. And I mean, I got out of culinary school. I was cooking for these families where usually the female would be struggling with losing their baby weight and they had been trying everything.

limited calorie diets high protein low carb and nothing was working and i came in and said hey. Let's just make everything from scratch like let's not do any ultra processed foods let focus on like even dressings and and sauces are gonna be made with real food like that's one thing i do like sweeten things with caramelized onion.

Like, so I use a real food and I just bring out the sweetness from the real Food. I used dates, I Use fruit I sometimes use like to thicken things I'll use, like, if I'm making a curry sauce off thicken it with steamed cauliflower in I mean like so there's so many things you can do and that's how I coached for them and their baby weight just melted right off.

And then I got, I started to get really well known for being the guy that was actually promoting things that worked, you know, like not yo-yoing, but actually things were working.

I think ultimately even how look at food now, so yes, it's all about real food, But here's the really even more distinguishing piece that I I hope everyone walks away with from our discussion is that if health is not sustainable then it's snake oil like anyone can talk about any.

Modality of health any definition of how but if you can't incorporate it into your day to day life then its pointless. And I see this happen all the time people go to conferences and they'll hear some influencer or some doctors like talk about something and to leave all passionate and excited and then they get back to their real life and They don't know how to incorporate it and or they only incorporate It for like a couple weeks and it falls off and we see that happen All the times whether it's New Year's resolutions.

They fall off by you know, the first month or with diets It's just happening left and right and so What I hope people walk away with today in our conversation is that everything I talk about is about sustainability.

That is how I approach everything. Love that. I mean, we're the most tired, stressed people are listening today. Like it has to be doable first and foremost, 100%. But I'm just so curious.

So you're acquiring clients and I just wanna lean more into just how this turned into a passion for ancestral health. Was this a part of your training or is it really just, you were just noticing in everyday practice that, oh, this tastes good.

People are getting the results they need and we should continue moving forward. I grew up a very picky eater and I did not eat organ meats growing up.

So I didn't have the default of growing on a farm and being around whole animal nutrition at all. If anything, I feel like I'm even more of an authority to talk about it because I am like everyone listening.

I don't normally gravitate towards it. It's not something I was acclimated to. But as a chef, I've always been about flavor, but it was becoming a father that really narrowed into the nutrition.

Now, how do I help my clients support their health? That is why I got into it. My mission is to help people feel better in their body through food. I mean, really, becoming a father was like, oh, no, this is serious.

And what's so interesting is that, you know, I was cooking for Tom Cruise, as you mentioned, and I wasn't incorporating organ meats into their diet, even though I knew about it.

And I think it was because I still had my own hangups about it. But becoming a father kind of like sliced through all the fat and I was just like, no, get over yourself.

As you said at the top of this podcast, this isn't sometimes food. This isn' oh, you should try it, This is necessity food, necessary food So then it just got more serious for me, and I was like, okay, not only do I want my kids to thrive, but I need to be around to enjoy their thriving.

And so I needed to healthy and need them to drive. So I knew the organ means more nutritious, But I really did a deep dive at that time. thought inside it, outside it around it.

And I was like, okay, there's three main hurdles. People think they're gross. Whether they've tried them or not, they just think their gross and I get it makes you think about probably your own organs and your on kind of, you know, mortality, right?

So I totally get We also don't know how to cook them. We've lost the culinary arts to it. And then we also struggle with sourcing it for many people. So, and then I guess there's a fourth category of like, oh, I know I should be eating it and I'm taking capsules, but then.

I have capsule fatigue or I mean, consistent. Those were the main hurdles. And I just was like, okay, I put my chef brain to it and I was, like how do I solve this?

And that's where I connected that, when we make a pate, you're basically taking ingredients. You're taking vegetables, taking herbs, your taking the organs, You are taking fat, combining all these things into basically something kind of like what do you call it?

Like a dip or something like something blended and smooth, right? So I'm like okay well we already have freeze dried powdered organ meats. and it's shelf stable.

And I was like, what if I just made a dry pate? So I took all the other things you would add to pates, but in their dry form. So onion, garlic, granulated herbs, dried herbs.

I started messing around with blending them, and that's when I came up with pluck and pluck has got the five, we currently have five organs in its liver, heart, kidney, spleen, and pancreas.

They all have their own benefits and I combine them with salt. I combined them organic spices herbs and so I started to solve those hurdles. Oh, it tastes good.

You don't need to know how to cook it because you can literally salt anything you already have. Like you could even get pizza out and just salt, you know, season the pizza and boom you're getting the organs.

And then it was like sourcing. Okay. Well, we're sourced from New Zealand, which is grass fed, grass finished because it's an island. It's green grass.

exports and so they are very adamant about keeping not only the whole animal accessible but also keeping very strict kind of quality control around the industry because it's what they depend on.

And so you can get things like brain, I mean you could get parts of the animal you cant even get here in the US unless you're buying it on a one to one relationship but you cannot retail it.

And so that's kind of what started getting my juices running of like, okay, A, how do I get these extremely nutritious foods into my kids and myself? And then how to I support families and feeling better in their body?

You said it beautifully, like when people start eating these foods, And you don't need much, but when you just start incorporating in your diet, it truly is life-changing.

And it's so amazing how the body responds. It just absorbs it and it takes it on so beautifully and things resolve very quickly. Yeah, yeah. Why are, just for the people listening, I mean, why are organs such a powerhouse?

Why is it so worthwhile to incorporate into your Well, an easy way to talk about it is, like, look at a chicken, for example. We have the white meat, we have dark meat.

Of course, there's the organs as well. But one of the ways they talk the meat is they'll say, oh, the White Meat is not as nutritious. Like, yeah, it's got the protein macros, but it not nutritious as darkmeat.

And one the reasons they describe that or explain that is because the dark me is muscle that's moving, is being of use. And whenever anything is of use in the body, it requires more nutrients to function.

And that is really what you're looking at when you are highlighting organs is like these are parts of the bodies that are always in use. Not just like some muscles you not even moving when your sleeping.

Like organs are still working when they are sleeping, so they're like literally in used 24-7. So they require the nutrition to do that. What you have is you truly like a power pack of nutrients.

And when we're talking specifically around like eczema or skin health, like you, and you already mentioned a few with your daughter, but like vitamin A is crucial for skin, health zinc, B12, And then of course, iron and protein.

and what's interesting though, is that you can like B 12 is thrown around a lot with, with red meat. They'll say like, Oh, just eat, eat red me and It's like the whole reason not to be a vegetarian, right?

Yeah, that is the reason people give. But what's so fascinating is you can work with people that are eating red meat and they still have B12. B-12 is one of those vitamins that's extremely deficient in the majority of people.

even if you're eating meat. So then you have to start asking questions, well, wait a second, if they're eat beef, why are they still deficient? And that's, to me, the real answer to your question.

Yes, organ meats are more nutritious, but even more importantly, is they are highly absorbable. You can have someone that is eating red meat and still deficiency B12, and then they just add liver and their B 12 shoots up.

And if want to just practically look at the organs versus the muscle. Put a steak on the counter and put a hunk of beef liver on a counter. Let them get room temperature and watch how they react to the temperature.

The muscle will pretty much stay intact. but the liver will still kind of melt all over the counter. Like it just kind disintegrates onto the countere.

So if something's physically doing that due to temperature, you have to imagine, oh, that means it's breaking down even easier in our body. And so right there that tells you like, okay, yeah, A, nutritious, because it has a function to do so it is nutritious and B, breaks down so easily And three, or C, our bodies recognize this as a safe food and absorbs everything in it.

It's like wires, the negative and positive connecting, and it's sparks flying. The body is like, ah, yes, this is what I was founded on. This is food I understand.

this food that I recognize. Thank you. And it just relaxes and just absorbs as much of it it needs. Yeah yeah and oh my goodness I mean especially these little bodies are adults with anybody with a chronic you know health condition right they're just burning through these nutrients especially B vitamins like at a warp speed right because their body is just doing their very very best to get to homeostasis and it's just not happening.

And so yeah, it just, I mean, sincerely, It really, really is nature's multivitamin. It's so, so incredible. I did want to ask you though, cause like, you know, sometimes there's too much of a good thing.

Do you ever worry about like vitamin A toxicity? Like how often do you see that happen? It's such a good question because I think that's really one of the hurdles people are facing is that, you know, the two that I hear is like, oh, can you get too much of a nutrient?

And then the other is, but aren't the organs, filled with toxins? And ultimately, I'd love to answer both, not just the ones. So let's first talk about the whole concept of like, oh, but aren't they filled with toxins?

And really when we talk that we're talking about liver and kidney, because obviously those are the organs that support the detoxification process in our bodies.

When we think like that, what we're imagining is that the organ is a sponge and the organs is not a spong. But that's what were imagining. So we are imagining that toxins come in our body and that organs just absorb it all.

And then hold on to it and don't do anything with those. What I think people are not connecting when they imagine that is they're not connected like if our bodies did that so we live in a toxic society, like world, we just do.

If our organs were sponges, then we would be dead. We would not be alive to our 50s or 40s. I've seen people that are alcoholics that live into their 60s and 70s, and then die from alcoholism.

That's amazing. And that right there tells you that this body is not just absorbing things, but it is still doing its best to find homeostasis, to heal, do what it can to survive, because that's really what its trying to do.

And ultimately, what the organs are doing is they're taking those toxins and they are turning them into water soluble form. And then they trying to get them out of your body through your elimination pathways, through you pee, poop, your sweat.

If your eliminations pathways are not working properly, then it gets stored in your fat. Yes, you can have fat build up around the organ, but the organic self is not necessarily going to be this toxic burdened overload unless you're truly, truly like sick for very long.

And it takes a long time. So these are true machines of wonder that need to work and they have their job and. They're going do everything they can to get things out so that they keep doing their jobs.

In terms of could we get too much? That's a question I love because ultimately that is a. That is why I created pluck and why did pluck the way it is.

So I mentioned that we already had capsules. This body we're in is what science would say is homo sapien. It's over. 200,000 years old if you invest in that science.

So the foods we're currently eating and the ways we are getting these nutrients through supplements and capsules, this is all within the last 100 to 150, maybe 200 years.

I would say maybe 100 years or less. That's where we've been really changing how we get food into our body, the homocipian body. But ancestrally this body was designed to eat food.

There was no capsules, there were no tablets. You had two points of communication. Is this food gonna kill me or is it gonna nourish me? But everything in our biology, communication-wise, is designed around that survival mode.

So when we swallow things, We are bypassing that communication. I'll use salt as an example. If I put salt on your tongue, your body will tell you when to stop.

You'll let me do it the first time, maybe the second time. But you won't let do a third and fourth time you'll probably punch me if I try to do at a fifth time it's that visceral, right?

It's like your buddy just vehemently says like, no, I'm overstimulated with salt. Stop it. That is communication and it is happening right there in your mouth.

We also have communication down below as well, and that's what helps us if we get something that is not what our body wants, it helps to regurgitate it up, right?

So we have taste buds down there and we had them up here, but these are all communication points. If I put Swalt tablets and have you swallow them, I could give you five.

You literally get zero communication, nothing. And then 40 minutes later, you're like, wait, why am I so bloated? I got too much of something. And that is what's happening really.

When we talk about, am I gonna get too? That is not an issue when you are eating real food. Your body will not let you eat too. The key is you have to listen to your body.

So many of us are not doing that. Our bodies are constantly giving us clues of how to respond. You'll notice like, A lot of the times when we overeat or a lot times we are experiencing reactions is because we didn't listen.

And I'll even use an example where you're trying to lift up something heavy with your hands or your arms. Well, your body, once again, wants to protect itself.

So when you are lifting up, something is too heavy, what happens to your grip? You can't lift it. That is a form of muscle testing. And the same thing is happening in our bodies.

Like when you're trying to eat strawberries, ancestrally, flavor equals nutrition. So when your body is tasting those strawberries it's instinctively saying, okay, this is flavorful.

It's going to have nutrition and you won't be able to fifty strawberries. You'll probably eat, you know, maximum, what, six to eight, maybe, right? Your body just naturally is like, okay, I'm good.

But now eat a pop tart that has strawberry flavoring or some kind of chip thing that had strawberry, whatever it is, cookie that have strawberry flavored.

But in that case, you have food that is mimicking the flavor but has none of the nutrition. So your body literally is not being told when to stop. One way to look at it is your bodies miraculous.

It has a job to do and it's not going to fail you. The other way is we are failing. Our brains and our mindsets and we're letting the marketing like the choices we've made as a society are feeling our body.

Our body has a job to do and we'll never toss that aside unless it's already been compromised. Yeah. Agreed. I just got back from visiting my in-laws in Texas.

What you just said is extra highlighted for me when I go and stay there. So I have to work really, really hard and then let a lot of things go because there's just so many things presented that are like, this goes against everything that I've been like trying to build that.

I know is good for my kids. You know, not even myself, but just like I just really want my kid to like eat healthy and be okay and have their circadian rhythms respected, just things like that.

It feels like this constant inundation of the counter of that for a week or so, that's okay. Luckily, they're healthy enough to withstand that, and like you said, our bodies are much stronger than we give them credit for.

They are, their resilient. You bring up a good point, in his parents, I do think there is an aspect of like, let's take a breath around this because we have more information at our disposal than ever in a history of humankind.

And yet we're not healthier for it. We are, if anything, we are more stressed out and more overwhelmed than we've ever been and we were way more confused.

You know, there's a great quote from Dr. Bill Schindler. He wrote the book Eat Like a Human and he says, We're the only species in the world that looks to someone else to tell us what to eat.

And that's humbling in itself. But when you think about the fact that there's over nine million species, it's like, clearly we're not special. So if there is nine millions species that know how to eat, then we did as well at one point.

And I don't believe we are ever going to get back to our true ancestral self, but I do think that we can do things in our modern life that support kind of relaxing around things.

Because even with your trip there, And I would even challenge you, like you as a health practitioner around this, because it's something we all face. Well, first of all, as you talk to any health practitioners and who's trying to support everyone's health, whose health is suffering the most in that scenario?

It's the health practice, right? So it is hardest for us to take our own advice than to dispense it. But then there's this whole other aspect, which I see a lot in my industry, is that nothing is what it seems, like nothing.

Like you might think, I mean, look at this study that just recently came out about avocado oil, right? It said the majority of the avocado being sold to you at the grocery store is not 100% avocado oils.

So here you are buying what you think is healthier because someone told you it's healthier, and it still not what thought it was. This episode of Eczema Kids is brought to you by Lovebug Probiotics.

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So I learned only three years ago that organic food that has been pulled from the ground or removed from a crop can then be sprayed with glyphosate to dry it.

So they've been doing that to garbanzo beans, to lentils, maybe even corn. Here you are buying organic produce thinking it has no glyphasate and yet it does.

And they don't have to legally tell you it was grown organically. We have to kind of take like it's very frustrating like infuriating you know when you think that you're buying something and you not getting what you thought you are.

But i think at this point what i've kind come to is like we also have just take a breath around it and just accept that everything is not controllable.

everything is not what we may think it is, but what can control, or that we can kind of take solace in, is that it's not just about what were eating. It's also about the state we are in when we eat it.

And so, and you know, like the stress that feel and that were putting around health is so immense. And it is affecting our digestibility. It is effecting our kids in that there's generational, you know, trauma, things like that.

Like these things are playing out and they're playing whether it's in the skin or in this psychology or something else. And so I'm just more and more a big advocate of like when you show yourself some grace and just show the moment grace of, like, You know what?

I'm visiting my in-laws, they're eating differently than me, but let's just focus more on the joy of getting to be with each other and yada yad, you know, that kind of thing.

And it's so hard to do, But I am just finding that that gets me further than obsessing around that it is wrong. Yes, yes, and thank you for that. And we did have a really good time and it was just, you know, coming, like having this conversation.

Yes. Thank you. For that, for sure. Cause yeah, having these conversations, it brings it up for me and like, oh man, we failed so hard for a little while, but also just equally thankful for their resiliency.

And, you know, like you said, the organs aren't sponges. A big part of our work is opening up those detoxification channels, right? So that things go out through the proper elimination channels.

You need nutrients to do that. It's so interesting in this world. Sometimes we focus on one thing and we get this kind of tunnel vision like there's people out there like they're all about lead and food and that's all they look at is lead.

And it's fascinating because it is like, okay, well, great. So you have salt that's high in lead, and now you're choosing sea salt, that has little lead.

But now the sea-salt has microplastic, but you weren't looking at micro-plastics. You know what I mean? There's always something. And so the best thing we can do is build that resiliency, is support the system, the human body and the systems, in doing what it was designed to do effectively.

to bring it full circle, organ meats will help you do that efficiently and the most effectively beyond any other food. They will. So I'm not great at this part.

I am definitely not a chef. And for me, when we were really going through it, I mean, two of my kids had really severe eczema and we had to change a lot of things to get through that.

And my MO is like, well, just get it in. It doesn't matter really what it tastes like. Just do it, right? And they were young enough that we could muscle through like that.

Like I said, my baby ate Morgan meat pate. Did not taste good. I could not eat that, but she was a baby and didn't know any better. But why is flavor so important for habits to actually stick?

Yeah, it really is. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, like flavor equal nutrition, you know, biologically for us. And so I think food is so powerful. Like we put our emotions on that.

Usually when I talk to people and I'm working with them as a client, I'll say, so give me a list of the foods you don't eat or avoid. and they'll give you that list and you something like Brussels sprouts will be on there or whatever it is and inevitably I just have to add then ask the next question.

Okay. So who used to cook that for you when you first tried it and What was going on like what was the behavior around you eating this food and inevitably it will usually be either they were Shamed around eating it like you need to eat this Food clear this plate before you get up and then kids would be sitting there at the table for hours Because they didn't want to do it, right?

So there was this shaming which then created trauma Or there was the person who made it was someone that was mean or that represented like trauma, like co-created trauma in your life.

And so usually the foods that we're avoiding are the food that have some kind of stigma or trauma attached to them. When we think about flavor and you talk about, let's say, like picky eating, most of that has to, so we have the four flavors that we learned about in school, salty, bitter, sweet and sour.

There's a fifth called umami that was discovered in the 90s in Japan, and that's kind of described as savory or meaty. And then they've discovered that there's even a sixth and that would be, and this is a newer discovery, but that you would classify it almost like as rancid.

So, cause ranced food has its own flavor and there is. Yeah, exactly. And so you're, you kind of like. you know, when you start to piece it all together, you're like, oh yeah, this makes so much sense.

Cause you need to have these flavor identifiers so that you can survive. Because once again, that's what the body's trying to do. And when we're picky, usually here in the U S it's because we are locked into salty sweet.

That's ultimately what it is. So that's one thing is like, OK, how is your palate calibrated? And can we recalibrate it? Which we absolutely can. You can do it as fast as two weeks.

But then going to, well, How do we get people to eat these foods that they think are icky? and I would say, Well, yes, we can help to recaliberate the palate.

But more importantly, I think what we want to do is we don't want a rush things. We don' want it like remove because I just mentioned there's so many different elements to food, right?

There's the emotional, psychological piece. There is that what is my palate used to. So there is the physical piece and we honor. What did you say? And the seasonal piece.

Yeah, and seasonal as well. Like, yeah, we want to honor all of it. And so how I look at it as a chef is I say, OK, what foods or even textures are supporting you and feeling safe?

Because it's not just the food. It's a lot of times it is texture. A lot people like fluffy foods, right? Or creamy foods. That's what makes them feel safe.

So what I looked at is how can I Take what you're already eating and either change some of the ingredients, but not the texture. So if it was like you love mashed potatoes, I might take cauliflower and make it the same texture as the mashed potato, which is quite easy actually.

But I'm just changing the food. Let's say I am removing the easy starches and I give you something that's more nutritious. That's one way. Another way might be like, hey, my kid's locked into eating dino nuggets and ketchup.

And I'm like, okay, so we are dealing with two things. We're dealing nutrient deficiency, but we're also dealing the taste buds being locked into that sweet ketchup and the texture, the crunchy texture of that dino-shaped nugget.

So then what I would do is I'd slowly add little bits to the ketchup. I take, for example, Pluck, or if you have capsules, you could do the same thing.

Pluc has a pure It's not a flavor, it's just pure organs. So we have a product that's literally just the organs, no salt, not seasonings. And I would take literally, just a pinch, a fourth of a teaspoon of that, and I wouldn't mix it in the ketchup.

Or if you already have capsules, I'd open the capsule up and just mix them in. The problem with capsule is that those are all equal amounts and it probably does have really strong taste, so I won't use the full capsule.

I will use like a third of the capsul. Then the key is you're adding these nutrients The organ mates naturally have umami, so now you're expanding their palate, but you are supporting the body with not changing the flavor but with just changing their nutrient profile.

And you also not change the food, which makes the kid or the adult still feel safe. So that's kind of how I would tackle and really how i did with pluck because that is what pluck is right?

Pluck is providing the nutrients without the icky taste and without a new habit. We all season our food so you just anything you can salt you pluck and every time you do you're getting the micronutrient of the organ meats without bombarding your system with like You have to eat liver and onions, or you have eat that pate, which is right away this whole new thing, right?

Not only am I getting all organs, because that's the most dominant ingredient when you eat those things. So not only, am i getting organs but I'm also getting a flavor I am completely unaccustomed to.

I hope I answered your question, but it's really a mix of like honoring where we are, But also inching and slowly increasing the parts that we want to move.

I just I love what you created so much. It's so doable and just right it just meets us where we're at or with a toddler or an eight-year-old that's never had organ meats and we don't regularly cook organ meat and you try because you read it's really nutritious and It tastes horrible and it smells horrible, and this is just such an easy thing to incorporate.

But that's what I've been doing is putting in bits of powder into meatballs or hamburgers or things like that. That's the only way that I know how to do it in my house.

Well, here's a couple of things. So one is compliance, right? As a practitioner, that's going to be your, literally your biggest hurdle is you can tell people till you're blue in the face what they should do, but then are they actually doing it?

And what I love about real food is it's so easy to comply. It's much easier for someone to sprinkle You know, pluck on their product or the food that they're already eating because you're going to eat no matter what versus here.

You have to go take these supplements or you have To go do this very specific exercise routine or whatever it might be, which is part of the protocol.

So that's one piece. The other piece though, is there are other ways to pluck is just one way, but There are other ways to incorporate these foods into your diet very easily.

So while pluck in my judgment is the easiest, it's kind of the bridge because it, like I said earlier, is no new habit. The other way I might do it is, so if you're someone eating ground meat, any ground, meat doesn't matter if it´s turkey, beef or pork, doesn't matter.

What you want to do is you wanna purchase like, let's just say liver. Usually when you purchase it, particularly from a farmer, it's gonna already be frozen.

Keep it in your freezer, because it is overwhelming when we defrost it. But just keep it your in freezer and then take your cheese grater whenever you're eating like a pound or more of ground meat and just grate like tablespoon of it into the ground.

Mix it up, no one will know it there. Not a single person will notice there And it's an easy way to do it. You can also just grate it right into the spaghetti sauce if you're making that.

Chicken hearts is a great one because chicken is not as strong as beef. And so right away, it is just milder. But the hearts are really cool because they don't taste that strong.

The chicken liver, a little bit more so, but the heart's not at all. So what you can do is you buy them and then chop them, just a few, like take two or three from the container, chop em up.

Like you would a mushroom, just dice it and then throw it in your spaghetti sauce. Once again, no one will know. They'll think it's a mushrooms because that will have the texture of a mushrm, not a heart.

Love it. So those are really good tips. I will try that. Just in a few wrap up questions, fun ones. Besides a cheese grater, then what's one kitchen tool that every family should own?

Well, you have a nice sharp knife. I know that there's always like things out there where people are like, buy this new air fryer or buy the blender. But I find that I really do try to keep it as simple as possible.

that's the one I probably use the most. These days, as my kids are older, I don't use them as much as I used to. So I would say keep it simple. Because here's thing, you even said yourself, like, oh, not that much of a chef.

That's not my specialty. You have clearly other specialties that you are really good at, right? And we think that just because we eat, that we have to be good cooks or chefs, and that have we to love it.

And the reality is, it's like no, we may not. It's for everybody. Not everyone becomes a Chef, Everyone goes down the avenue that they're most passionate about.

And so what I advise is like, just know you don't have to love it, but you do have do it because you can only be healthy if you cook your own food. So then what do we do?

How do make it better or more, you know, how do just improve the situation is just focus on the environment. Make the environment enjoyable. So maybe make sure there's nice sunlight coming in.

Make sure that there are bright colors, you know, have yellow towels, things that just inspire kind of joy. Maybe play your favorite podcast, play this podcast.

Play your favourite music. Talk to people that you love when you're doing it. But anything to kind of get you in the right frame of mind, but just know that you don't have to love it You just need to enjoy yourself while you're doing it like when you are listening to good music You can turn any environment into an enjoyable environment, right?

And then from there, it's like well then find what is the best tool towards cooking? Maybe it is not following recipes because recipes stress you out.

So maybe it's just finding formulas. It's like, okay, I know I need these macros. I mean, fat, protein, and I eat vegetables. Or starch or fiber or whatever it is.

Just meet those. We're going to have chicken tonight and the vegetable will be broccoli. And because it was chicken and broccoli, we're gonna do pesto.

That's the fat. Done. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't have to be complicated. I agree. I mean, it's so great about kids in general. It's like they don't need, you know, like a ton of ingredients, especially these kids, right?

That are like really reactive and they're just, we're trying to get them while like simpler, the better. And it is better for the cook as well. If this isn't your specialty, if this really like your top choice.

But I know for me, You know, the only times I really don't enjoy it is like when I feel stressed for time. And the biggest needle mover for me is just like, obviously this needs to happen every day, multiple times a day.

If you have children, you got to feed them. No matter what you're feeding them, this is already baked into your day and what I tell to people that say, well, I don' know if I have enough time for this.

It's like well. you're already doing it. And I love like your suggestion of like using cauliflower for thickener, like stuff like that is like where we kind of get into trouble of, well, you know, how could I make things taste the same as it always has?

But it's just like scheduling your day. Yeah, scheduling your day as just a parent that, you know, this needs to happen. And no matter how you really feel about it, it just helps you feel, like it helps me to not feel any sort of way about.

It's just like thankful that I get to like buy the groceries, that get offer these foods for my kids and myself and bake in the half an hour like that.

I know I need to make it. I'm sure you tell this to your clients, but we should probably mention it, is one of the most underutilized tools is meal planning.

And it's incredible how effective it is. To your point, if someone says, oh, I don't have time, well, here, let's build your meal plan around your schedule, not the schedule.

The meal plan is like literally build the meal planning around your schedule. So let's just say you have, oh, Tuesday, I'm in meetings all day. I get out at five and we need to have the dinner on the table at 530 or even earlier.

What do I do? And I am like, great, that's a slow cooker day, so everything goes in the slow-cooker in you time it put it in done so when you're off work and you get home at five fifteen whatever dinner is ready just take some greens throw it into the residual heat of the slow cooker and then let them wilt and dinner It's crazy effective.

And then also when you have a meal plan and you're building your grocery list from that meal, plan, most of us don't write on their Oreos, Lay's potato chips.

Like it's not usually in our recipes, right? So when your making that grocery lists, if you stick to it, it is very effective and then not buying all the foods you don' want in your kitchen.

Yes. Love it. Thank you. I mean, that's literally, we have an online portion too. That's a part of it, it's like, you must incorporate this into your life to be successful no matter what.

If you have kids, like you, have to do this. And I would say, even if it is just you and a spouse or just, oh my goodness, what a stress reliever to just know, okay, tomorrow's chicken and I just take it out tonight.

It's just not a big deal, so thank you for saying that. What is a modern food that you would never bring into You know I've kind of set the rule that if it has flavoring I don't bring it in.

So that's natural or artificial and it's mostly because that one's the sticky one for me because all flavorings have carriers and so let's say like I'm really sensitive to corn.

And so if I'm eating something that has flavor, it probably has dextrose, and it's usually corn based. Sometimes it is rice based, but it usually is corn-based.

And it a lot of times is GMO if it not organic. So there's lots of things that are just hidden in these terms that on the label. I am more and more just refusing to be products in that have hidden ingredients.

So I just choose things that have very clear, simple ingredients that it's like tomatoes. It's not tomato concentrate, which is going to be nefarious potentially, but it is like, tomatoes, done.

You know? It is sad that is has to get that granular, that's where we are at in this world. What is one ancestral habit that has nothing to do with food that you do?

Well, the one that moves the needle the most for me is sleep. A lot of people sometimes put sleep lower on the Most Important List. But for my, my sleep affects the food choices I make.

So it literally affects, The choices that I made in my day. To me, it's the biggest mover of health. Because if I don't get good sleep, I eat poorly. It's just fact.

What's that? It is fact! What is the best thing you've ever cooked for a celebrity? Well, not to be in my ego, but I would say everything I cooked was the best.

Your job is to make it feel special every time. I'm really into sauces though, so I used to makes this sauce where it was like a ginger cashew sauce, and it's so good.

But I was using soaked cashews, and then real ginger and a little bit of dates. And then I would make something crispy. Think of the way orange chicken or lemon chicken in Asian food is.

I was basically making that, but with a real sauce. Nothing that's overly processed, just using real food. All my clients used to freak out over that dish.

What's the one meal that converted most skeptics? It wasn't necessarily that dish, but it was the sauces and dressing. I think we underestimate how poor the ingredients are in shelf stable foods.

particularly dressings and sauces. The oils they're using, the stabilizers, a lot of them have sweeteners. I mean, they just have so many nefarious ingredients.

And when you cut out those kinds of things, you just make it from scratch. It's wild how the body responds. That was the mover of so much people's health from when I was private chef.

Their weight would just fall off because it was now getting such clean food. Making your own dressing is so simple. You just follow a three to one ratio, so three parts oil or fat, and then one part vinegar or lemon juice, whatever, acid is what we would say.

Three to One. And just stick it in a mason jar and shake. Perfect. Thank you. Lastly, what's one thing an overwhelmed parent who's listening can do this week?

Oh, well, hopefully many, but I'll give you a couple. So right away, just take a breath. Like, don't be so hard on yourself. What's keeping most of us back is the shame and the pressure we put on ourselves.

It's literally determining how we show up and our initial decisions. First of all, be kinder to yourself because I think when we have softer eyes at the situation, we make different decisions and then the next thing I would say is start to incorporate those organ meats.

Like I said, whether it's pluck, the grading of the organs, chicken hearts, buying pre-ground ancestral blends, Force of Nature has some. There's so many.

But get them in sooner rather than later. Let's all make a pact to do it this week. it really will change your life and it will make things easier when our kids are getting these nutrients.

Like when your daughter's eczema improved, it improved your live because then you're not dressed out as a mom, right? So when are kids get these new trends and they're feeling better as parents, we feel better.

And it's a beautiful cycle of love and improvement. It really does start with the foods we're eating. Oh, thank you. That was a beautiful ending. And oh my goodness, just every single thing that we talk about here.

It's like, yeah, your kids have to thrive so that you can be okay, right? And vice versa. So amazing. Thank you, where can everybody find you? Try plug and listen to your podcast.

Yeah, EatPluck.com is a great source. That's our website. Or you can find us on Amazon if that's easier for you. We do have some retail, but you'll want to look on our web site if it fits your area.

And then you could find it on socials, at Eat Pluck, and I'm at Chef James Berry. And of course, as you mentioned at the top, we have a podcast, Everyday Ancestral, and we a YouTube channel with, oh, that's actually a really cool resource for everyone is we kids can cook videos.

We have tips for me and my wife doing like videos in the kitchen, showing people how they can just do simple things like chef kind of things. And then we lots of great interviews from experts talking about either their brands or the things that people can do in their life.

And that's the Everyday Ancestral YouTube channel. Amazing. I would love to get my kids involved in a class where you taught how to cook. That'd be amazing.

Thank you. Perfect. All those will be listed in the show notes and thank you so much for your time today, James. Thanks you! Thank so you for being here today friends!

I loved this conversation with James and I hope you're walking away feeling more like this is doable and you don't have to love organ meats and overall your old kitchen.

Grate a little frozen liver into your ground meat or chop a couple of chicken hearts into