James Barry, Founder Pluck Seasonings

Hi, I’m James, founder of Pluck.

At Pluck, we’re all about organ meats, yet not just any organ meats. Quality is everything when eating any part of an animal. We define quality as grass-fed, grass-finished, humanely treated, pasture-raised animals raised with no GMOs or hormones. “As close to nature as possible” is what I say.

There’s a lot of what is wrong in our current agricultural systems, but more and more farms are pivoting to what is right: Regenerative Agriculture. With diverse crop coverage and no tilling we can change not only the food produced on these farms but our health as well. We are what we eat AND what we eat eats.

Ancestral principles of “like supports like” and nose-to-tail eating drive our mission at Pluck. We are missing out on the whole animal benefits when we only eat muscle meat. Pluck is the perfect gateway into eating organs because it doesn’t taste like organ meat. What you taste is the savory, deliciousness of Umami (the fifth taste). Eating organs support the health of your organs. Even better, organs contain bioavailable nutrients which means you get more “bang-for-your-buck” because your body can recognize and absorb these essential vitamins and nutrients.

Look, I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t eat organ meats as a kid.

I was the pickiest of picky eaters.

I didn’t eat my first taco until college. When I say that I had a PB&J sandwich for lunch daily between the ages of 5 and 15…I’m not joking. Growing up, we basically ate the same 4 or 5 home-cooked meals every week. Fridays were pizza night out and Sundays were Chinese food ordered in.

As a child of the 70s, I grew up eating fast food, frozen vegetables, and when microwaves started becoming vogue, microwave meals, particularly popcorn. My father owned a grocery store so we had access to lots of common foods and snacks, most of all, candy!

I understand picky eating and more importantly, I understand the human need for comfort food.

In fact, I’ve spent the last 20+ years as a professional chef focused on making comfort foods healthy without sacrificing taste. I’ve cooked for celebrities, musicians, and billionaires, but it was becoming a father that forced me to go deeper in my exploration of functional food.

At the age of two, my youngest daughter was afflicted with the life-threatening Shiga toxin. I had left town for work thinking she was on the road to recovering only to return to her looking like skin and bones. It was a truly frightening time where my wife and I struggled to get nutrients into her.

Fortunately, she survived and is a vibrant, healthy child but the experience left me wanting to create a functional food product that anyone could eat and benefit from without requiring them to adopt new habits or step outside of their comfort zone.

That’s what Pluck is all about. Nutrition in a pinch. No need to adopt new habits, simply use Pluck instead of salt and pepper and turn everything into a nutrient-rich, bio-available superfood.