Moving through Midlife | Helping Midlife Women Move Better and Feel Better

152 | Transform your Health Through Mindful and Sensory Eating with Chef Barry

• Courtney McManus

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Can you truly transform your eating habits by simply paying more attention to your food? Join me, Courtney, on this enlightening episode of Moving Through Midlife, as I sit down with Chef James Barry, the esteemed private chef and visionary behind Eat Pluck, to uncover the secrets of mindful eating. Chef Barry brings to light the contrast between our modern, often confusing dietary landscape and the wisdom of our ancestors. We discuss how understanding and reconnecting with our body's natural cues can lead to significantly better health outcomes, particularly during the critical transitions of midlife.

Chef Barry and I explore the sensory disconnection many of us face due to the overwhelming choices in today's grocery stores and the prevalence of processed foods. Imagine tuning into the subtle signals your body gives you, down to physical responses like a burp or the difficulty in opening a jar, to guide your food choices. By appreciating the natural textures and colors of whole foods, and relearning how to listen to our bodies, we can make more mindful and healthful choices even before we set foot in a store. We also share practical advice on incorporating nutrient-dense foods like root vegetables and organ meats into your diet, making these healthier options more accessible and enjoyable.

Finally, we delve into the art of home cooking, emphasizing the importance of visual appeal, seasoning, and creating a pleasant dining environment. Chef Barry offers tips on making meals more attractive and flavorful, including the use of umami to enhance the taste of organ-based seasonings like Pluck. We discuss the broader implications of mindful eating, from its impact on blood sugar levels to sustainable practices that honor the entire animal. This episode is packed with actionable insights to help you embrace a more mindful, healthful approach to eating, and navigate midlife with grace and vitality. Don't forget to check out Pluck on Amazon and follow Chef Barry's journey on Instagram at @chefjamesberry for more inspiration.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Moving Through Midlife. I am your host, courtney, a personal trainer and movement specialist who wants to help you move through midlife with more grace. Each week, we will discuss ways we can show up better for ourselves and our children without the burnout, children without the burnout. We will focus on overall health through habit stacking to help increase energy, provide movement snacks to help you move more throughout the day, while also moving your body more, and learn from professionals on moving through midlife with ease so that you can feel confident with aging. Gracefully, grab your earbuds and join me on a leisurely walk while we discuss moving through midlife.

Speaker 1:

I have another great podcast episode for you today. This is one where I am speaking with Chef James Berry. You may have heard his name before and that is because all the way back in episode 44, I interviewed him and I had the pleasure of speaking with him again. He has such a wealth of information and he talks to us about mindful eating today and how we can get back to getting excited about the foods that we are eating. He has an amazing background. He has been a private chef, working with many celebrities. He has started his own company, eat Fluck, where this is organ-based seasoning. It is amazing I know you may be thinking otherwise right now when you hear organs, but it is delicious and I want to make sure that you know that if you head to eatpluckcom and you enter the code moving through midlife and it's T-H-R-O-U-G-H moving through midlife you can save 15% on your order. Now here is Chef Barry. Hello, how are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great. It's great to talk to you again.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I am excited to be able to speak with you. I had you on. It was what a couple of years ago now, a couple of years ago now and you came on to speak about pluck and you are Chef James and I'm excited to be able to have you come back on to talk to us a little bit further about your product and some of the information about the lingual neural response.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. There's a great quote by Dr Bill Schindler. He's an archaeologist, professor of archaeology, and it's one I use a lot and it always kind of makes me pause every time I say it. We are the only species in the world that looks to someone else to tell us what to eat. And just so we're all clear, there's 8.7 million animal species in the world, so we are the only one of that 8.7 million. And to me, when I hear that, it's just like well, a, let's not forget that we are animals and that we did have knowledge of what we instinctively needed to eat, and that we've lost it, that we're now in a place of confusion and sometimes despair. I mean, if you're, if you're like me and you've spent your, you know basically your entire life I'm 50 now, so my entire life I've been told eat your, your vegetables. And now all these people are saying don't eat your vegetables. So you're like what?

Speaker 1:

It's interesting that you say that, because I had been on recently and I was talking about how this stage of life, in this midlife stage, how we tend to maybe get too much estrogen built up and like we're trying to get rid of it as our hormones are all over the place. And both my mother and I had very similar situations where we were eating, we both craved coleslaw. I remember as a child, in high school, my mom it was like every meal she was serving coleslaw as a side dish and I was like what is your problem? And now I'm doing it to my kids. I don't always put it as a side dish, but I eat it a lot.

Speaker 1:

I crave coleslaw and because of the cruciferous, you know it's helping to pull the estrogen out. So I do think that, like you said, like we just have an innate ability to know what our body needs. We may not recognize that for what it is and I think today there's so many systems we don't listen to our body anymore, to what it's telling us. But if we do take a few minutes and listen, it's amazing what we can hear.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think we're constantly being bombarded with like what's the trending diet and this is how you should be eating, but the reality, the kind of food pyramid that I want to see, or that I would create, is the top of the pyramid, would be flavor, you know, like focusing on real flavors, not, you know, fabricated, uh, unnatural, artificial flavors, which is really what's confusing our bodies, but real flavor that you find in nature. And one of the reasons why I would do that and why that would be a focus is because, historically or ancestrally, flavor equal nutrition, so our bodies are designed to associate. If it tastes good, then that means it has nutrients for our bodies. So that's where I would start. And then, underneath that pyramid and kind of taking up the very middle of the pyramid, would be just eat real food, like all natural, real food, nutrient dense, all foods, foods that are ingredients, versus, that have ingredients.

Speaker 2:

And then at the very bottom, kind of the largest, but at the bottom of that pyramid, I would put eat consciously or eat mindfully, because we forget that piece, but it's everything, it's it. It helps support your digestion, because the state of your body is going to support whether you digest it or not. It's going to support, like you just said, acknowledging, like, recognizing, what does my body actually want in this moment versus what am I being pulled to because of marketing or being hangry or whatever. It is right, but what does my body actually want? And and then also it's going to support, you know, maybe eating slower, maybe eating more mindfully, because when we do that we don't rush through it, we're actually eating it and letting our body tell us when to stop, versus our eyes or our brain, or or you know the, the buttons on our, on our waistline, you know, to tell us when to stop.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I again just mentioned this the other day how we have to, like you said, we have to listen to our body. And just taking a minute because so many of us are busy, life is busy, although I think we create some of that ourselves, and we are now eating in our cars, in front of the phones, like in front of our phones or in front of the TV, over the sink. For a lot of moms, they're just eating rushed and we're keeping our body in that fight or flight system rather than sitting down, taking a deep breath, relaxing, allowing our body to know that it's ready for that rest and digest date.

Speaker 2:

And you know, one of the easiest kind of rituals that you can do to get into that state, or to attempt to get in that state, is to simply either pray or say grace or do some kind of thing that gets you in the set of the mindset of like, okay, I'm honoring what I'm about to eat, I'm honoring my body and now I'm going to eat. It's just like taking that moment of just honoring through prayer or, like I said, or through grace or anything like that. It truly does. It's the breath. It allows you to have a little breath before you go into your food. And then, of course, little things like putting your fork or spoon down in between bites, stuff like that. I know for some people they're like oh, I've been told that for years. It's like, yeah, but it works, it really does work. That's why people keep saying it.

Speaker 2:

And as we age, I mean there's so much against us, right From hormones to our metabolic state. I mean there's so much changing for us. And I think, you know, particularly when I talk to people in their 70s, a lot of them will be like, oh, I am what I am. They kind of, you can tell, they're just kind of accepting, like it is what it is. You know, I'm kind of done and considering that now that 70s or your new 60s or whatever you know, you know that idea that people are living potentially longer, I think, if anything, are, you know, our 50s on up, or even 40s really, but basically they're on up. It's like that consciousness of mindfully eating, of really trying to continue to listen to what your body needs, is even more important, because it gets harder to lose that weight.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and just taking time. Taking that time to relax and enjoy the time, and when we do that we can start to hear our body more. I think we have become like you said with the. You said we're allowing processed foods into our diet, a lot of processed foods. So the system is we have lost all communication with what we should be eating, how we should be eating all of it, and if we just took a few extra minutes we could maybe hear a little bit of that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it really.

Speaker 2:

I mean, that connection really is a biological connection and I think that we that's one of the reasons why we've lost it is that we're so decent like we're so, as you said, checked out, because we're multitasking, we're doing all these other things that we historically did not do. You know, if we talk ancestrally of how, you know, we used to kind of eat and how we used to our bodies were really created, is if you think about it. I love thinking of it from this perspective. So you're in the forest. You first see something from afar, right? So maybe actually you even hear something. First you hear something drop from a tree, so now your hearing is active. What was that? Now you look and then you're, you're basically you're looking to where that sound came from. Now you see something hanging from a tree. Maybe it's bright, it's colorful. So this communication has already begun. It started with your ears and now it's gone to your eyes. Now you're getting closer because you're like, well, what is that? What is that shiny thing I see? Now, as you get closer, you smell it and you're like this sweet, rich aroma is coming into you. This is all communication, once again, and it's revealing to your body. Do you. Should I eat this? Should I not eat this? Now you reach for it. You feel it. It's soft, it's plump. You take a bite, the juices, they run down your chin. You're starting to masticate, your mastication starting You're, you're getting this sweet pulp flavor in your mouth, right, this, this chewing, this whole process of mastication. It, if you notice it's that the flavors start to deepen the more you masticate as well. So this whole process, we call this the lingual neural response, and it's it's as simple as just following your senses, allowing your senses to inform you of what your body wants. And this shows up. Everyone knows that this shows up.

Speaker 2:

And here's an example, and people listening are going to probably be a little embarrassed by this, but it's true. We have to admit it, we have to own, take ownership of this. So you're in a store, you're at the grocery store, you're, you're, you're looking in the aisles for what you're going to eat and first of all, you have all these choices. So, a, you're probably in overwhelm and you don't even realize it, but you are. But B, you go to reach for something that may not actually be good for your body and something happens to you physically. You either burp, you flatulence, you fart something like that, right, something, maybe you go to grip it and you can't pull it out, or something falls.

Speaker 2:

Like your body is physically responding to and communicating to you that it doesn't want this thing. Like, maybe you go to you know, you'll say you bought that jar of something and you're trying to open it. You can't open it. Right, you're physically, your muscles will not allow you to open it. This is all communication.

Speaker 2:

Yet we don't look at it like that. We think, oh, I'm just struggling to open this, or oh, I'm just burping, or my stomach is gurgling like this because I'm hungry. It's like no, no, no, it's responding in this way because it knows how this food is going to make it feel and it doesn't have a judgment around it. Like it's not saying like, oh well, you're going to feel bad if you eat this, or you're going to feel good, or I should reward myself, or I deserve.

Speaker 2:

This is your body doesn't say, your brain says that, but your body just says this either works for me or doesn't. Right, and it's. And how we know that that's working or not is because you, when you eat, you have little physical response. You have great poops, you pee clearly, you know, think that your body responds in kind, but when it doesn't work, you get flatulence, you have stomach issues, you have an upset stomach, maybe your skin breaks out, you feel overly tired after you eat, or something like that. You know, I mean so your body is responding in kind to the food. It's our heads that are getting confused right.

Speaker 1:

so if you're thinking about, like, going to the grocery store, can you give us some recommendations? Because I'm thinking like we definitely want to go to color and then you look at the inner aisles and how they're like it's hitting me why they're creating these cereal boxes and everything so colorful, because then it's now competing with all these natural vibrant colors that are occurring in the fruit and vegetable area. How can we go into our grocery store and start to listen to what our body is saying?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a great question, and I think it has to start before you're in the grocery store, because you have to remember where you know. For many of us we're in our 50s or or or or older, and so we've we've kind of co created these bad I'm judging it by saying bad, but these habits, let's just, let's not judge it, let's just say these habits of checking out around food, right, so we have learned to not listen, so we have to unlearn what we're doing, and so it almost really has to start before you go to the, to the store, and how I look at it is I'm going to really look at food from a different standpoint. So one of the things that attracts us to food is really texture and, as identified, flavor and smells and all that. But texture plays a huge role and a lot of times we don't acknowledge that.

Speaker 2:

Because whenever I private chef for clients in the past and I would one of the first questions I had for them was what did you eat when you were a kid? What foods do you gravitate towards when you're having an emotional day and what textures do you like? And I usually, when they answer the first two questions, I already know what textures like. Because if they say like, oh, I loved, you know, roasted potatoes or something like that, or I loved mashed potatoes, like how someone likes potatoes, is really going to indicate to you like, I like them as potato chips. Okay, that's, that's someone who likes crunchy, right, I liked roasted potatoes. Okay, that's someone who likes crunchy, right, I liked roasted potatoes. Okay, that's someone who likes more savory and crisp things, right. And then if someone's like, oh, I like mashed potatoes, like, okay, they like creamy, soft, right, so that those are the textures that go with those potatoes.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And, and so if you look at that, you start to learn well, that's probably that that texture is in flavor is probably what they equate to comfort food, if it is a comfort food that we're discussing. And so what I usually try to do then is is I then identify? Okay, well, how can I make healthy foods with those textures? So, instead of the potatoes, maybe I'm using some other root vegetable, maybe I'm using kohlrabi, or maybe I'm using, like celiac or parsnips or something. I'm using some other root vegetable that's more of a resistant starch that's not going to convert so quickly into sugar in your bloodstream and spike your insulin levels and whatnot, right, so something that's more gentle in your body. I'm going to then take that food. I'm going to try to prepare it in a way that I would do that food whether it's roasting or mashed right, or even chips you know you can do that too and then I'm going to, you know, just lightly season them to what the person would like, and then I'm going to start to get them to shift their diet. First, because if we don't start, like there's two main things Like if you're eating out all the time, it's impossible to be healthy, like literally impossible, unless you're extremely wealthy and you can eat at those farm to plate tables every day, which is extremely expensive, then maybe you have some health going on there, but that means you're eating every meal at one of those restaurants, but every other restaurant, except for those, is got. They've got a bottom line. They're trying to make a profit, and you cannot make a profit if all your ingredients are, you know, very expensive and so they're using cheap ingredients, like, you know, seed oils. They're using prepackaged foods that have, you know, very expensive and so they're using cheap ingredients, like, you know, seed oils. They're using prepackaged foods that have, you know, shelf stabilizers and ingredients that are more about ensuring that it has a shelf life than it is about your health. So, right away, getting someone to start cooking from home is key.

Speaker 2:

I like to really focus on people meal planning, because if they meal plan, then they're only creating a list that's based on what they're going to use and on the foods they're going to make, and this idea that we have to have a different food or meal every time I think is false, and I think it's it's causes more harm than good. I think it's actually far better to just have like, like what I do is like we'll do like five, five to six dinners a week that are all unique and then we just make more of them than we need and those are lunches for the next day and then for breakfast you can eat the same basic breakfast that you do. You know, let's say, if you're doing eggs, just do eggs different ways and for every meal, like, but keep it as simple as possible, because the key is what is your outcome that you want? The outcome I want right now is I just want to eat from home because I'm eating out too often and I want to eat from home. And then, by eating at home, then you can start to incorporate some more tools of like how to reconnect, right, so I'm not doing other things while I eat, I'm sitting down, I'm, I'm focusing on the atmosphere I'm in. So if, let's say, lighting helps me, helps brighten my day, I'm going to make sure there's it's it's a high, you know, bright, bright room, maybe lots of windows. I'm going to choose that kind of room to eat in because I know it's going to affect my mood.

Speaker 2:

The other thing to think about is people like what, what is the who are we choosing to eat with. You know, and I know a lot of times we don't have a choice but but we can control that environment. You know we can. We can bring up, we can kind of have rules to not talk about stressful things when we're at the table. We can have rules to not be on phones. We can create the environment that's going to serve us to to start to be conscientious, more mindful, while we eat. And then the fact that we're eating from home and we're eating all these real foods, that we control the ingredients. Now we're on a place where we're going to start to reshape our connection to food.

Speaker 1:

Right, perfect. I am definitely someone who loves to cook, so for me eating at home is very easy. But that is one thing that a lot of my clients, and probably listeners as well, say I don't have a lot of time, I don't know how to move around in the kitchen, so could you recommend maybe a couple ways to make the home cooking experience a little bit easier?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think. Well, I'll answer it two ways, so I'll give an. I'll give an example of something I just did. I was just in an event just last weekend or two weekends ago, and I did a cooking demo on organ meats. You know organ meats meaning like liver, heart, kidney, spleen, pancreas, tongue you know basically any like liver, heart, kidney, spleen, pancreas, uh, tongue you know basically any part of the animal that's not muscle or bone.

Speaker 2:

And I that is usually a topic people avoid. You know, they avoid these foods in the us where, which is sad, because they're the most nutritious parts of the animal and can quickly replenish our, our, our, our, our fuels. But so in that demo I was showing people, I was like, okay, let's take a liver, for example, beef liver. I said I want to. I'm going to show you three different ways to cook it. But here's what's really important is that you need to think about, you don't want to assume which way your your is going to most resonate with your body. You want to try these different ways and then let it tell you, let your body tell you which one resonates the most. And so I gave them the liver raw. I gave them it properly cooked. You know I'm talking like little little bits, right. I gave them properly cooked because that's one of the reasons why people don't like livers, because it's typically chalky and it's overcooked. So I cooked it properly, meaning that when you're cooking even meat or or let's say liver you're you don't want it to be all the way cooked when you're in the pan, you want to actually pull it when it's still a little red because there's residual heat. So even when you pull something out of a pan, it keeps cooking. And so with a mistake we make is we cook it till it's done in the pan, but that means it's now when you go to put it on the plate, it's now overcooking. So if you just just leave it till it's about you know, 90%, 95% done, then it finishes cooking when it's actually on the plate and then it's not overcooked. So I let them then try cooked properly, and then I made a pate with it. So I showed them three different textures, three different ways that the food is affected by either heat or preparation. Right, and it was so fascinating because everyone then had a different opinion. Everyone was like oh, I liked all three, or I liked it when it was cooked or I liked it only when I was in pate. But they got to better learn also how the heating of the liver affects, how the texture and whatnot, how it affects the flavor.

Speaker 2:

And I find that a lot of times one of the reasons that we are not excited about cooking, not that we have to be. I mean, I think that's a falsehood, that just because we eat, you know that we are supposed to love cooking. I don't think you have to, but I think the reality that you can only be healthy if you cook from home is realistic. And so you do have to find, you know, you have to retune your relationship to it if that's the case. And so I find, first of all, tapping into the textures you like. We talked about that earlier.

Speaker 2:

Two is then I would focus on formula or over recipe. So recipes are really like granular in terms of like, okay, you're supposed to use a half, a teaspoon of that and a tablespoon of this, and you know three ounces of this or that, right, so it's telling you exactly the measurements. Three ounces of this or that, right, so it's telling you exactly the measurements. And I think that sometimes we unless you're kind of very left brain measurements can kind of throw you off and make you feel kind of more heady than you probably want to be, and so I find, just think of it as a formula, like, okay, I need some, I need some protein and what, what? Whatever your dietary preferences of those proteins, that's what I would do. I would have the plate be mostly that, and particularly as we age, we need more protein, not less, which is something that people are just learning now.

Speaker 2:

Two is I would then choose the fat to work with that. So typically, if I'm doing something more Asian, I would use coconut oil. If I'm doing something that's more french or american, I would use ghee. Ghee is clarified butter. It's been around for 5 000 years. It's just it's very, very healthy fat to cook with it. Just, basically it's butter, but without the milk solids. It's just the fat of the butter. I also use lard, I use tallow, I use duck. Duck fat is amazing with like potatoes. So if you're ever roasting anything, use duck fat. It's just so, so good. But but so I pick the fat and then from that point on, it's really about well, what, what is your dietary preference Like? So then I'm choosing a vegetable that goes with it, but really it's those three things. It's protein, fat, vegetable Now notice I'm leaving out like those simple carbs, you know whatever but that's because it's it's really it's up to you like, and technically, vegetables are carbs, so you are.

Speaker 2:

If you're choosing, you know, like I said earlier, root vegetables, you're going to get plenty of of carbohydrate from those. You don't necessarily need to add to it and and I would just add the amounts that are going to fill you, so a good size amount of protein and then enough of the vegetables that are going to fill you so that you don't need snacks. And I think that's a big problem with today's world is that we become snack people and it's sold to. I mean, we can all reason with each other about it, like, oh well, I just find I need the snacks. It's like, no, we've been marketed to for decades now. We have been taught to eat snacks and it's, it's, it's absurd. I mean, it's like it's unnecessary and it's and it and and it's now a huge issue because people are getting way more calories in their diet than they can burn.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, calories in their diet, then they can burn. Yeah, well, and that also came from the fitness health industry, where they were looking at bodybuilders and they needed to snack to build the muscle, to support you know, to support their growth. And it has completely changed how we eat. And, of course, yes, three square meals a day is really a great way to get back to and those people who I feel like that, three o'clock, four o'clock, you might kind of hit a wall where you need to maybe eat a little bit of something, but then moving on. But we don't need all these snacks that we eat. And if we would just take some time to slow down and eat, you know, work on eating slower and making sure that we're eating, like you said, the protein, getting all of that in, we'll feel satiated longer.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I, you know, honestly, that time frame you're talking about too. What I find is interesting is that and this goes for my kids and myself but I, I start to get hungry at around 4 30, and so do my kids, and like, if we just ate our dinner at 4 30, you would we would find, and I have done this, I'll find that I'm then satiated the rest of the night. Oh really. And how ideal to if you go to bed, like at 830 or nine, particularly with my kids. They're still young, so they go to bed between eight and 830. Like how wonderful that they've had.

Speaker 2:

You know if, if we're able to pull that off, they've had like four hours to digest their food before going to bed, like that's going to create a much better sleep. I mean, that's something we forget too, is that you know, digestion time takes a lot of energy. You know that first, that really what you want for sleep is, you want repair time, not digestion time. And so this idea of the people, people that are eating right before they go to bed, that means you're you're spending most of your, your, your sleep time just digesting the food and it's. And it should be the opposite. You should be making sure that you you're digesting as much as you can during the day and then sleep is purely all about repair and just letting your body, you know, rest and repair so that you can wake up refreshed.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when you were discussing the food, the options that people can cook with, and you kept mentioning earlier about seasonings as well, can you provide us some recommendations, as I also know about pluck as a seasoning? I also know about pluck as a seasoning, but can you mention like, because I think that's where it also gets confusing for people. Like you had said, with the recipes there, I think we get to feeling like we've got to follow a recipe and then that takes a lot of time because you're going back and forth to the recipe and then cooking.

Speaker 2:

But if you really start looking at, just kind of paying attention to what seasonings like you mentioned the protein, the fat, the vegetable but then also adding in seasonings to help round out that meal, yeah, well, and I think I think also, besides seasonings, is you want to think about plating the way that the food looks, color wise, because, as we talked about earlier, like that is instinctively what we makes us hungry is we start with, usually, our eyes. There's the smell aspect as well, but visually you don't want it to look like mush, right? You don't want to look like like someone just regurgitated it in that sense. And sometimes food does look like that, right as we get want to look like like someone just regurgitated it in that sense. And sometimes food does look like that, right as we get bored with it, it's very pale because we overcooked it. So you want to look for vibrancy. A lot of times why a chef will add like a bright red, you know, bell pepper, or like even just a spicy pepper, but just a little bit, is because the red makes the food pop. Or sometimes you'll see like bright green parsley or some kind of herb added to the food that also just makes it pop. Flavor wise, you could add like lemon zest, that will make the flavors pop, you know. So you can do these little things, little movements that will just make the food more attractive, like height, for example, when I plate a food, the height of the food can actually make it more attractive. If it's in a big bowl, sometimes it's not as attractive. Like you can really fine tune these things. But I think, going to the seasonings, we do want flavor, but you never want the preparation of the food or the seasoning to overwhelm you, just like you don't need to. You know, don't run before you crawl that kind of thing, right? So if you're struggling to eat your food, you know, and cook from home and feel satiated and not only satiated but also positive about it, you know, feeling emotionally kind of like good about what you're doing, then I would start simply and just go with that formula. Now, seasoning wise, I will kind of talk about pluck a little bit, because we've learned since launching pluck and I don't remember if I knew this when we first talked, but it's fascinating.

Speaker 2:

So a couple of things is one thing that many of us struggle with is our palate. So in the US we really skew towards salty and sweet and you'll see a lot of picky kids, for example, like that's really the issue. It's not that they're picky, picky, it's that their palate has been conditioned to really only like salty or sweet foods, and so when they get any other flavor outside of that, they, they, you know they have a physical response, but it's not permanent, it's just. They just need their palate, just need to be recalibrated. And one of the ways we can recalibrate it is by introducing three other flavors. So you have salty, sweet, bitter and sour. Those are the four that we all grew up learning about in school.

Speaker 2:

Well, there's a fifth, called umami, and that's primarily what pluck is. Pluck, which is organ-based seasoning, so it's got free stride powdered liver, heart, kidney, spleen, pancreas from 100% grass-fed cows, and then we're mixing it with organic spices and herbs. Well, the organ meats have a natural umami to them. So what happens and this is what's so exciting about it is that when people don't change anything about their food, but they just add pluck to their food, the comments we get are like that night my family had seconds. They they were freaking out over how good it tasted and I was like, well, yeah, that's the umami and umami, because it's a unique flavor, it brightens all the other flavors, so it literally makes food taste better, not just because it's a seasoning, but because it's umami. Now, the other cool thing is that to our point here is that whether you're a good chef or not great chef, as long as you use this seasoning, people will think you're a great chef and that's kind of cool too. So that's something we learned a lot from over the years. Now that we've been out there.

Speaker 2:

But the other big one is around that kind of that picky eating. So we've had a lot of clients, or sorry, lot of uh practitioners who are customers. So the practitioners will have a client and that client might be dealing with a picky eater and the the, the um practitioner will just have the client. Uh, basically only change one thing, which is to add pluck to their food, to the picky eater's food, and they will report back back that now that child is starting to be more adventurous and it's once again. It's just because you're introducing a new flavor to their palate and you're restructuring their palate, you're recalibrating it and it can be as quickly as two weeks. Like it's amazing you can recalibrate someone's palate in two weeks by removing the foods that are overstimulating it.

Speaker 2:

And I want to just add I do want to just add like what's fascinating when you recalibrate, going back to the really what we were talking about at the very beginning is you start to taste food for what it really tastes like. So strawberries are sweet, but if you're getting all this processed sugar all the time, then they're not going to taste sweet. But once you recalibrate your palate and you pull out all the processed sugars and then two weeks later you try a strawberry, you will taste how naturally sweet that strawberry is and you realize oh, I don't even need this. You know fabricated or made dessert. I can just simply what's natural, it's naturally found in nature, and I'll, I'll get my sweet. You know sweetness intake that I need or want, yeah, yeah, and I was also going to.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'll first say this is I also noticed that when you the less processed foods you eat, when you do put that processed food back in, it tastes more chemically. Chemical. You can taste everything.

Speaker 2:

Like it's crazy.

Speaker 2:

It really is amazing I think that's very important for people to understand is that we are locked in to this one way of thinking. So there is a mindset about it, about what we should be eating and what we want to be eating right. So we invest in that and so we think that, oh, I don't want to eat that food, or health food is gross. We have this story around it, but the reality is it's just fabricated, it's just due to your experience or that or this or this kind of loop you're stuck in. But the other piece is that what we've grown up, what we've grown accustomed to eating, is dictating the new things that we put in right. So it's if, like, for example, I grew up eating Skippy peanut butter and if anyone knows Skippy, they know it's really more candy than it is peanut butter. But I didn't know that growing up, Right.

Speaker 2:

And then I would try this other brand called like Laurel Shredders or Shredders or something, and that had no sugar in it and that was just peanuts and the peanut oil was separate from it. And then I tasted that and I was like, oh, this is gross. But it was like that is actually more peanut butter than the Skippy Right, right. And then the more I got the regular one in, the more I started to taste Skippy for what it really was, which was candy, and so I but I had to give time for that switch to happen. It's not like it just happens overnight. Your palate can shift quickly, but you have to still give it time to shift.

Speaker 1:

Right, well, and I wonder also, when you talk about, like the seasoning, putting the pluck on the foods, and how the children's palate tastes changed, I wonder how much that also had to do with the microbiome and what that? Because that's fascinating, like how it starts to communicate with your brain about what you want as well.

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I I'm definitely not the, I'm not a nutritionist, so that's not my expertise, probably more yours. But but I wholeheartedly agree. You know that idea that there's two brains happening, you know, there's the one in our head and then the one in our, in our digestive tract, and it's like the more and more they're finding that that's probably the most important piece to the puzzle, to the human puzzle, which is that the, the what's inside our gut. You know our gut health and and how much it does dictate the foods you want.

Speaker 2:

Um, I mean, sometimes you can have just to share personal stories, like I many years ago, like when I first got tested through nutrition, you know, and did a blood test and stool test, I discovered I had parasites. Now some people listening might go like parasites, but honestly, no joke, probably most of you have it. Like you just don't know it. Most people have them. And so at the time I was like overly meat hungry. And so at the time I was like overly meat hungry. I was so carnivorous and I would eat so much and I would never. I just was never satiated. And then I got tested and I got that eradicated and suddenly I didn't eat as much. So there's things that can be happening in our body that could absolutely be dictating our, our cravings, our, our desires, our needs, and we just don't know it. And so I'm I'm a big proponent of getting tested. I'm not I don't like, I don't like kind of using self-diagnosis. I think you miss out on a lot of really good information. But that said, like I don't think that you have to rush out to get tested if you're not feeling that anything's off, I think that you can really do a lot with just that, what we've been talking about this whole time, which is just mindful eating.

Speaker 2:

Something that I like to point out to people is that so placebo effect right, it's something that is a fact. Placebo effect is a fact in within experiments that whenever they do testing, that placebo effect works, that there are people that didn't get the actual medication, whatever they were testing, and yet they still reap the rewards. So we know the power of the mind, we know the power of the body, and if placebo effect works there, then that means it can work anywhere. And so you really can support your health by being more mindful about what you're putting in it and then also believing, like the food, that you're putting in, the choices you're making, are positive ones.

Speaker 2:

So, even if you're having a hard day and you eat that ice cream, don't sit there and dread the whole time you do it. Take ownership of what you're doing. Time you do it, take ownership of what you're doing and let it soothe you consciously, and I bet you'll find that you don't need as much because as you're eating it, you're going to be so conscious about it that you're going to recognize when your body's full, instead of just pretending I hate myself, I don't like what's going on, and you're tuning out the whole time and then suddenly you're done with the whole thing and then you feel worse afterwards. What we're trying to do is get you to eat slow enough and be mindful enough that you feel the effects of that food while you're eating it, versus you know five minutes later yeah, well now, in a past episode I had mentioned a study that was done with people and they ate the same thing.

Speaker 1:

They ate this I think it was like ice cream or something and those who had the negative feeling that this was a bad thing had more of a sugar, like the blood sugar spike, than those who were thinking of it as a reward. So that whole mindset I mean it truly can make a difference.

Speaker 2:

It really, really can, and it's just story, I mean, it's all made up anyway, right, like all of this, this whole life we live, we've, we've, we've invented it and it's that's why we were so far removed from our own instincts, because we've invented it to be what we think we want versus what we really want. In many ways, we probably decimated the culture that actually was one with, you know, nature and the human body, which is the Native American culture. We decimated that culture. You know, we destroyed them and, if anything, they were doing it right, you know, they were absolutely honoring and like, like I love kind of pointing this out like we, we, we talk about planetary focus and like, uh, you know, like, oh, I want to do what's right for the planet, right, well, in my judgment, one of the most planetary focused things you could do is eat whole animal. And here here's why Because currently we are slaughtering those animals.

Speaker 2:

Okay, this is happening, it's not going to not happen, it is happening.

Speaker 2:

And we're only using about 50% of that animal, which is the muscle, with the other 50 or 49% we're we're putting towards other industry, we're throwing out, we're not utilizing it, and yet, in more ways than not, it's the most nutritious part of the animal, and so what's happening is we're only using 50% of that animal. Then we're turning around and we're investing in a supplement industry a trillion dollar supplement industry when if we had just eaten the whole animal, we might not we may not need all those other supplementary supplements in our lives. We might actually get the nutrition from the whole animal. And if you think about it culturally, you know ancestrally no one that spent a time to kill an animal which was an extremely hard thing to do back in the day, right, no one would waste any part of that animal when they killed it, every part of that animal was used. Native Americans absolutely modeled that, and I believe that that is the best thing you can do, not only for your body but for the planet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, don't buy an electric car, just eat whole animal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like you said if we, if we had to do it, we would appreciate more of the animal for ourselves.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's the best way to honor the animals, to use all of it, like, if you want to like, as I agree, you kill an animal, like, yeah, you're taking a life, you know, and something's got to die for us to live, and that goes for no matter what. Taking a life, you know, and something's got to die for us to live, and that goes for no matter what diet you follow, you know, if you're eating plant based and you think something's not dying, you are mistaken. Just talk to a farmer that does monocrops and they will tell you when they plow the fields, there are an enormous amount of animals that die during the plowing, you know, from doe, who are hiding in the fields, to rabbits, to squirrels, to mice, to insects there's so many, it's, it's, it's literally. You talk to them and their faces go white and they're like, oh, yeah, it's a horror show. And I'm like, oh, so you're either choosing that or you're choosing one animal to die, you know, and then it.

Speaker 2:

And so what I like to focus on is not whether something's dying or not, but how are we honoring that which dies? How are we letting the animal that is being killed live, like if it's in a regenerative farm and it's like Joel Saladin of Polyface Farms will say his cows had one bad day. You know, animals had literally one bad day. They lived a full, beautiful life on a farm, free range and whatnot, pastured, and then they had one bad day, which was that slaughter. Other than that, their life was very full. And you cannot say that for conventional animals, right, you just cannot. Their whole life is miserable, to you know. In my judgment. So yeah, honoring the, honoring the animal is eating whole, whole animal and in a sense, you're also honoring yourself, because it carries back to what we're talking about is that you cannot be healthy if you're eating out all the time, and and we want to even qualify that a little bit more so when you're eating ultra processed foods is a form of eating out. Okay, when you're not making the foods from scratch, that is eating out. And the grocery stores, once again, they are not there for our health, they are there to make a profit. And if you think they're there for our health, then we should have a talk, because now you've been hoodwinked into thinking that the government actually cares about our health and they do not. If they did, then we would have very different policies and there would be more transparency around. You know genetically modified foods. There'd be more transparency around. You know genetically modified foods. They're just like.

Speaker 2:

For example, why are many U S companies selling I don't know certain ultra processed foods, like cereals or even fast food stuff, like why is? Why are the ingredients different in the U S than they are in Europe? You know why are they more dirty here in the U S versus in Europe? They're much cleaner. You know they don't allow certain. You know red dye 40, you know, like, like why? Why are we on the short end of the stick? And it's because of our policies. It's because our government allows it.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, I could go, I could go on and on about that. That could get us started in a whole nother topic. But I want you to um share with our listeners about suck, um, maybe the the, because you didn't mention the four seasonings. You have right, you've got the regular pluck spicy, zesty, zesty pepper, right, is that?

Speaker 2:

zesty garlic, zesty pepper right Is that Zesty garlic.

Speaker 2:

So we have what we used to call all purpose, but they're technically all all purpose, like you can use any of them for anything. So now we changed our original, the first one we came out with, to original, and then and then what we? And then we also have a blend called Spicy Mild, and that's just to make sure people know it's not too spicy and that that one uses cayenne as the, as the spice. And then the third one is called Zessigaric. Really proud of that one, because if anyone listening is uh, is autoimmune, paleo like or protocol follows AIP and cannot do, you know, nightshades or seeds.

Speaker 2:

Zesty garlic is a is a great option because there's no nightshades or seeds in that one oh perfect and it makes me kind of taste a little bit like a ranch dressing to a degree, but it I think of it more like a like a herby garden vegetable kind of flavor. So then that one is our green bag, and then our fourth one is the unique one. It's just pure, so it's just the organ meats. It's no different than buying encapsulated organs, really, except there's no capsules. And that piece, though, is really important to me and it really ties to what we've been talking about. Is so this idea that we're out of touch with our food and our and what our own body sorry, we're out of touch with our, our, our food systems, first of all, like the sourcing of our food, but we're even more so is we're out of touch with our own bodies, what our body needs around food, right, and so one of the ways to connect to that is to eat the food, as we already discussed. Well, why I don't want people taking encapsulated organs is purely because when I take, for example, a salt tablet, if I swallow that salt tablet, I have a delayed response, maybe 20, 30 minutes later. Why am I feeling bloated? Oh, I got too much of something. So when we swallow something, we're guessing about how much our body wants and needs and, in turn, how much it can actually utilize, right. But when we eat the food and, as we discussed already, when we eat it consciously then our body will tell us and we can. We know that, for example, salt if I put salt on your tongue it might taste good the first time, but by the third time it literally the taste changes, like your body is overwhelmed with that saltiness and it literally is rejecting the salt. So your body has that mechanism in it to stop you when it doesn't want more or need more. But you only get that when you eat it and you have to eat what it is. And so that's why I get told a lot people will do encapsulated organs and they'll be like, yeah, I did the, I took the eight that it said the bottle told me to take, and I feel nauseous and I'm like, well, yeah, because you probably got too much. Because how is a bottle supposed to know what you need specifically? And or it might be an indication of something else going on. Maybe your elimination pathways aren't open, you know? Whatever it might be. Um, so I think you know, the more we can get ourselves to just eat that food. Eat it mindfully, you'll find that your body will tell you when to stop the. The flavor changes now on the flip side of that also is that might taste really good, like so when you do one of the pluck seasons.

Speaker 2:

What we get feedback on is a lot of kids are like, they just want to keep eating it. And the parents tell me, like oh yeah, when my kid we ran out, my kids start crying and I'm like well, that's an indication not only that it tastes good, but the body really wants it, so it goes both ways. Like, but the body really wants it, so it goes both ways. Like, but the body has that education I'm always telling people look, I may be trying to get you to eat whole animal and eat organ meats, but ultimately I want you to follow the diet that works best for you. Like so if you're not ready to you know animal yet, that's fine.

Speaker 2:

However, I have one request from everyone listening is that you let your body dictate the change, not your head. If you're, whatever diet you're following, let your body be your soothsayer. Let your body direct you on whether it works or not, because we get in our heads about these things and we think, you know, we get on our soapbox and we think, oh, carnivore is the way to go, or vegans the way to go, or whatever it is we get. We think, oh, carnivore is the way to go, or vegans the way to go, or whatever it is. We get. We think that whatever we're doing that's worked for us is going to work for everyone. And it's just not true. Like your, your body knows what it needs. But if you're not listening, then you're missing out on this amazing communication that's happening.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Can you, and you may have already just done that, but can you leave our listeners with one tip and maybe just dive deeper into? And I know you mentioned it at the beginning. But one thing they can do like homework wise, one thing they can do this week to kind of help listen to their body more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think. I think definitely that taking a breath before you eat is key. I think, though, that I mean we've mentioned so many already like the sitting down, not multitasking when you're eating, and I know that that's going to be challenging, but I think I think the best thing anyone can do is just pick one thing. Don't feel like you have to do all of it at once, like so, if you're struggling with eating, you know cooking your own food, but you really want to be healthy, then just pick one thing.

Speaker 2:

There's a story of this this kid, david, who I used to employ when I had this meal delivery service in LA. This was a long time ago, and he came to me and he had ADD, he had really bad skin, he was drinking sodas, he was, he was smoking, and he was he had trouble. He was, I think, 19 or 20. He hadn't held a job down ever because because he couldn't and I didn't push anything on him, I didn't force him to do anything differently but I started him out as a dishwasher in my meal delivery service business. He saw us preparing food a specific way. He smelled it, he heard it, so he's doing all the things that we're talking about at the beginning of this podcast and eventually he said hey, can you, james, can you tell me? Like he started asking questions. He's like can you tell me, like, how I could make changes to my diet? Or like like that dictated him than asking questions. And I said, I said, david, I see you drinking sodas every day. So I said let's just change one thing. Let's just, instead of the sodas, drink water. That's all I'm asking you to change thing. Let's just, instead of the sodas, drink water. That's all I'm asking you to change. Just drink more water and less of, and basically, instead of reaching for sodas, you drink water. So skip ahead. Now he's. He's like, probably I think this is about he's in his 30s now. So you know, 10, 10, so years the guy now does not smoke, he's got no, he works out religiously like, he works out regularly, he's fit, healthy, has in a loving relationship, holds down many jobs. Now, like all these issues are gone and it started with that one thing just drinking more water.

Speaker 2:

You know, if, if there was anything else that I think would help people be more mindful is I would say after you eat, go for a walk Every time you eat, just go for a walk, because what we're trying to do is get you out of this atmosphere that you're in, where you're kind of like checking out, and get you to do. And now, when I say go for work, I'm not saying be on your phone, I'm saying just go for a walk, like walk around outside 15 minutes, 20 minutes max, and just go for a walk, take a look around, be in your body as you walk, see how you feel. I think that that, right, there is a really good start because, yeah, like I said, get pulling yourself out of that environment that you're checking out in is really key and that's also why I was recommending we don't start in the grocery store, because that's where we check out a lot. We check out in the grocery store. You know you don't want to fall asleep at the cart. You know that's what I always tell people. I was like you want to make sure you're still reading labels. You don't want to go there when you're hungry. You want to have a list so that you're not making emotional purchases.

Speaker 2:

There's so many little tools you can incorporate to keep you on track when you're at a grocery store, but the first one has got to be like around the choices you make, and that has to start with you regarding more so, what you put in your mouth, and to do that, you have to honor, you have to be willing to honor yourself, because if you start looking at food, is there what? There's nothing that will go into my mouth that does not honor the person I believe I am or the beauty I feel I am Right. If you really like shift your mind, think about what different choices you'd make. You're not going to put that Oreo in there because that doesn't honor you, you know. So there's, there's lots of ways we can shift our mindset, and I think that it starts with you know, you, us all, regarding ourselves a lot higher than we currently do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yep, thank you so much for taking out of the time out of your day for this conversation. I always have enjoyed speaking with you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, it's a pleasure and, yeah, I'm glad you're so open. I think this conversation of mindful eating it's out there, but I think we need to be more. You know, having more conversations about this. You know, in my mind it's a missing link to us reconnecting with our own body's needs. I'm tired of looking everywhere outside of myself because and if you're like me, you're just getting confused and overwhelmed Like I'm far more interested in really tapping into what my body needs and wants, and I guarantee that when we do, you're not going to be wanting all those desserts and all those fabricated foods, because you'll start to taste them for what they really are, which is just ultra processed, artificial flavored junk.

Speaker 1:

And where can everyone find you?

Speaker 2:

You can find Pluck on Amazon or at our website, eatpluckcom. And then you can find us on socials, at eatpluck as well, and I'm personally at Chef James Berrys at Eat Pluck as well, and I'm personally at Chef James Berry if you want to follow me.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you, courtney. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found something to take away to help you practice healthier habits, move more or handle the midlife and aging with grace. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave us a review to help us reach more moms just like you. Head to movingthroughmidlifecom to join the free community or learn how you can move more and feel better in your daily life.