The Illusion of Healthy Eating: What Most People Are Missing

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00:27:47:19 – 00:28:07:05
EatPluck
Yeah. Well, thank you both. Kelly. Lori, thank you so much for having me. It’s really I’m really grateful to have this conversation, you know, and so I’ve been a professional chef for 22 years. And so I’ve always been about flavor. I just think flavor is what moves the needle. What attracts is to food or not personalized health programs in Ridgeland MS.

00:28:07:07 – 00:28:29:12
EatPluck
But it really shifted for me when I became a father, because now it’s not just about flavor, it’s about health. And when my youngest daughter, actually both daughters, were traveling to Canada, they came back. They were both pretty young. The youngest was about one and the oldest was five. They got Shiga toxin, which if people don’t know what that is, it’s a form of E.coli and it’s deadly.

00:28:29:16 – 00:28:52:17
EatPluck
You can’t take an antibiotic. It’s deadly for particularly young children. And the elderly because you basically can’t hold anything in your body. And my oldest got through it pretty quick, three days. But my youngest, it just wouldn’t leave. And it was about eight days in just skin and bones. It was really frightening as a parent.

00:28:52:19 – 00:29:18:14
EatPluck
And I just got this hit of like, I just wish there was something that had no barrier to entry. And the first food she finally could hold in was toast. And, you know, here I am, a chef, and I’m like, watching my kitty piece of gluten free toast, which really isn’t that healthy. And I was just sitting there going, like, I wish I could just sprinkle something on there that would make it healthy because she wouldn’t budge.

00:29:18:19 – 00:29:40:20
EatPluck
You know, when you get sick, you have your first food that doesn’t make you sick. You kind of get addicted to it, and it’s your safe food. And so she would not try anything else. Gratefully, though, she got through that. But it did spark that idea of how to get nutrient dense foods into my diet, into my kids’ diets.

00:29:40:22 – 00:30:04:05
EatPluck
And then that took me down the rabbit hole. And I’d already learned about automating ancestral eating. When I was first becoming a chef, I learned about Weston Price, which we don’t have to go and do here, but if you don’t know about Weston Price, anyone listening, highly recommend you look it up. It’s fascinating, the studies that this dentist pulled off that no one else had actually done before him.

00:30:04:07 – 00:30:22:07
EatPluck
So I learned about that then, but I didn’t really incorporate it because I didn’t grow up eating these foods. I wrote mostly as a chef, just focused on real food. But when I became a father, I focused on the most nutrient dense foods. And there is a difference. And I think, I think we’ll definitely be going into that.

00:30:22:07 – 00:30:44:07
Synergee
But there is an illusion of health out there. Like people think, oh, if I eat broccoli, I’m going to be healthy. If I eat, you know, Acai Berries, I’m going to be healthy. But for the most part, it’s real. It’s just really marketing. And so I was really just trying to get down to the bottom of this, like, what really is really, truly is the most nutrient dense foods.

00:30:44:09 – 00:31:06:16
EatPluck
I identified organ meats like beef, liver, kidney, heart, those kinds of things. I identify those as being the most nutrient dense, most bioavailable, meaning that our bodies can absorb them. And then I was all about like, how do I get this in people’s diets? Because no one wants to eat them. They think they’re icky. They don’t know how to cook them or don’t want to cook them.

00:31:06:18 – 00:31:33:16
EatPluck
They don’t know where to source them. And so I set out to solve that.

00:31:33:18 – 00:31:58:14
EatPluck
It’s a huge learning when you notice what people really like, what really makes someone willing to make a change to their diet. And in my time working with people, I identified it. It really is. There’s only two reasons people make changes. And it’s something I’ve been working on for the last 15 years of trying to figure out how to make it.

00:31:58:14 – 00:32:28:21
EatPluck
So it’s not just these two reasons, but basically the thing that moves someone’s health needle, meaning that this is the reason they would actually make a change to move away from comfort foods was because they themselves got sick, or someone they love died. It literally took that much for someone to change. And what that really is, how I looked at that and how I continue to look at that is that, well, we are humans.

00:32:28:21 – 00:32:57:12
EatPluck
First we seek comfort, we seek regularity, we seek safety, and we live in a modern society that is in many ways not safe. We’re being given food that’s tricking our bodies, that causes lots of inflammation and other chronic illnesses. And whether people are feeling those illnesses or not, they exist there in your body. Nose feels it. And so your body’s in a constant state of shock and are just like, how do I do this?

00:32:57:12 – 00:33:16:22
EatPluck
And it really, I think the way that most of us can identify this is just how do you feel after a meal? Do you feel bloated? Do you have to undo your pants? That’s the sign of shock and like, that’s your body saying this doesn’t feel good, right? So whether you’re in your body and you can actually feel it or not, your body experience is not guaranteed.

00:33:16:24 – 00:33:26:10
Synergee
We live in a toxic soup where our hormones and our immune systems are constantly being challenged by these toxins that are foreign to our biology.

00:33:26:14 – 00:33:30:21
Synergee
Ultimately, what it all leads to is that we are not going to find the answers to getting healthy in a grocery store, in a restaurant from these influences that I, that I ultimately think that what we need to do is, as much as possible, remove like be honest with our kind of human desires and instead of looking outward, try to look more inward.

00:33:55:14 – 00:34:21:10
EatPluck
And I will share as well that in my time when I’ve identified, we’ll get someone to turn a healthy food into a lifestyle, it has to embody two things. It has to be both easy and delicious. It can’t be one. It has to be both. And it really does speak to our human nature that we look for things that are easy, and we look for things that are tasty.

00:34:21:12 – 00:34:41:21
Synerge
And, that was kind of both a really cool learning. But it’s also, you know, it all leads back to like, you know, we got to be honest with ourselves. Well, willpower doesn’t exist. You know, that’s not going to get you your whole life. That’s not going to get you lifestyle, just doing it because you want to do it.

00:34:41:21 – 00:36:04:18
Synergee
I’m not going to do it. You got to dig deep because the world is challenging us in every way.

00:36:04:20 – 00:36:32:23
EatPluck
Thank you. I mean, the palate is fascinating. You know, the palette is a resource that we really don’t use on many levels. So I’ll address the most obvious level, which is it affects our taste buds as you’re mentioning. And the palate, though if you think about it, it can also support how I take a picky eater and make them more adventurous.

00:36:32:23 – 00:36:53:16
EatPluck
So most people look at it behaviorally, or they’ll look at it, emotionally. But I like to look at it just physically through the palate. So in a sense, when you’re dealing with a picky eater, you’re really dealing with someone that is conditioned towards two flavors, salty and sweet, because that’s what the American, you know, standard American diet is.

00:36:53:18 – 00:37:09:23
Synergee
Right. And so when you are only similar to if you remember when you were a kid and you were drinking all that soda pop back in the day, did you ever have one of those summers where you drank so much juice and soda pop that the first time you went to have water, it was gross. It was like I used to have.

00:37:09:23 – 00:37:35:08
Synergee
I remember way, way back in the day, I’d have summers like that where the summers were filled with just juices, fruits and soda, so that when I then had that water, it was like gross and plain. Well, that’s just because my palate had been conditioned, right? And so when you want to get someone to be more adventurous physically, you just have to introduce the other flavors.

00:37:35:08 – 00:37:58:18
EatPluck
And so we have the four that we were taught growing up. You know, the bitter, sour, salty, sweet. But since then I’ve discovered umami, which was in the 90s. That’s kind of what I would classify as more savory. And then they’re even identifying a sixth one now. They think it’s rancid food. Rancid food has its own flavor, which makes sense to me.

00:37:58:18 – 00:38:20:05
EatPluck
Right. Because that’s a survival thing. So that’s one ways you can use the palate so you just have to get those flavors in. So if the kid is salty, sweet, then you start to incorporate bitter, sour, and mommy flavors in. Fortunately, pluck is very well, mommy. So when we get people using our seasoning, it’s more than just flavor.

00:38:20:05 – 00:38:45:11
EatPluck
It’s actually helping to reshape their palate. So that’s kind of cool on that level. On another level, the palate is ancestral. So it’s our communication pathway that is telling us whether going back to what I said earlier, is this food safe or is it going to kill me? Because that’s really ultimately ancestrally because this is something people forget.

00:38:45:11 – 00:39:19:04
EatPluck
Is this human body we call this homo sapiens, right? And it’s 250,000 years old that biology is, is and truly ancestral. These Franken foods that we’re eating are only about 100 years old. I mean, when you compare them, the body’s biology 250,000 plus years, the foods we’re currently eating 100. It’s like a pinprick in a lifetime. Right. And so we really have to rethink what this palate is, this the biology of our palate.

00:39:19:05 – 00:39:40:09
EatPluck
What was it designed to communicate? Well, ultimately it was, is this food going to kill me or is it going to nourish me? That’s the basic knowledge. But it was extremely serious because if you ate the wrong thing, you died, right? You didn’t have nutritional facts, boxes and ingredient labels to tell you what’s in it. So there it was truly like, oh, what’s this?

00:39:40:09 – 00:40:07:05
EatPluck
It smells good. And so you used your communication pathway with your senses to inform you of what to do next. And I think we’ve forgotten that, that there’s 250,000 year biology needs these senses, needs our palate, needs to taste needs the touch needs, the hearing needs. Every aspect of this communication pathway to know is this food going to nourish me?

00:40:07:07 – 00:40:30:07
Synergee
How much of it do I need? When do I stop? Right? All the communication pathways that we are losing in modern society and modern eating. And that’s why we have this obesity issue and why we have chronic illnesses is where we’re not tapping into this 250,000 year old biology, where we’re trying to bypass it with capsules.

00:41:26:18 – 00:41:39:20
Unknown
Sure. I’m.

00:41:39:22 – 00:42:02:04
Synergee
Yeah, I do think particularly when, first of all, the fact that they’re working with you is really important, right? I think too many people out there are self-diagnosed. You know, they’re self diagnosing and they’re going down these rabbit holes, unnecessarily. And they’re spending way more time and energy and money than they technically need to if they just worked with, you know, someone that understood these things.

00:42:02:04 – 00:42:12:17
Synergee
So I think that’s first of all, good that they’re seeing you. I think that I’ll address first the palate regarding the capsules.

00:42:12:19 – 00:42:36:02
Synergee
We are the only species in the world that looks to someone else to tell us what to eat. I take that in for a second. Right. There’s 9 million plus species. So why are we so special? Well, ultimately, we’re not. We are species just like any others. We’re just. We just happen to have a very large brain that complicates things.

00:42:36:04 – 00:42:49:14
Synergee
Right? So we’re already in this scenario. We’re overthinking everything and we’re mucking up the food systems so much that we don’t even.

00:42:49:16 – 00:43:20:03
Synergee
Really deal with the root cause. We ultimately just keep messing, you know, keep addressing this. The symptom. And I, I think about it, I’m reading this book right now called The Third Plate by Dan Barber, and he talks about how the prairie was full of perennial grasses that held soil in place, and the roots were deep. If anything, the roots were like the way a tree looks to us on the outside of the ground.

00:43:20:03 – 00:43:42:20
Synergee
That’s the way the roots looked in the soil. They were so dense that they not only held the soil together, but there they meant that on the top of the soil, that perennial grass could. Anything could happen to it, and it would still be alive and still be nourished and still be cared for, and it would also still be healthy.

00:43:42:22 – 00:44:09:21
EatPluck
Key. Right. Well, what happened is that we came in and we thought, well, we’re going to plow this up and we’re going to put in annual weed, meaning that the perennial grasses can just grow and get chopped down. They’ll continue to grow. Perennial wheat has a cycle. It grows. And then you got to replant to see, to make it a new plant the next, the next season.

00:44:09:21 – 00:44:43:00
EatPluck
Right. So one is like a root system that is healthy and alive and ever expanding. Really. Right. And the other is cyclical and controlled and is basically soaking in, taking in nutrients but not giving back much. Right. And that’s why you have to keep fertilizing the soils. So in many ways we created this mess of where we have no topsoil, where we have food that is not as nutrient dense, then it’s this.

00:44:43:00 – 00:45:09:21
EatPluck
And I’m using this as just one little case study. But the reality is, if we apply this thinking it is very ignorant, human thinking to everything. Look at the poultry industry. We put the chickens in these little cages, and then they would start pecking at each other, and they would actually start causing more harm to them. And then that doesn’t help us because we’re trying to, you know, couldn’t have them grow up big enough where we can then profit off their meat.

00:45:09:21 – 00:45:29:23
EatPluck
Right. So what do we do? We don’t go, oh, maybe we shouldn’t have put those in those in cages. We go, let’s just burn off their beets so they can no longer peck at each other. And that’s what we do continually. And that is even in our medical system, it’s simply you’re looking at this symptom and constantly solving the symptom instead of looking at the root cause.

00:45:30:04 – 00:46:05:02
EatPluck
And it’s literally pervasive in every aspect of our lives. So no wonder that we’re suffering. No wonder that we continue this very way of thinking. It’s because our entire society and our food systems and our health systems are all built in the same way. So I guess what I offer is that the minute that you as a person, as you’re going down this path of trying to get healthier or trying to eat, I think first of all, we have to have humility like we have to we have to take ownership of that.

00:46:05:02 – 00:46:31:07
Synergee
The way that we think we’re supposed to do it. It’s probably not 100%. It’s probably beholden to this same kind of chronic thinking that I just identified. But it’s also probably beholden to the current science. So I’m not saying to not work with someone. Obviously, I think it’s important to work with someone, but I also think that you have to just like a woman who’s pregnant goes into the hospital, have that baby.

00:46:31:09 – 00:46:44:16
Synergee
The doctors may say, you’ve got to do this, but the woman has it. She has a motherly instinct and you cannot take that away from her. And the minute you do is when she.

00:46:44:18 – 00:47:14:03
Synergee
Has trauma around her birth. But if you just let her dictate the pace, let her dictate what feels right, let her follow that motherly instinct. It usually ends up okay. And I think the same is true for us as humans. When we’re looking at diet, whether you’re working with the practitioner or not, you still have to go inward and take a breath and like, really let your biology let this ancestral sacred biology speak to you because it will.

00:47:14:03 – 00:47:35:11
Synergee
We get signs all the time. I mean, the simplest sign we get that I think most people can identify with and I can name more. But the simplest one is when you try to lift something that’s too heavy, what happens to your grip gives out. That is, your body’s communicating. Saying that this is too much. You’re going to hurt yourself.

00:47:35:11 – 00:47:48:11
Synergee
You’re going to hurt me, and I’m here to survive. Don’t do this right. It shows up all the time. When you’re in the grocery store, you go to try to grab something off the shelf and it falls out of your hand. You go to try to pick it up again, and you can’t seem to get a good grip on it.

00:47:48:13 – 00:49:09:05
Synergee
Or maybe you have flatulence when you go or burping or some kind of physical reaction when you go to grab something. These are all signs. We’re just not listening.

00:49:09:07 – 00:49:36:05
Synergee
And I love that. And I would add that I think that if we really want to kind of merge this holistic medicine with the ancestral, we also have to with the minute you have that first client is one of the first questions should be do you believe you can heal? Because if you don’t believe it as and this is for everyone listening, like if we don’t believe it as individuals, it won’t happen.

00:49:36:07 – 00:50:04:06
Synergee
Because no matter what a practitioner tells you, no matter what an influencer tells you, no matter what supplements you take, your body, your your, your mindset will dictate whether you properly digest that, whether you assimilated, whether you actually get healthy and so if you don’t believe it’s possible, it won’t happen. And this is scientific. I mean, there is that there was that study recently done with cancer patients.

00:50:04:08 – 00:50:27:03
Synergee
I’m sure you, you know it, but I’ll, I’ll, I’ll share it. But it’s basically where there were some that were having chemo, real chemotherapy. There were some that were given pills that were told it was, you know, chemotherapy and the ones that were getting the water, the sugar pills that were, weren’t actually chemotherapy. They had chemotherapy reactions.

00:50:27:05 – 00:50:55:03
Synergee
So they actually had hair loss. They had it as though they were getting chemotherapy. So usually in, in the placebo effect you’re seeing something not happen. But here you were seeing something happening. So it shows you that the brain really does like your state of mind when you’re going down. Any of these paths really matters. And hands down, I believe it’s the game changer for everything.

00:50:55:03 – 00:51:17:19
Synergee
If you actually believe you can heal. And then two, I think you have to practice gratitude. Humility, that you’re not alone, that whether you’re working with a practitioner or not, that you have answers within you, but they’re not just your brain figuring it out. It’s like ancestral knowledge, almost like it’s built into your DNA.

00:51:17:21 – 00:51:39:05
Synergee
And part of this, you know, sacred biology that we have because of the human body. Right? I mean, I hope, I hope everyone listening can acknowledge how sacred and how precious it is. I mean, I think about, you know, growing up, there were these two families I knew where the fathers, they basically killed themselves with alcohol poisoning.

00:51:39:05 – 00:52:01:07
Synergee
So they drank for 55, 60 years of their life, but they died at, like in their 70s at, a certain level, you can hear that and go like, oh, that’s so sad. But I look at that and I go, oh, that’s amazing. Like they were poisoning their bodies with alcohol, their liver, their whole body for over 50 years.

00:52:01:07 – 00:52:10:22
Synergee
And yet their body still kept ticking, kept going. Like that shows you how amazingly precious and miraculous this body is and what’s possible.

00:52:24:10 – 00:52:33:02
EatPluck
Totally.

00:52:33:04 – 00:52:54:10
EatPluck
Yeah. I mean, you know, it. It’s funny because we’re talking. I’m throwing around this word ancestral, but even when I talk about pluck, a lot of times we say, oh, you can turn any food into ancestral food. Why? You know, sprinkling on. But if I’m really honest with everybody, there’s nothing in our food systems right now that’s ancestral.

00:52:54:12 – 00:53:16:21
Synergee
Nothing like even organ meats because. Yeah. So, really what we’re talking about when we say ancestors, we’re talking about a concept, not a literal. Like this food is ancestral because the reality is, our ancestors didn’t eat cows. They didn’t eat this kind of agriculture, you know, these bread animals that we have now that are very Far East Farm now that’s known.

00:53:16:24 – 00:53:41:23
EatPluck
Yes. Your great grandparents. But I think when we say ancestral words, imagine our Paleolithic, you know, ancestors and these, these foods did not exist then and we’ve manipulated the system so much that none of the vegetables we know are what they used to be. Really. None of the grains or there weren’t grains back in the day. But, you know, I mean, the wild roots, most people aren’t eating that kind of stuff, nor could you find it in the way it was then.

00:53:42:00 – 00:53:57:02
EatPluck
So I think when we’re talking about an ancestor, we just have to focus more on the concept or the perspective of the philosophy of it. So the idea that I, how I look at it is ancestral really needs to embody three things.

00:53:57:04 – 00:54:08:11
EatPluck
If you want food that has flavor found in nature, not natural flavors which are added flavors, but food that has flavors that are found in nature.

00:54:08:13 – 00:54:24:08
EatPluck
And then you need the food to be nutrient dense. So that’s a whole food. That’s a food that is an ingredient versus has ingredients. And then you want to mindfully eat it because that’s how our ancestors did it. They didn’t have all the distractions. They didn’t have all the things that were causing like the stress they had was more in the moment.

00:54:28:23 – 00:54:52:24
Synergee
Right? It was like, oh, something’s chasing me. It wasn’t like you’re sitting while you eat and you’re just sitting in stress. Because usually when you were eating, you were in a safe space and you didn’t have the kind of modern issues that we have where you’re constantly feeling stress, whether it’s from the toxins or from you just your career path or from the kind of controlled lifestyle we live.

00:54:53:01 – 00:55:15:06
Synergee
So I just have to assume that while they were very stressed out back in a day or two, it was more of a controlled kind of momentary moment of stress and then lots of time of just downtime and no stress. I mean, that’s what I mean. Just assuming. But I also think, though, that we have to look at practices around that.

00:55:16:16 – 00:55:40:19
Synergee
So this idea, this modern idea of like, oh, I’m going to eat ribeye and liver because that’s what the set influencer is telling me to do. You know, whether it’s Paul Saladin or whatever, all these people that are like just eat these five foods. It’s like when ever in the history of the world would someone slaughter an animal and only eat one part of the muscle and one of the organs?

00:55:40:19 – 00:55:55:02
EatPluck
It just wouldn’t have happened. It’s as Taylor Swift would say, it’s its champagne problems. Right? It’s like it’s just not, it’s not in reality. Like if first of all, you’re completely disrespecting
and not honoring that animal when you don’t eat the whole animal. Taking any life is serious. And whether that’s human or animal or any insect, any kind of life force, that thinking that we have the power just to take it and disregard it is just obscene to me.

00:56:14:15 – 00:56:27:22
EatPluck
So first of all, like eating a whole animal is environmental, eating a home animal is planetary. It’s honoring that animal. You’re using the entire resource. And it is how our ancestors would have eaten philosophically.

00:56:28:02 – 00:56:49:11
EatPluck
When you do that, what you find is that you get nutrients that you don’t just get from the meat. So, give an example of B12, like B12 is associated with beef muscle particularly. And yet I’ve talked to people who said, yeah, I’ve, I’ve had my B12 measured and it’s low and I eat beef and I’m like, that’s interesting.

00:56:49:11 – 00:56:54:01
EatPluck
They said, but guess what? When it went up is when I ate liver.

00:56:54:03 – 00:57:09:10
EatPluck
I’m like, oh, that’s interesting because they both have B12. But I have to assume it’s because if you just practically put beef muscle, you know, like a rib eye on the counter and you put liver on the counter and let them get room temperature, just leave them out for five hours each.

00:57:09:12 – 00:57:34:13
EatPluck
The beef muscle kind of keeps its constitution. It doesn’t change much. The liver almost melts. So yeah, even just structurally you look at that and you go, oh yeah, this is way looking at the beef liver. This is going to be way easier to absorb because look at how it’s melting at room temperature. That’s what’s going on your body is warmer than you know than that internally.

00:57:34:13 – 00:57:51:12
EatPluck
So it’s like right away I got it on a practical level. It’s like, oh yeah, that makes more sense that the B12 in the liver is more absorbable than the muscle meat because it’s just structurally different. But you apply that to just like supports like the, you know, are you applying that to the other organs. What are their jobs?

00:57:56:16 – 00:58:16:12
EatPluck
What do they have to do in the body? We just talked about how miraculous this body is and how the survival instincts, how it will take abuse for 50, 60, 70 years and it will still tick. Right. So these organs have jobs to do. The muscles’ job is to move right. Support movement. The heart’s job is to pump that blood.

00:58:16:14 – 00:58:32:09
Synergee
Well, what’s so fascinating when you break down what are the different nutrients in all these different parts? For example the heart has coenzyme Q10, which if anyone is taking a cardiovascular supplement, it’s going to have coenzyme Q10 in it because it supports your heart.

00:58:32:11 – 00:58:48:00
Synergee
But isn’t that funny? That’s also in the heart, the organ. So this idea is that the like supports like so that means if you are having detoxification issues it might support you to do some kidney or liver.

00:58:48:00 – 00:59:14:20
EatPluck
Right. Because of the detoxification organs. If you’re having testosterone issues, it might make sense to have the testicles. And what’s interesting is this is not just me saying this. Like in the 1940s standard process, one of the the OGs of this glandular space, they did the testing back then and they showed the glandular the glandular you it supports the glandular in you.

00:59:14:22 – 00:59:36:16
EatPluck
And then you just watch all these other case studies. I mean, I know someone right now, I think he’s in his early 40s, a 40 year old male who has low testosterone is getting tested. And instead of taking shots, he’s just eating testicles, and then he’s retesting and it’s going up. His testosterone is increasing.

00:59:36:18 – 00:59:46:14
EatPluck
So it’s not that abnormal to imagine, like maybe these ancestral foods or another way of saying it like, God food.

00:59:46:14 – 01:00:42:07
EatPluck
If you’re someone that’s religious or faith based or Mother Nature’s multivitamin. Another way of saying it. Right. But either what we’re saying when we use these labels, we’re ultimately saying is nature did provide, didn’t it? It did provide. We just have to utilize her.

01:00:42:09 – 01:00:59:17
EatPluck
Yeah. Well, and this is going to sound like, you know, a shameless plug game for me, but it is why I created Pluck. I mean, because I recognize that this is tough. You know, as I mentioned earlier, there’s four main hurdles. We think this stuff is gross. We don’t know how to cook it. We don’t know how to source it.

01:00:59:19 – 01:01:25:00
EatPluck
The fourth one is we know that we should be doing so. We’re taking the capsules. But why, why have issues with the capsules? Kind of goes back to what I said earlier, which is the only way to know what your body needs is to get the communication up front. And as you mentioned, we do have taste buds receptors down below, but that’s a delayed response.

01:01:25:02 – 01:01:42:11
EatPluck
So when I was first creating Pluck I was getting told that, oh yeah, I already take the capsules, but I usually feel nauseous. And I was like, well, that’s interesting because you’re probably that means you’re probably getting too much, but you would never know that if you just swallow, well, they’re like what the bottle says to do 6 to 8 capsules.

01:01:42:13 – 01:02:10:05
EatPluck
I’m like, well, how does a business know what your body needs? Here’s a woman who’s five two and her boyfriend, or the person sitting next to her is like six two, and they’re both doing 6 to 8 capsules. And I’m like, what? What? This is craziness. Like, you have completely different needs. So the only way to know what your needs are is you gotta eat the food and you got to eat it mindfully, and it’s got to be nutrient dense, real, real flavors found in nature, not flavored with something.

01:02:10:05 – 01:02:32:13
EatPluck
Right? So that’s why I was like, I gotta solve this, but it’s gotta be food again. It can’t be just this supplement that you take in a capsule. And so what I did was I created pluck and it’s got five organs, so it’s got beef liver, heart, kidney, spleen and pancreas. I hope to add more organs down the road.

01:02:32:15 – 01:03:01:03
EatPluck
But right now it’s got those five and they’re coming from 100% grass fed cows. We use salt, we use organic spices and herbs, and I make them taste good. So now literally this is the easiest way to get these organs, this organ meat nutrition into your diet. You just salt your food with it. And now every time you salt your food, you’re getting a microdosing of those organ meats frequently because you seasoned our food all the time.

01:03:01:05 – 01:03:17:23
EatPluck
And that’s the cumulative effect. And a lot of people will go like, but how much do I really need? I’m like, I’m like, but guess what? You’re eating it so your body will tell you how much some, some women, you know, during a certain month, time of the month, they might want more. They might want less. You know, you just listen to your body.

01:03:17:23 – 01:03:41:16
EatPluck
So what we’re trying to support you in is getting these nutrients, getting them in a very, like, gentle way. Because when we get things into high amounts, our body just wants to inject them. Right. When I met you I noticed, like I do protein powder sometimes. And immediately after doing that protein powder it’s like I have to go pee, you know, or if I do creatine or something like that, it’s just like, I just gotta go pee so bad.

01:03:41:18 – 01:04:01:13
EatPluck
And that’s just my body going like, get this out of here right when we microdose when we do small amounts, the body, it’s gentle on the body. The body can just absorb everything it got. There’s nothing really to get rid of because you’re just doing a little bit at a time. I love Mike, I love the concept of microdosing across the board for everything.

01:04:01:13 – 01:04:23:16
EatPluck
I just think it’s gentler on the human body. I think that our systems are so taxed and overwhelmed that doing things gentler is going to be better well-received for an overtaxed body. So that’s kind of like a plus for me as an easy gateway first step. But it’s not the last step because I am truly about like, I want to help people get these meats in their diet.

01:04:23:16 – 01:04:51:03
EatPluck
So the next thing I would do if you want to actually start incorporating these organs is I would focus on species. So a lot of people default to thinking they have to use beef. But chicken hearts, for example, are very mild. They don’t have a strong taste. They’re a really good entry point because they will still be with mommy, which is that flavor which will support that change in your palate and get you to be more open to eating organ meats down the road.

01:04:51:03 – 01:05:10:02
EatPluck
So any organ from the chicken is going to be milder than the cow. And secondly, we want to focus on organs that are closer to muscle meat. So heart tongue those two are going to be a lot more muscle than they are kind of that different texture that some organs have. So that’s where I would start to start.

01:05:10:02 – 01:05:27:08
EatPluck
There. Once again, you don’t have to stop. Like if I were then moving from the chicken hearts to it. Well, I should say this just to give everyone a little bit more value here with the chicken hearts. You don’t leave them whole. Like chop them up, throw them in a sauce. No one will know they’re there.

01:05:27:08 – 01:05:46:05
EatPluck
They’ll think they’re mushrooms. So just help your psychology, like break it up so it doesn’t look like an organ. Because psychologically, that’s what we’re kind of grossed out about. I think it makes us feel our own kind of mortality. When we see organs. Right. We think of our own internal body. So just try to remove that stimulus.

01:05:46:05 – 01:06:06:15
EatPluck
That’s the power of Pluck because it doesn’t look like an organ. Right. Same thing with the tongue. Once you cook it and it comes out of that skin, that kind of sandpaper underneath is a really delicate, stringy muscle. And it’s so delicious. So once you cook it, you won’t think of a tongue.

01:06:06:15 – 01:06:37:04
EatPluck
So just get it to that point, get over the hump. And what’s kind of cool when you start to explore these off parts of the animal or the old fossils, we would call it, they’re cheaper than the muscle. Me, which is kind of cool, because if, you know, if everyone’s been feeling that kind of, you know, how expensive everything’s getting, right, what’s cool is that you could get the same 100% grass fed cow that has the 2499 rib eye, the tongue will be like 799.

01:06:37:06 – 01:07:01:13
EatPluck
So you could really save money. And I’ll just say one other tip towards easing augmentation that a lot of people don’t think about is that what’s really overwhelming about organ meat is when it’s defrosted, when it’s frozen, it’s not that overwhelming. It just feels like a hunk of meat. Right. So what we want to do is, we want to keep it frozen.

01:07:01:15 – 01:07:24:17
EatPluck
And one of the practices I suggest to people is that when you have any ground meat, it doesn’t matter what species it could be turkey could be lamb does not matter. And if you have a beef liver that’s in your freezer, pull it out and just grate it into the ground meat and then put it right back in the freezer, 1 pound of ground meat you could put in about.

01:07:24:17 – 01:07:48:08
EatPluck
I would start with one tablespoon of grated liver and graduate up to two tablespoons in, eventually, but no rush. You start with one tablespoon. The key is not to put too much liver in there. Or it will start to change the flavor and the texture. But if you just do up, you know, 1 pound to two tablespoons total, you won’t taste it, you won’t notice it.

01:07:48:08 – 01:07:58:13
EatPluck
And you’ll start to get the benefits. And then your palate will start to open up eventually. And you’ll just want others to try other organs. You’ll no longer be grossed out by them. And you’ll just be open to it.

01:08:14:05 – 01:08:29:08
Synergee
The joke is, whenever I talk to practitioners that know, you know, because you guys, you know, you both know about eating organ meats. And it’s just a joke is like. So how long those organs have been in your freezer in a week? Oh, a year, you know, because, yeah, even the best of us, we’re still intimidated.

01:08:29:08 – 01:08:49:07
EatPluck
I mean, that’s why I know it seems like a shameless plug, but that’s why I start with pluck, because I’m like, even me, I’m a chef, I know better. I do not cook organs separately. I just use pluck because it’s easier and it’s delicious. It goes back to the human nature piece, because for my money, I don’t.

01:08:49:09 – 01:09:09:09
Synergee
I think that we’re constantly being sold bills of goods, you know, like this is healthy, you know, that’s healthy. I mean, and all I do is in my brain, I just think about Suzanne Somers and the Thighmaster. You remember that thing? Remember how everyone in their mother bought that? It was so popular. And where are they all now?

01:09:09:09 – 01:09:34:06
EatPluck
No one is doing the thighmaster. Not a single person on this planet is doing this. The thighmaster they’re all somehow in some landfill somewhere. And I just always think about that when I see a health trend because I’m like, if it’s not something I can translate into a lifestyle, it’s just money thrown down the drain. And that goes for the infrared sauna, that goes for the cold plunges.

01:09:34:06 – 01:10:04:05
EatPluck
It’s like you have to be you truly have to be like, am I going to use this enough that it will become a lifestyle and not just something I do for a year or a month or whatever, right. So that’s my gauge. That’s truly my gauge and pluck is that it is so easy. It’s delicious. There’s no reason not to use it.

01:10:04:07 – 01:10:08:23
Synergee
Yes, yes. There’s no agents.

01:10:11:01 – 01:10:42:12
EatPluck
That is true in New Zealand because they have green grass year round. These animals are regenerative. They’re not always certified, but it’s just because it’s different. They have different certifications over there. And but for the most part, these animals are as close to regenerative as you can get, which is just a kind of healthier form. Yeah, we definitely focus on quality because we know that if we’re going to provide this product that we have to solve all of the points, right, it’s got to be delicious.

01:10:42:12 – 01:11:04:15
EatPluck
It’s got to require no cooking skills, it’s got to be sourced properly. And that’s the piece we’re talking about now and then it’s just got it’s got to meet your biological and lifestyle needs. I mean, that’s the power of what we’re talking about. It’s like we’re talking about these ancestral philosophies, these and these foods that are closest to what our ancestors say.

01:11:04:17 – 01:11:25:21
EatPluck
And but notice I’m not saying, well, go take off your t-shirt and go live in a cave and cook it over a fire. Like I get it that we can’t. It’s not that we don’t want to go backwards. We just want to. We just want to make sure we’re getting this nutrition in this very stressful, modern life. But that fits with our modern life, you know?

01:11:25:21 – 01:11:59:17
EatPluck
And I just recognize that if I that’s why even like those ancestral blends where they have the organ meats already ground into that to the ground meat, those are ideal too. The only issue I have with that is that we don’t always eat ground meat, right. So I’m looking for something that I can like. Here’s a piece to to why my, the the dad in me came out with plant and I talked about it earlier is safe food and you both are going to you know this better than anyone, because when someone comes to you and you give them an assessment, you tell them, this is how I need you to start eating.

01:11:59:19 – 01:12:18:04
Synergee
Well, first of all, they got to get over it. The change, right. They have to be willing to change. But the other thing is that the foods that they’ve been eating, they feel safe on them, like they feel comfort from them. And so when you remove that comfort too fast, it’s like pulling the Band-Aid off too fast.

01:12:18:06 – 01:12:44:07
Synergee
It will. How fast you pull that off will determine whether they actually stick to the protocol or not. So if you try to just yank it, it won’t last. Usually because their trauma that they have around, why they need those comfort foods hasn’t been addressed. The beautiful thing about Pluckand why I love it, particularly for parents with kids, is that you’re not forcing anyone to change their safety foods, you’re just adding it.

01:12:44:07 – 01:12:58:14
EatPluck
Like my kids are eating mac cheese. I sprinkle it over the mac. I’m not telling them you can’t eat mac and cheese because it’s not healthy. I’m saying, here’s your mac and cheese. We’re just going to sprinkle Pluck over it. Oh, it’s pizza night because we didn’t have a meal plan and we didn’t, you know, we didn’t cook from home.

01:12:58:16 – 01:13:33:16
EatPluck
No problem. We’re just going to sprinkle the Pluck over the pizza, and I’m going to feel a little bit better as a parent that I got to work. I mean, to my kid, you know what I mean? Like, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We’re just trying to increase the nutrient load of what you’re already eating and hoping that through that palate change and through your body, just you just starting to feel better in your body, that you will eventually start to welcome more change, but you’ll do it at the pace that you can do it, and that your biology allows.

01:13:40:08 – 01:14:00:15
EatPluck
Yeah, it’s just the organ meats. And we did that exactly for that reason because we recognize we can’t make a seasoning for everybody. Like there’s always something that someone wants or something someone doesn’t want. So I was like, look, I’ll just give you the blend that I made. It’s like I said, it’s five organs. And what’s so special about this plan?

01:14:00:17 – 01:14:23:18
EatPluck
So when you get capsules, they’re not, they’re not mixing that for taste. They’re just equal parts of the organs. And they put it in the capsule with me. I actually curated the taste of the blend. So I made sure that it was as neutral as possible. So that’s what people are always shocked about is the pure is like, oh, it’s not as strong as I thought.

01:14:23:18 – 01:14:42:13
EatPluck
I’m like, yeah, because as a chef, I like to nurture it. And what that means though is that, that pure what’s cool about it is it can go sweet or savory. So you could add it to brownies, you could add to your smoothie, you could put it in your savory soups or dishes. You could, you know, there’s so much you can do with it to add to your personalized health programs in Ridgeland MS.

01:14:42:15 – 01:15:05:14
EatPluck
And even better is that one teaspoon equals two ounces of organs. So it’s not really no different than the capsules. But it’s just not in a capsule. So I always tell people to start with half a teaspoon a day. You’re done. I guarantee it’s going to move your, your, your blood markers really quickly like I, I’ve seen it move it as fast as you know.

01:15:05:16 – 01:15:46:11
EatPluck
Well I’ve, I’ve seen people feel different within a few days of using it, but most people don’t test their blood. You know, usually it’s like a month as soon as I hear people doing it. And so within that month, absolutely, their markers have changed. But my guess is that it changes within the first week or two.

01:15:46:13 – 01:16:12:10
Synergee
I know some I mean what is okay. So histamine typically is higher in cooked food first of all. And of course aged meats right. So this is not aged first of all. So it’s raw frozen and then frozen dried. And my assumption because this is true in general when you remove moisture from food it starts to slow down the aging process.

01:16:12:12 – 01:16:52:16
Synerge
Right. That’s why freeze dried or these kinds of foods that have moisture that’s removed, they can, they can, they’re preserved longer. So I have to assume that that’s affected as well. I do know some people that are very sensitive to histamines that are using the pure pluck, and they have not had any issues. So that’s the most I can really say about it, though, because I think it’s one of those things just like anything is you just try a little bit, see if it works for you, and then what’s nice is you’re just microdosing, so it’s never too overwhelming.

01:16:52:18 – 01:16:55:20
EatPluck
We do. We have a sample pack. And here’s something that I get so excited talking about because our mission is to help people help you feel better in your body. Everybody and I know that the way to do that is to get these nutrient dense foods in here. So I’m not just about those five organs.

01:17:13:16 – 01:17:32:17
EatPluck
I mean, I want to get the whole animal. So. Right. We just launched a couple of new products and one of them is the brain. So we’re actually helping people to get a brain. The brain is something that used to be eaten all the time around the world. It was also and still is to a degree is eaten.

01:17:32:19 – 01:17:52:09
Synergee
Going with that supports the concept. The brain has a lot of nutrients that support our own brain. And I have to wonder if, you know, I’m not saying it’s going to solve dementia all the time, but I have to wonder if it will help to offset, because the level of people getting Alzheimer’s and dementia is just so high now it’s highest.

01:17:52:09 – 01:18:18:19
Synergee
It’s ever been. And so I’m really excited to get a brain because even our grant, you know, great grandparents reading brain, you know, with their eggs if they are from farmlands, that’s what they were doing. Like I said, they didn’t waste any part of the animal. So typically, if you were a farmer and you killed your own animals, you kept the brain because you could, you know, you you weren’t, you weren’t shooting the animal necessarily and fracturing the skull throughout the brain.

01:18:18:19 – 01:18:38:17
EatPluck
So you could slaughter them and still use parts of the brain. We are sourcing it once again from New Zealand. They’ve never had mad cow disease. I know that’s the one thing people get really nervous about, but it’s a non-issue in New Zealand because when you treat animals the way they’re supposed to be treated and you raise them properly, they don’t have stuff like mad cow, it just doesn’t happen.

01:18:38:17 – 01:18:59:05
EatPluck
So that’s one thing. And then we’ve put the brain we’ve we have, we sell it as pure. So just 100% we also have it in our cinnamon. So now people are adding it to their coffee and they feel more grounded, more focused from it. That’s the stuff I keep hearing from people. And then we also added some new flavors.

01:18:59:05 – 01:19:25:20
EatPluck
So we have original Zesty Garlic Southwest and then, a new flavor for people that really like spicy is called habanero lime.

01:19:25:22 – 01:19:42:01
EatPluck
You can get the pure then. Yeah.

01:20:37:20 – 01:20:55:06
Synergee
I think most people are always, you know, they’re usually going to answer from one of the pillars. Right? So the stress, the food you eat, movement or sleep. So, sleep would normally be the, the, the main pillar for me that dictates everything else. Because if I don’t get good sleep, then I make poor food choices.

01:20:55:11 – 01:21:27:10
Synergee
I don’t work out, yada yada. Right? So that would be the easy answer. The more challenging answer that I think will give them more value is. The biggest mover as of late, is what I touched on during the call, which is I’m now looking inward for the answers. I’m really like I’m more and more what I’m trying to do as I go through my day, or even I’m making food choices, if I’m trying to not multitask.

01:21:27:10 – 01:21:51:21
Synergee
I’m trying not to do it. I’m trying to just be mindful, be present. Right. And then if I notice, like my body hesitating or, or feeling like or category, as you know. So whether it’s craving something or it’s hesitating or something, before I even do it, I just take a breath and I just kind of notice where I am holding tension in my body, what’s going on?

01:21:51:21 – 01:22:09:18
Synergee
And I just ask questions, but I’m literally looking more inward and I’m asking questions and I’m coming at my health with more curiosity. And that has been absolutely game changing.

01:22:09:20 – 01:22:12:16
Synergee
Yeah. That I don’t have all the answers. I don’t, you know, yes, I’ve been doing this for 22 years and I have observations, but I’m very open to the fact that what might work for me may not work for you, and that you have to ask your own questions. I do know, though, that there are a handful of non-negotiables that I just I hands down believe now, and no one can sway me.

01:22:35:12 – 01:23:11:16
Synergee
And that is because I started out with this belief and it has never changed. And that is that real food is always the first choice. I’m not telling you what diet to follow, I’m just saying eat real food. And once again, that is a food that is an ingredient versus has ingredients. Real food wins every time. So that’s that’s all I would say that because I am not in the business and I start telling people they got to follow a specific diet, because I really do think actually it’s that we need the dignity of our process, whatever that may be, and that, you know, just to give an example, like, I could be in a room with practitioners that are all sharing, you know, specific ways of eating. Most of them would be animal based. Right. And I could ask them, so have any of you in this room ever been vegan? And no joke like the majority of the room will raise their hand. So it tells you that everyone came from something and they had to.

01:23:30:09 – 01:23:41:04
Synergee
It’s their process in their journey that led them to know what they, you know, process it, what they share with their clients. They’ve gone through their own health journey in functional medicine in Ridgeland MS and they had to have the dignity of that. And that’s what took them to being the type of practitioner they are now. So I just believe we all need that process to come to our own conclusions in functional medicine in Ridgeland MS.

01:24:00:09 – 01:24:06:21
EatPluck
Yeah. Thank you both.

01:24:06:23 – 01:24:33:02
Synergee
The Synergee Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice and no doctor patient relationship is formed. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have, and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.