Unearth a Chef’s Nutrition Secrets for You

James Barry

Thank you. I’m very passionate about helping people with their health, so I’m honored to have this opportunity.

Kashif Khan

And what did you do? You know, you literally created a brand out of that. And I we’re fast forwarding a little bit but it just you know, your life mission speaks to how much you care because I’ve seen you at a couple of conferences now and we’ll talk about that in a sec. But, you know, it’s you know, it speaks in your actions. So it’s awesome that you’re here. So you’re yeah. So you’re you know, the thing we were just saying is you’ve spent a lifetime learning by cooking for people that already have the best and you had to make it better. And you mastered this like on cooking chef-cooked meals. So, you know, tell us a little bit about that journey and what does it mean to like having to be perfect in the kitchen?

James Barry

Yeah, right. Well, if anything, I kind of I try to bring that energy of reminding people that just because we have to eat doesn’t mean we have to be great chefs, and it doesn’t mean we have to love cooking. I think if there’s a consistency I’ve seen in my 17-plus years as a chef in the health field is that people put a lot of pressure on themselves. You know, they think that they have to love it and that they have to kind of find a perfection with it. You know, I had a meal delivery service at one point. I lived in LA for 20 years. And for eight years of that, I started and owned a meal delivery. And I can’t even tell you how many people would come to me and just say thank you. Thank you so much for not just selling me a diet, but for selling me clean, healthy food and for putting so much love into it. Because they said, I’ve never felt like I had a really good options because I just don’t like cooking and I would rather spend my time doing other things and I get it. We all get it right. How many people love cleaning their house? You know, like how many people love doing the yard work? It’s like how many people love plumbing their pipes. It’s like you hire, you work, make money so that you can pay. The people that do love doing that, you know, and that way you can use your time towards the things that do matter to you. And so I’m really big into just honoring people for their process and not kind of telling them. And really ultimately what I bring is I give you tools on how to make it easier, you know, whatever, wherever you’re at in your journey around your health, how can I make it more doable and how can I make it easier and thus more sustainable?

Kashif Khan

Yeah. Okay, cool. So when you were doing that, you, I mean, you had to go through this journey 

of like these people are probably very finicky in a very specific needs. And so you had to learn, you know, the best practices. So what is it that you learned that you could distill down and say, here’s a three, four or five top things that kind of had to be done to maintain a healthy diet. And I’d say absolutely so.

James Barry

So one is trends come and go. I mean, I as a major, I’ve been in this over 17 years, right? So when I started, the fat flush diet was the big thing. Now no one anyone listening is probably is like the fat flush what you mean? Like they don’t even realize what it was, you know, Atkins was really big then. So I’ve seen things come and go. I’ve seen diets get rebranded, you know, used to be vegan. Now it’s plant-based. It used to be, like I said, Atkins even. I know they’re subtly different, but now it’s keto. It’s like it’s like these things just kind of come and go. And so I’m always first and foremost, I’m always just about real food. To me, it starts there. And what do we mean by real food? Because I think even that term is kind of got twisted around. But when we talk about when you’re at the grocery store, you’re buying things that are an ingredient versus that having gradients. And then you can go even deeper from there. 

Let’s just say there is an ingredient label on that thing you’re buying. Well, do you recognize what those are like? Every single ingredient. Do you understand what it is? Because if you don’t understand what it is, I guarantee your body will not understand what it is. Yeah, it really, really important. So I’m a big advocate of real food. I’m a big advocate of what I call don’t fall asleep at the grocery cart. So don’t fall asleep at the cart because something that happens is a lot of people get the front of the package confused with the back of the package. So the front of the package is no different than a billboard. It’s still the thing that’s just trying to attract you, to motivate you to grab that thing off the shelf, put it in your cart. Right. And so sometimes they’ll say, like made with olive oil and they’ll put it on there that it’s like has olive oil in it and then make it sound like it’s so healthy. Mediterranean diet, whatever it is. But if you just turn that package around, you’d be like, Oh, wait, this is a olive oil soy blend. Yeah. You know, I mean, they manipulate you or they’ll say low in sugar, and then you turn it around the back and you say, Oh, wait, it’s got brown rice syrup, it’s got maple syrup, and it’s got some kind of glucose syrup. So it’s like all they’re doing is they’re splitting up the ingredients so that they all don’t add up to one. Because if they all added up to one, it would be the first ingredient. So they’re manipulating ice on the front of that package and you really have to turn around and read labels and you can’t. And I even stress that you can’t even assume that that product that you have found works for you is still the same product. Because a lot of times what happens is companies come in, they purchase those smaller businesses, and then they fold them into their supply chain. 

So a product that might have been really clean before, once it gets folded into like General Mills or something like that, they’re now using that canola oil or vegetable oil blend, whereas they used to be I don’t know, I’m just throwing this out there like avocado oil or something like that. And then they don’t, they don’t tell anyone that they made the change. Would that happened with anyone that remembers the day Ben and Jerry’s ice cream that absolutely happened with that used to be a very clean ice cream. And then I think I could be wrong here. It was some big ice cream company. I think Breyers bought them. And then a couple of years later, it’s like Breyers started putting in the corn syrup. So when they started changing the recipe and didn’t inform anyone of it. So you just can’t force it. You always got to be reading labels. The other piece I would add is that there is no way to be healthy. It is impossible if you’re eating out all the time. Restaurants, businesses, they have bottom lines. 

They are doing everything they can to profit. So how do you profit when you’re a food company? Your margins are really low. You use cheap ingredients and there’s nothing cheaper than salt, sugar and vegetable oils. There’s nothing. Those are the cheapest ingredients. So you’re going to see those constantly used. You’re going to see, for example, if it’s a spice mix or if you’re going to if it’s anything that’s processed, you’re going to see. Salt is one of the highest ingredients. You’re going to see sugar is one of the highest. Some form of sugar dextrose is a form of sugar. Right. So you’re going to see that as a high ingredient. And then, of course, you’re going to see those vegetable oils when they could be using extra virgin olive oil, which is expensive. They’re using some blend, some soy corn or sunflower oil blend or something like that. So you got to eat at home. And so then ultimately, that’s hopefully what we’re going to talk more about is like how do we get you to start making your meals at home?

Kashif Khan

And you’re right, it starts at the grocery store because so we have this belief that I drive to the grocery store and that whatever’s in that big box is the limitation of what I’m able to eat. Right. And when you walk in. So the thing you said, it’s funny, you I just had this experience like a week ago where the first time I walked in and I kind of looked at the store from one end to the other, I realized that there’s a little section of produce in the front, which is food, and everything else is in a package and processed. But the majority of that big box is just packaged up on a shelf with no refrigeration. No, because it doesn’t need it, because that’s full of preservatives, you know.

James Barry

And you’re hidden it right there. And so why is that? Why is that category so big? It’s shelf life. Yeah, it’s shelf life. Anything that’s perishable, if that doesn’t sell the market or the or the seller, they’re out there out of money. You know, they lose that money. But if it has a shelf life of 1 to 2 years, doesn’t matter if it sells this month, it will sell next month when there’s a sale. I mean, like they’ll eventually get you if their marketing is good or if their price is good, they’re going to get you. But they have time to get you. If it’s, if it’s, if it’s got a long shelf life.

Kashif Khan

Yeah. But there’s so much wisdom behind what you’re saying because walking to the grocery store, we take for granted that we think we’re being provided what’s been vetted and FDA-cleared and approved. And but what you’re walking into is a giant marketing machine. There’s all these tiny salespeople on the counter that are screaming from the counter are the shelves, I should say, buy me, buy me, baby. And here’s why. So that science of I’ve worked with, I call it distributors, right? And the way they think and exactly what’s position on the shelf in the end is worth more than the middle. And all of that has been calculated and formulated to sell, sell, sell, sell, not to serve, serve, serve. And, you know.

James Barry

And it’s all based on an illusion of health, all of it, even even my product. It’s all an illusion of health. And I say it’s an illusion because, well, okay, this is going to sound weird. I do believe my product is different, but I don’t want to pretend that what I’m spouting is necessarily different than one out or what everyone else is spouting. But I say this illusion of health is because everyone’s got a perspective on what they think is healthy.

But is it because you look at history, literally the history of nutrition or the history of medicine, even? And there are different points in history where we thought this is the healthiest thing. And then you skip forward and it’s like, oh, no, no, that wasn’t healthy, you know? Or you find out that some company, some very large company like Coca-Cola, was manipulating us to thinking that, oh, that you could have as much sugar as you wanted to. And as long as you kind of were active, you were fine, you know? I mean, like that we’ve been we’re being manipulated left and right. And so I really try to advocate to people that we need to get back to our innate knowledge of what our body needs. And I love Dr. Bill Schindler says this quote in his book. He says, We are the only species that needs to ask someone else what to eat. Yeah, that’s right. Take that in. Right. That is intense. Yeah. The only species that needs to ask someone else. What should I be eating? Every other species knows exactly what it needs to eat, you know, so that I mean, when I heard that gave me chills. I’m like, Oh my gosh, it’s so true. Like, we have lost touch with what we need to eat. And that is and that’s where I say, Well, what I’m trying to do is little different. It’s still my philosophy, it’s still what I believe is healthy. And you as a consumer needs the needs to either align with what I’m saying or not. You know, it’s always your choice, but it’s still a philosophy and it’s still what I believe works. But I believe it’s slightly different because what I’m advocating is real food. What I’m trying to say is let’s look at what foods are available on this planet right now. What are the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet? And when you compare them, it’s organ meats, like organ meats are hands down the most nutrient-dense food on the planet. They’re not only nutrient-dense, but they’re also bioavailable, meaning that our bodies can easily absorb the nutrients so our bodies recognize it. 

And going back to Bill, Dr. Bill Schindler, who’s a professor of archeology, he talks about or maybe it’s anthropology. I’m sorry. I always get those, too. He studies humans, basically. And so he talks about how about 3 million years ago, our species were scavengers, so we were some other predator was was basically the killing of the animal. And then they would eat the organs and the fat. They would eat all the prized possessions, and then they’d leave a lot of the muscle meat. It was just be left. And then the buzzards and all the hyenas and us at that time would come in and we would grab what meat we could and then scurry off before they came to try to kill us. So we were scavengers then, so we were getting muscle meat, among other things, and not much changed. And it wasn’t until 2.5 million years ago it took another point 5 million years for us to really change to what we are now. 

And what happened is that somehow we created a tool and then we became the predator and we killed the animal. And then we got access to three really key things that we did not get access to before that 2.5 million years. We got access to the blood, we got access to the fat, and we got access to the organs. And that nutrient richness that came with those items blew us up and increased our brain size, which allows us, you and I, to talk right now. It increased our brain size in that we now could create tools. We also got fire at that time. So it changed what access we had to certain nutrients. I mean, it’s just like life changed. And so when I hear stuff like that, I’m like, yeah, we need the fat, we need the nutrients in blood, we need the nutrients in organ meats. Yeah, it’s the missing link.

Kashif Khan

Yeah. And so and that’s when the what you’re just saying there, you know, people think about, you know, my ancestral diet or what did my ancestors eat? And they’re thinking about grandma, you know, and they’re not realizing that we as who we are. We aren’t two generations old. It’s many thousands of generations. And the majority of that didn’t live like this. This current industrialized lifestyle we have is a tiny blip in that longitudinal, like who your ancestors really are and how they age. Right. So absolutely. And one key thing you said there, when whenever we’re talking to anyone like internally on our site as a patient, for example, and we’re always talking about changing their food habits. And a question comes up sometimes in some families about cost. And they say, well, yeah, you can say that you can afford it. I can’t do this. But what you said there, nutrient density, because the assumption is I have to continue eating in the volume that I eat. Right. I have to continue eating 3 to 5 meals a day that continue to make me more hungry because of the insulin response they trigger. And they have no nutrient and they’re just fluff. And the belief is that satiety the satisfaction is when I’m full, not the delivery of nutrition. And if you actually eat nutrient-dense food, you don’t need to eat as much. So that cost balance kind of kicks in right there.

James Barry

Totally. And, you know, so here’s an interesting fact as well. It’s like 93% of Americans are nutrient deficient in one or more vitamins and minerals. But we’re not calorie deficient. Right. We’re an obese large nation. I mean, we have people that are extremely heavy and it’s like so that’s that’s telling you everyone’s getting enough food. You know, you’re eating the wrong foods and to your point, they’re not nutrient dense. They’re, you know, they’re calorie-rich, but nutrient void. So once again, I go back to is, as you know, my chef, mine, I’m like, okay, how can I help people achieve a healthiness? But where I come in with a kind of my lens is but without them feeling deprived, because I think that’s the old way of thinking is that health had to be like bland and and where you had to have limited calories. And I think I think there is some truth to calories in calories. I think there’s a little bit of that. But I think in general,  we got to expand beyond that and focus more on what are our food choices now, because that’s going to really move the needle, you know, particularly initially when you start getting nutrient-rich foods. One of the things of why so I focus on organ meats is because those organ meats I mentioned are nutrient-rich, they’re bioavailable. But what’s happening right now is they’re just being left on the table. And this is to your point about cost. So where you take the same 100% grass-fed cow, okay, you slaughter that cow, you pull the meat away, that ribeye, you know, and depending on what city or and becomes 24, 99 a pound or something like that. Right. It’s really expensive that the tongue from that same animal is 699, that kidney or heart from that same animal is 899. You know, I mean, like it’s like there’s no difference in the quality of that animal. And yet those products from that animal, that more nose-to-tail product versus just the muscle is cheaper. So eating organ mates is a way to get more nutrients and to lower your grocery bill.

Kashif Khan

Yeah, that’s amazing. And people don’t think of it that way, that it’s don’t eat as much. The nutrient density is the cheapest food because people are looking for that. They’re looking for the fluff, you know. So I can imagine that people would think that, yeah, one day I’d like to be like you and be able to do all of this stuff right and be like this famous chef that everybody wants to eat for. So where do they start? What’s the first step to like going from Uber eats to I cook at home and I do this well.

James Barry

Yeah well first first is to create an environment of joy because I think the thing you have to ask yourself is why am I not currently doing this? And a lot of times it has to do with time. So you’re not making the time to do it, which is in deeper discussion really is like, well, why am I not making the time for my own health? You know, do I not value my health? Do I not value myself? So these are questions that I think everyone’s got to start with, is that you have to you have to see that it’s not about multitasking. Now as something we thought was a thing, you know, in the late nineties and early hundreds, it’s like a millennium area. But it’s like we thought, oh, if I multitask, I get more done. But now we’re smarter than that. We now we realize actually you’re worse off. And the same thing goes like when you’re pushing yourself, you know, burning the candle at both ends, you don’t get more done. You actually what you do is you do more, but not as well, like you say. So whereas you were great at one thing, now you’re kind of half-assed at three things so they don’t get done as well and they don’t get done as fast. 

So there is there’s a real thing that we have to check in with ourselves about is when you take care of yourself, when you have self a self-care routine, you’re actually not only preparing yourself for success in your career, you’re preparing yourself for success in your relationships, and you’re hopefully even preparing yourself to be more present with your every choice. So you have to get out of that kind of like machine mind of like that. I can just go, go, go, because you will burn out. And that kind of ties into the whole concept of like costs as well, because a lot of times people are like, well, it costs so much to live that way. It’s like, well, you’re going to pay it. You’re either going to pay it now in your healthy choices or you’re going to pay it later to the hospital, but you will pay for it. So don’t kid yourself. That is the reality and that is truth. You can look at anyone in your family, your history, and you can see those people that pushed it were severely sick later on. So be very mindful of that. Ask yourself, why am I not priority for prioritizing myself and my health? And why am I not making sure that those that I love and that love me that I’m going to be there for them, you know, I mean, like so those are questions I ask all the time, particularly as a father.

Kashif Khan

Yeah.

James Barry

That’s probably the first step I would take and then it would be and then ties into like, why am I not cooking at home? Well, how do I create in a maybe the environment is stressful, maybe the idea of following a recipe is overwhelming. So I would say then, now let’s create an environment that brings joy or that lightens that load. That kind of makes you not as stressed. So that might be listening to your favorite podcast is you’re in the kitchen or listening to music that might be, you know, like meal planning, for example, meal planning acts. It can sometimes relieve you of the stress of trying to figure out, what do I eat today? Because you view meal plan on a day when you’re not working. So maybe a Saturday or Sunday, you meal plan, you figure out, you look at your schedule as your meal planning. So let’s just say you have a Wednesday. You’re like, Oh, I’m on calls all day. I have no moment to stop to then start preparing dinner a little earlier. Right? So on that day I would say, well, make that a slow cooker day, because with a slow cooker, a pressure cooker, you throw everything in them in the morning and then you start it and then you can even set a timer and then it’s ready for you at the end of your day. I mean, so you can really accommodate those that your meal week based on your schedule and so that helps you. So now you’re going to the grocery store with a grocery list based on that meal plan. You’re not buying, you know, doing emotional purchases. Oh, I’m hungry. I’m going to buy that candy. But you’re not you’re not doing things that are going to increase your grocery bill because they’re emotional purchases. You’re now have food that’s very specific to you, meal plans to using everything you have. So that’s one way to also relieve that kind of decision fatigue that you have at the end of the day. And then another one is get really smart about how you do your meals. So something that we’re big advocates of is we make larger dinners. 

So then that dinner as lunch the next day that you always have leftovers and then what you find is when you go to meal plan, you only really have to meal plan dinner, you don’t have to meal plan the other things because breakfast for most people you want to keep pretty simple you’re going to probably do you know what you want some kind of animal protein, whether it’s an egg or something like that. You want some kind of good, good protein if and then some good fat and then maybe some vegetables. You don’t want the sweet stuff. You don’t want anything that’s, you know, increasing your blood sugar crazy. And you don’t want anything really processed. You don’t want a Pop-Tart. You know, you don’t want that Eggo, you know, frozen waffle thing, you know, I mean, you want something that’s a real food. So, you know, common breakfast, you got eggs, you got some kind of maybe meat you got. If you do grains, maybe you got some kind of whole grain that you pre-soaked the night before. 

So it’s even easier to digest. You know, there’s different ways, but you’re really not going to diverge breakfast-wise too much. It’s going to be like three or four things and you can repeat those, but then it’s dinner. Dinner is the one that just make more, just double it, triple it, whatever you need to do. And then that’s your lunches that honestly simplifies. And then I would add the next thing, the next two things I would add is only bring into your kitchen what you want to eat. If you have junk food in there, you’re going to probably eat it. So if you’re trying to get healthy, only bring it between your kitchen as a sanctuary or anything that passes the doorway is something that you truly is going to truly make you feel better in your body and going to kind of if your body is your vessel is going to move your vessel to a better state. So only bring those kind of foods into your kitchen. 

If you’re someone like me who will eat it if it’s there, doesn’t even matter what it is. You’re like, if there’s an ice cream thing, you’re going to eat it and you eat it like it’s depression era. Like if you don’t eat the whole thing in one sitting, it’s kind of like, you know, like cause havoc to your, you know, someone else is going to come and steal it or something. I don’t know. But like I have no off switch, so I just know that I cannot bring that stuff into the house because I don’t I don’t have an off switch with it. So why would I fight? Why would I make my life harder by bringing that in? Because I know I’m going to get pulled to it. So just remove the stimulus. Right. And then the last thing I would say is, is if you’re someone that gets stressed by recipes, then don’t follow a recipe, follow a formula. And in how a formula may look is, okay, what do we need? What are the basics of what we need? Well, if you’re falling, how i.e. I eat protein and it’s usually animal protein, so you pick the animal. That night can be any animal protein you want. Then I add some fat to it, either in the form of a dressing or actual cooking fat. So I’m using, you know, ghee, I’m using coconut oils, I’m using tallow, I’m using lard, I’m using these kind of like really good cooking, saturated fats. And then and if it’s addressing, I’m using extra virgin olive oil. So I’m using my good fats in the fat choices. And then if you do eat vegetables, then you’re choosing a vegetable that works for you. And that’s kind of like if you then add a resistant starch beyond that, that’s really like icing, like you don’t necessarily need it. 

I mean, some people do better with it than others, but you can be true to your body. Like sometimes you can have that roasted potato, sometimes it’s a baked sweet potato, sometimes it’s I don’t know, a lot of people don’t use these, but they really should because they’re delicious as parsnips and rutabagas and sell your rack. I mean, there’s so many different vegetables out there that you can turn around and make them kind of grain like, you know, kind of achieve that texture of a grain, like sell your like is and parsnips and cauliflower work really well as mashes, for example. So anyone that’s really hooked on like mashed potatoes, you can get off those, those really starchy potatoes and use something else.

Kashif Khan

Yeah. Then going back to what you said about, you know, it’s variable like who does what with what, this is something like, you know, I’ll, I’ll share this with you offline. But we’ve done a lot of research on the genetics of the metabolic pathways. So who actually metabolize the saturated fats? Well, who metabolize starches into the response, you know, cognitive behavior, who binges, who’s an addict, who leans on food as a coping mechanism. It’s all genetically driven, but you can understand your map, which then further allows you to decide what should be in your kitchen. You know, who are you and what is your family doing? One cool thing is that because I don’t when people think about, okay, I’m going to start cooking, right? And I’ve had the same thought. You picture yourself like, how do I make time for this every day for every meal? And what you’re saying is that you need to eat like this every day, but you don’t need to put time in it every day. You can cook once for the next four or five days that you’re like, if I take a act like a personal trainer and you have your boxes of stacked food in the fridge are cooked well. And so that’s that’s really the hack where you can eat like this every day without having to make the time every day.

James Barry

And you can, can, you can set that time based on your schedule. It’s like right now, a lot of times people let the cooking dominate their life. Like, Oh, it takes me so long. It’s like, No, no, you can make simpler choices. It doesn’t have to be complex. If you want to have a grilled chicken breast or thigh, whatever it is, do that. But just make like six of them in one row. So that way you have multiple meals all ready for you later. It’s really about cooking smarter rather than harder.

Kashif Khan

Yeah, and I know you mentioned a couple of times people are, you know, there’s these sort of grazing behaviors. People go to the pantry and they’re looking at stuff. So is there anything to be said about instead of cut it out, like swap it out or replace it? Like, are there things you can do that you I have the sweet tooth. I don’t know what I’m going to do, what I do. Ice cream. How do I survive? What do you do with that?

James Barry

Oh yeah. There. Well, there’s definitely ways to do it. I just personally find that I work best. I don’t do well with moderate, like. Like with dessert. Kind of moderation. If I just get a little bit in it in me, then it starts to progress to more and more and more and more, almost sort of like an addictive quality. Even though I don’t look at myself self as an addict, I really kind of don’t look at it at all like that. But that is an addictive behavior of like where it’s kind of a lot of times it has to be all or nothing. And I’ve just found that I work best like that. But in terms of swaps, there’s so many I mean on I’ll just share a few here, but like you can make chocolate pudding using avocados you know, instead of dairy, you can make, you can use dates, which is really just it’s a dried fruit, right? It’s dried plum, basically. And yes, they are sweet, but they’re not going to be potentially as destructive as something that’s more ultra-processed. Right. So you can do that. What I find works really well with my family, including my two young kids, is when we eat a little earlier. So you can mess with time. 

So like a lot of people eat sometimes at six or seven, and I find that’s way too late and I’ve even messed around with like our family tries to eat by five or 530, but I’ve noticed if we eat at 430, everyone’s satiated later on. Like no one needs something else before bed. But yet if I eat at 530, sometimes people want you know, yogurt with some kind of something in it. So I would even mess around with time, timing of meals and then ideally you have things in your kitchen that meet that texture or that sweetness or flavor or whatever it is, but that it’s still a whole food. So a lot of people default to, let’s say if they want something creamy and sweet, that they’re going to have ice cream. Well, but you don’t have to. You could actually have just yogurt. You know, you have yogurt because you’re going to get the creaminess from the yogurt. And then instead of getting pre flavored yogurts, you control the ingredients. 

So then that way you can add maybe, I don’t know, some cut-up strawberries or you could add a little bit of jam or a little bit of maple syrup. But you’re in control of it because if you let that company control it. Member What’s the cheapest ingredient is sugar or salt or those other things. So they’re going to add more of that rather than less of it because that’s going to create more profit for them. So it’s just really important that you’re controlling those ingredients and the amounts of those ingredients. But what I try to teach people as a chef is I really say, you know, a lot of us only focus on flavor. And I think it’s even more important to focus on texture because a lot of times that’s what we want. And, you know, when you go to eat a chip, you actually only get flavor in the first two chips. The rest of the time. It’s all texture, it’s all the crunch. That’s what we’re getting from a bag of chips. And that’s typically why we eat the whole thing is because you kind of it’s that texture that you’re being drawn to. So I say you find things that meet the texture and the flavor needs. You need another one. I actually used a lot at these conferences. I go when I’m showcasing pluck, seizing is I take coconut. So just raw coconut chips, whatever, they don’t have anything on it. It’s just one ingredient coconut. I find them at Trader Joe’s even. And then what I do is I lightly coat that coconut with just a tiny bit of coconut oil just to kind of make it a little wet. And then I season it with pluck and then you roast it for like 2 to 5 minutes. You can’t do it very long because coconut will burn really fast, but it’s a really quick thing. You let it, then pull it out of the oven, let it sit there, it gets a little drier. And now it’s something crispy and it’s not even that coconut because of the pluck seasoning. But now every time someone takes it, they’re like, Oh my gosh, I’m getting that texture of a chip, or I’m getting that crunch thing that I want. It’s so bad, and it’s like it meets your needs. But look, it doesn’t have any vegetables in it. It’s not a potato or, you know, I mean, it’s like it’s so clean and healthy.

Kashif Khan

Yeah, there’s I guess there’s a little bit of work to adjust the palate, you know, and it’s kind of like you’re like anything else you’re going to do if you’re going to go to the gym, don’t expect to deadlift £400 on day one where you work, but once you get there, it’s very hard to not go to the gym every day it becomes part of your life. So same thing with just your palate towards yogurt instead of ice cream to coconut and so the potatoes, then you go to the you know, you have your visiting somebody’s house or you’re in a restaurant and you do have that sugary or greasy. You think it’s disgusting at that point because you’ve adjusted palate. So there’s a little bit of work to get there. So but once you get there, you’re going to be you’ve made a change. It’s kind of semi-permanent, right? Absolutely. So now that the cat’s out of the bag. But we got to hear more about what you’re up to because you’ve learned so much from your career and you decided, here’s the thing that I need to give back to the world. So what did you do there?

James Barry

Yeah. So I’ve talked a lot about how we’re a nutrient-deficient society, a nation, how we’re eating food, but we’re not getting the nutrient density we need. And as I mentioned, I think organ meats are the most nutrient-dense food on the planet. But we’re not eating. And then the question becomes, why are we not eating it? Well, we’re not eating it because we think it’s going to be icky. We aren’t eating it because we don’t know how to cook it or it’s overwhelming. And the third might be because we don’t know where to find it and we don’t know how to source it. So what I set out to do is to solve that and for my money, I find that health, healthy food, becomes a lifestyle when you hit two marks and it’s got to be both can’t just be one. It’s got to be easy and delicious. But if I can, if you can find a product that hits both of those marks, that’s not putting your health at a default, but it’s actually moving your health to a positive. Then you found something. And, and so what I did was I created I took the freeze-dried powder or any meats, five of them liver, heart, kidney, spleen and pancreas. Same thing you find in supplements. But what I did was combined them with organic spices and herbs to turn it into a seasoning. So now it’s shelf stable. It’s no different than salt pepper on your table you keep it on your table. And then every time you go to eat, you season your food with it. So no new habit because we already season our food and now you’re sprinkling those that the microdosing you’re getting microdosing of organic meats and really good flavor every time you use it. So that’s microdosing frequent equals cumulative effect. And what I like about it and why it works for me is because as a parent, I now can get organ meats into my kids without any hurdles. There’s no picky eating every I’ve never met a kid that doesn’t like pluck. And if you’re concerned about, oh, well, what if they find out there’s arguments, just don’t tell them. It’s just a really good season.

Kashif Khan

Yeah. So it’s like you, you’ve already, you, you know, use the, the fish and chicken trick. You tell the kids it’s just another piece of chicken, right? It’s actually tilapia or something else. So you can do the same thing with this. This is amazing, by the way. It’s brilliant, like truly brilliant. You’re taking this thing that people think is in this box. It’s meat. And you’re saying, well, I need the value from it, but I’m going to put it in a different box so that people actually use it regularly and daily. It’s kind of like a supplement, I would call it, right? Yeah. And how do you if you’re doing this, do you still need the organ meats? Are you getting enough from this seasoning that it’s fulfilling.

James Barry

Well, so I am I mean, I think it’s key is you follow your body what you need because you know, everyone’s needs are different. One of the reasons why I like eating my nutrition versus swallowing is because you get immediate communication over what your body needs. And I can use salt as an example. So if you’re low on sodium and I put salt in your tongue, your body is going to either crave it or it’s going to be like, no, I’m good. It’s not going to taste right. And it’s immediate. I mean, it’s literally within the moment. It touches your tongue. Your body knows more or less, but if you were to take a salt tablet, you know, swallow that maybe 20, 30 minutes later, you might get the feedback that you feel bloated and you’re like, Why am I bloated? Oh, it’s because I got too much salt. So there’s immediate feedback or there’s delayed feedback. And when we swallow things, it’s delayed feedback. So I’m all about eating your nutrition and this totally opens the door for that. So you have now, yeah, you’re sprinkling, you know, pluck on anything, truly anything. It goes so well with anything. 

And you are now making that food taste better because the organ meats have a natural mommy to it, which is our fifth unique taste. So there’s salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and then umami and umami because it’s unique actually makes those other for heightened makes them taste better. So you have that going on for you. Your food is just going to start tasting better. And to your point earlier, it actually helps to start shaping your palate, which is really key that in Mommy actually supports a more adventurous palate. So I’ve gotten feedback that parents that just started using pluck in their kids food noticed their kids starting to be more open to other foods. So that’s total palate recalibration. And then basically what you’re now getting is you’re getting that microdosing frequent use, cumulative effect. So does your body need more? Maybe you could, but there’s something to be said about microdosing, and I use as an example that I use a more negative microdosing, which is glyphosate. So when Monsanto put out Roundup and this is, I think in the late, late or early fifties, somewhere around there, they sold it to the FDA, to the America. They said they said this is micro amounts. It will not affect human health. And now we are at a place where it’s in our soil, it’s in our water, it’s in our food, it’s in our air, it’s in breastmilk like we cannot get rid of it and it’s killing us. So microdosing it’s not necessary in my mind, for my money. It’s not necessarily about how much, it’s about how often it’s doing. Even the smallest amount, often you will benefit.

Kashif Khan

Yeah, that makes sense. The consistency and then your body. And the other thing. I know you don’t claim this, but when the way you describe it, where it has the full flavor profile of sweet, salty, bitter, all that. So there’s a gene called MC4R that determines your how easily you get satisfied in your palate. And some people that have eating issues or obesity issues, it’s because they can’t get the satisfaction. So even though they’re full, they constantly are craving more and more and they have to create the satiety. When we’re working with people clinically is multiple flavors are multiple textures. You talking about texture earlier? The more variety your palate experiences, the easier your brain gets satisfied because it’s kind of a coping mechanism. Ancestrally like give me varieties where I get all the nutrient value I need and your palate is seeking that. So I know you didn’t say this, but I would argue that if that’s what you’re getting, you’re probably going to eat less. Also, you’re not going to overeat because the palate is going to get satisfied faster because of that variety. And for flavor, for labor.

James Barry

That’s brilliant. And that is not how I would look at it. But I completely understand what you’re like. I get. But why? That would be the effect. And you know, I look at I look at food is color and music actually. But so I think of like if we were to say, okay, if your palate really here in America, we’re skewed towards salty, sweet. So let’s just put a color on that. So let’s just say it’s blue and green. Yeah. Well, if the other ones are more yellow and red, that’s really how you want to look at it is like like if I’m, if I’m skewed towards blue and green, then I really need to look towards foods that are more that red yellow so that I can bring those into that child or adult’s diet and to balance to kind of create that variety of flavor, that balance is because anyone knows, like when you’re skewed towards sweet, for example, and most of us when we were kids, we understood this particularly back in the seventies and eighties when soda was just like there was no understanding of what it was doing, our health and more just like acceptance of like, oh, it’s, it’s like water, but it has flavor. Well, if you’re drinking soda all the time, when you go to drink water, water tastes plain like it doesn’t taste gross. Right. But is that because water is gross or is that because your palate is so overly sweetened, so overly heightened that you can actually taste true flavor?

Kashif Khan

Yeah, I experienced that recently where I bit into a carrot recently I was like, Oh, carrots are sweet. I didn’t know that because my pal, I was so screwed up until I started eating properly. I can now taste it. It’s sweet to me. What used to literally was bland. So you know, so.

James Barry

That’s an awesome learning. And just, you know, you mentioned this a little earlier, and I want to I want to read that because you talked about how you can change. But I want to just put it out there because I think people would be excited to hear this. You can change it in as fast as two weeks or months like we used to do. We used to do this shirt when I had that meal service, we would do this diet that was called a sugar-controlled detox. And all it was was we were pulling out anything overly sweet. We were pulling out desserts. We were pulling out grains and pastas. And most starches we did some resistance starches. We allowed basically for protein, fat vegetables on non-starchy vegetables, and then some simple like berries, you know, like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, that kind of thing. No, actually, we didn’t do strawberries. So just the blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. So that’s what someone would eat for two weeks. And what was awesome is that at the end of those two weeks, let’s just say they started out the two weeks, they would have like three glasses of wine a night, something like that. By the end of the two weeks, they could barely finish half a glass because it was so sweet.

Kashif Khan

Wow.

James Barry

So they were really starting to taste the true flavors of food, because now that we had removed the sweet stimulus. So now they got back exactly what you experience was like. Oh, carrots are naturally sweet. So it happened two weeks. It took two weeks. And then, of course, in those two weeks, they lost weight. They like they felt more energy. So it’s like it’s amazing. Your our bodies are truly amazing. There’s a lot that can change very. You just have to stick to it. That’s why I’m such a big fan of like, look, it’s the thing that you do consistently that is going to move the needle. It’s not about extremes.

Kashif Khan

You’re go, Yeah, cool. I have one more thoughts. I know we took a lot of your time, but for the person that’s like going to dove right in and say, This guy is amazing. I wanna buy some organ meat tonight. How do you take because most people don’t know what to do with organ meat. How do you like so what’s a very simple here? Go buy your heart and liver kidney or even pancreas. How do you cook it? The best. The easiest way to get into it right away.

James Barry

Yeah, I do. I do a really fun talk on using an organ, so I’ll condense it really quick. But basically so pluck is like the gateway. I mean, because it’s so easy and it’s shelf stable, you don’t have to know how to cook it. You can put it on food that’s already been cooked. I use it as a finishing self, so that would be your gateway. Then I would say the next step would be utilizing these grains that already are sold in grocery stores that already have or inmates in it. So a lot of times they’re called paleo blends or ancestral blends. There’s a bunch of companies that have them. They’re usually going to be in the freezer section because they aren’t hot sellers. So they’re going to be able to store longer if they’re in the freezer. And usually those blends have like between 7 to 16% organic meat. And now usually you have a couple organs they’ll have like heart, liver and maybe kidney. So you’re utilizing these ground meats that are already put together for you. So that’s also an easy entry. Then the next thing you can do is I would advise you buy a beef liver and you can get these usually at your farmer’s market, you’ll find something. If you can’t find it there, go online and just find, you know, 100% grass-fed source. But the key is when you get it, it’s going to be frozen. Okay. So the organs really become overwhelming when they’re defrosted, but when they’re frozen, it’s just like a brick. It’s just, you know, there’s nothing really overwhelming about it. So keep it in your freezer. 

And then every time you have ground meat, you’re kind of creating your own blend. So what you’re doing is you pull it out of the freezer and just grate it, literally just grate it right into the ground. Me Start with maybe one tablespoon of grated liver, maybe eventually get to two. So I would I would kind of keep the ratio. If you have a pound of meat, then you’re doing about under a fourth of a cup and a fourth of a cup is basically four tablespoons. So I would I would do between two and three max because you don’t want to the key with this is you don’t want to change the flavor and you don’t want to change the texture because we’re trying to get you to do it more often. And once you hit texture and flavor, that’s when like we’ve already done. That’s when we kind of like, I might not keep doing this, right? So we want you to keep doing it. And so those that would be kind of, I would say second stage to two types, the second stage. And then the third might be when you’re ready is incorporating organs that are closest to muscle meat. So that would be like chicken hearts, for example. 

So heart is more of a muscle in terms of texture. But what’s cool about chicken hearts is that they’re extremely mild and they’re really kind of like they’re really if you can just get over the fact that it’s a heart, it’s really a low barrier entry. And so one of the ways you can get over the fact is, are is treat it like a mushroom. So let’s just say you’re sauteed. If I have a box of mushrooms, you’re not necessarily going to put that whole box of mushrooms into that sauce. Right. You might pull out two or three to do the same thing with the chicken hearts. Just use two or three. They’re really small, just like mushrooms and chop it up and chop it up so it doesn’t even look like a heart and then throw it into that spaghetti sauce or whatever is your curry, whatever it is you’re making. Right. And I promise you, because it’s not too many that when people go to eat it, they’re going to go like they’re not even going to notice. 

They might even think it’s a mushroom, to be honest. And once again, you’re then playing with the psychology. You’re getting people out of that mindset of like, Oh I’m eating organs. You’re just you’re just making it very everyday, very casual. It’s not a big deal. And, and then so now you’re doing the chicken hearts, which because that’s more mild and it’s easy, and then maybe you do a tongue and and you get a beef tongue. And beef tongues are great because they’re more nutrient-dense than the muscle. But they also what the almost overwhelming part of the tongue is that kind of skin that’s on the outside. It’s kind of like sandpaper. It’s very thick. Once you cook it, like you have to cook it for about an hour and a half. When I say cook it, I’m talking like boiling it or or cooking it in a pressure cooker. It’s just about an hour and a half and once it comes out, that skin just peels right off. And what’s underneath is a very kind of stringy muscle meat. And it’s delicious. And that’s why if you ever go to any Mexican taco places, you sometimes see lengua. It’s a very common food in the Mexican culture. Lengua It’s delicious. And a lot of times once you start eating language, you realize like, gosh, this is so good and it’s so much cheaper than the muscle meat. Why don’t I do this all the time? So that’s another next stage. And I also advocate when you do stuff that’s new, like weed, like we did with the chicken hearts, we made sure that chicken hearts weren’t the dominant thing in the meal. 

Same thing with the tongue. If you want, you can cook it with your pulled pork or whatever it is. You know, you can combine it with other meats. So then that way it’s not the dominant meat if you’re overwhelmed. And what I like about using tacos is you’re then covering it with other foods. You got your sour cream, you’ve got your cheese, you’ve got your salsas, whatever you’re doing to a taco, and it’s hiding even what the meat is. And so you have other flavors going on. So then that way it’s not the dominant flavor, it’s just really key to find what works for you. And really then, then after that it’s like, okay, now you’ve, you’ve, you’ve done the hearts, you’ve done the tongue, you’ve you’ve done the ground meat. 

It’s like you’re probably you’ve conditioned your palate at this point where you can actually make organ meats, the scent center part of the meal. And so in that case, I would advocate going to a source like a really good cookbook that’s all about organs. You can go to our website Eat collection. We’ve got recipes for tons of stuff. We even have a great lengua, you know, a tongue taco recipe, paté recipe. I mean, you can kind of step into it a little deeper once you’ve changed your palate and you’ve broken down like that, it’s not as intimidating as you thought. It’s not the flavor is good, you know, you just kind of kind of break it down and give yourself the time to get to that place where it’s now not as big of a deal.

Kashif Khan

Yeah. And I’m just listening to all of what you said and you’re capturing those two elements, making it easy and making it delicious. So you’re not really changing the flavor. Because even myself, I’m thinking, okay, how do you start with organs? And I picture a frying pan full of liver, right? And you don’t have to do that. It’s added in gradually change the proportions. And then one day maybe you actually prefer a plate of liver over something else because your palate adjusted. So yeah, that’s keeping it real, you know that make it easy and make it delicious and then people will actually get it done. So this is an awesome conversation how if people want to get plucked just simply to the website or how do they find it.

James Barry

That’s the best place right now. We are on Amazon as well, but our website, you’re going to get a little cheaper. But it depends. It depends. I guess with Amazon Prime, it’s pretty close, but it’s eat plucked icon. And as I mentioned, we’ve got recipes on there. We’re really trying to support you in eating nose to tail because, you know, for my money we talked about mission when I first came on like my mission is to help people with their health. But I don’t want you I don’t want to just sell you a product that you use for one month and then you never buy, you know, use again. You know, to me, that’s pointless. And that’s not why I’m here. I am truly here to help you do something sustainable. Because if health, if you’re not doing it often, then you’re not going to benefit from it often. And so for my money, what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to help everyone feel better in their body because we’re nutrient deficient, which means that we’re not feeling as good in our body. We’re struggling in some way and in chronic illness is skyrocketing right now. Right. And when we’re not feeling good in our body, we don’t tend to treat people well because we treat people how we feel. So if I don’t feel good, then I don’t treat you well. So I believe that if I can help you feel better in your body, then that means you’re going to treat people better. And now you have a world where people are kinder to each other. They’re nicer, they’re helping each other more. And to me, that’s why I believe organ meats can change the world. Like we can simply do these kind of small movements that have great impact.

Kashif Khan

That’s awesome, man on a mission is awesome and thank you for all the work you’re doing because someone had to do it, you know, and you truly like you commercialize something, making a living off of something that’s truly healing people and changing the world. You know, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen you guys at conferences. I’ve seen your customers that I met at conferences and very happy. So thank you for all you’re doing. This is a great book to.

James Barry

Hear today and thank you for just sharing it. I mean, that the fact that we can even have a discussion about this, I don’t think people would even been open to the discussion ten, 20 years ago, you know, I mean, organ meats were so frowned upon and it’s like we’re leaving this nutrition on the table. You know, we’re slaughtering these animals already and we’re giving the organs to the pet food industry or other industry. And it’s like and yet then we’re turning around and spending $50 billion on supplements. It’s like we’re like organ meats or mother Nature’s multi-vitamin. You know, when you look at what science tells you we should be having in our prenatal when we’re trying to create life, the nutrients in that prenatal are pretty identical to what is in organ meats. 

So that to me that tells me everything I need to know. And I’m not saying you should be eating organ meats. You know, some people advocate, you have to eat this amount of organ meats every day. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying like, let’s get them in our diet. Like, let’s just make sure we are getting some. Because if I was a tribe back in the day with you and we were, you know, maybe 30 to 45 people in that tribe, if we killed one animal, how many hearts are there? How many livers are there? We’re not getting much, but we’re getting a little bit. And even more importantly, we are getting more parts of the animal than just muscle meat. And that’s ultimately what I’m trying to advocate, is that we need to be eating more of the animal. And then you don’t need to just focus on one thing like it doesn’t have to just be liver. You can focus on other parts of the animal too. But the key is we got to get more of all animal nutrition versus just the same thing, all the same limited nutritional thing all the time.

Kashif Khan

Awesome. Thank you so much. Amazing conversation. You took the time. People are going to benefit dramatically. So thank you again.

James Barry

Thank you.