Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

We spend so much time trying to control food, manage weight, and fix our bodies, yet so many people still feel stuck. This episode is about why that happens. In this conversation, I sit down with Jennifer Powter to talk about the deeper patterns underneath weight struggles, emotional eating, and self-sabotage. Jennifer has spent decades working with women who feel exhausted by dieting and disconne...

I’ve spent years questioning food, farming, and the systems that feed us, but I had never once questioned the glass and the light I stare at every day. I thought it was just the apps trying to keep us hooked. I didn’t realize the hardware itself was engineered to do the same thing. Tristan Scott is an electrical engineer and the Head of Hardware and Marketing at Daylight Computer Co. He’s taken a...

I sat down with John A. Richardson Jr. for a conversation exploring alternate cancer perspectives, the history of Vitamin B17, also known as amygdalin, and how these ideas have been discussed over time. John shares his personal background, the work of his father, Dr. John A. Richardson MD, and how these experiences shaped his interest in nutrition, health, and non-mainstream approaches to wellness...

2025 was a year of deep internal shifts. Margaret and I weren’t chasing big external milestones like the year before, yet something far more lasting took place. Margaret stepped away from her work for a full 10-week sabbatical and fully exited her professional life during that time. From there, everything began to change for her, for me, and for our whole family. We talked openly about burnout and...

You’ve heard me talk a lot about food. Nose-to-tail, organ meats, ancestral living. But the truth is, we’re now dealing with stuff our ancestors never had to face. Microplastics are in our water, in our food, even in our blood. And that means we need to bring in new tools. Dan Powers is the founder of Utzy Naturals. He’s a husband, a father of five, and someone who’s always believed in the power o...

There’s something about building from the floor up that changes a person. For Robert Sikes, that’s not a metaphor. He and his wife Crystal literally slept on the floor of a warehouse while starting their business. I remember meeting him early in Pluck’s journey, before this podcast even existed, and feeling the conviction behind everything he shared. He’s one of the first people who believed in wh...

What happens when we start with kids, a chalkboard, and a Hot Pocket? For Ali Miller, the answer is empowerment. Ali Miller is a functional medicine dietitian with a deep passion for helping people reclaim their health through food. We talked about how ancestral food practices have been lost, particularly in communities where connection to the food system used to be the strongest. She shared what...

What Bren Smith is doing with the ocean is what we’ve been trying to do on land. He’s reanchoring our food system to something alive, something real. And the wild thing is, he’s growing food that doesn’t require any freshwater, fertilizer, or land. Bren’s a former commercial fisherman who’s now leading the way in regenerative ocean farming. He’s got this deep blue-collar wisdom and a whole lot of...

Do you ever feel overstimulated, disconnected, or out of sync? Debra Joy joins me for a powerful conversation about nervous system regulation, spiritual alignment, and the importance of honoring natural rhythms. We explore how media and modern noise disrupt our sense of safety, and how small, intentional shifts can help us reconnect, calm the body, and move through the world with more presence and...

Seventy-six percent of Americans are living with chronic illness. That statistic alone tells us we’re facing something much bigger than personal health struggles. In this conversation with Dr. Chris Turnpaugh, we explore what’s broken in our current medical model and why so many people with complex symptoms are being overlooked. Dr. Turnpaugh brings decades of experience in functional neurology an...

You’re a college student at UCLA, juggling five jobs, running an aerobics studio, and training clients before personal training was even a profession. Then one morning in Brentwood, someone follows you out of a coffee shop and pitches a shady modeling gig at the Hotel Bel Air. That moment could have gone sideways. But JJ Virgin had already learned how to set boundaries, read a room, and trust her...

What if plant medicine isn't an escape, but a return? What if our modern fear of altered states says more about our trauma than it does about the medicine itself? I sat down with Sitaramaya Sita, someone who has spent decades walking the path between science and spirit. She’s deeply trained, trauma-informed, and rooted in multiple healing lineages. We explored the misuse of language around pl...

What if your body fat could be your fuel? What if food was the key to mental clarity, fertility, and real healing? Maria Emmerich is known around the world for her work in the keto and carnivore space. What makes her message powerful is how personal it is. She shares her own story of moving through depression, body image struggles, and infertility, guided by ancestral eating and a deep understandi...

What if your path to healing is already built into your body? I sat down with Nathalie Niddam, a holistic nutritionist and longevity educator who knows how to walk the line between ancestral wisdom and cutting-edge science. Nathalie has this grounded, practical way of looking at things. She's been working with peptides, light therapies, and bioregulators long enough to see what actually works...

Forget trail mix. What if survival food wasn’t junk? That’s what my guest Phillip Meece set out to change. Phillip is a former combat medic who served in Afghanistan and when he got sick in the Army, it put him on a lifelong mission to figure out nutrition that actually supports health. Out of that experience came The Carnivore Bar, a shelf stable nutrient dense version of pemmican made from meat,...

Have you ever heard of Microbiome Magic or thought about kids as the canaries in the coal mine? My guest today is Dr. Elisa Song, a Stanford, NYU, and UCSF trained integrative pediatrician and mom of two thriving kids. She’s on a mission to revolutionize children’s health and to bring a practical, whole-child approach to families everywhere. Dr. Song and I talk about the rise in chronic disease in...

What if the anxiety, burnout, or fatigue you are feeling is not in your head but in your biology? In this conversation, Dr. Aimie Apigian breaks down how trauma gets stored in the body and what it really takes to feel safe, energized and alive again. Aimie shares her own story of becoming a foster parent and later adopting during medical school, and how that experience opened her eyes to the limit...

Alcohol has been with us since the dawn of civilization woven into ritual and community, yet today, it has become something else entirely. In this conversation with James Swanwick we look at the smiling assassins that keep us drinking and why an alcohol free lifestyle is gaining ground. James is a former ESPN SportsCenter anchor and the author of CLEAR. He is also the founder of Project 90, a neur...

What happens when the mind spirals, the body breaks down, and every conventional path leads to more despair? Emily Penton found herself at that breaking point, facing both bipolar disorder and multiple sclerosis. Instead of giving up, she discovered a way forward by embracing a meat-based diet, nervous system regulation, and a commitment to radical honesty. In this conversation, Emily shares how a...

Emergencies are happening more often, and they’re hitting closer to home — floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires. September is National Emergency Preparedness Month and I could not think of a better guest than Mira Dessy. Mira has lived through Hurricane Harvey and the Texas snow apocalypse and she brings a grounded perspective on why being prepared is essential for both health and peace of...

How many times have you heard me talk about the power of meal planning? I think it is one of the most underrated tools for health and family life. In this episode I sit down with Allison Schaaf, founder and CEO of Prep Dish. She is both a trained chef and a registered dietitian, and she has built her life around the connection between food, nourishment, and simplicity. Allison shares how she first...

Struggling to stay consistent with your health and fitness goals? The problem might not be your workout plan or willpower, it could be how you see yourself. World-renowned fitness coach and entrepreneur Dan Go shares how to make health and fitness part of your identity. With over 20 years of experience in personal training, weight loss coaching, and fitness mindset transformation, Dan has helped t...

Fertility is not a problem to solve. It’s a mirror reflecting how deeply we’re connected to ourselves, our lineage, and our choices. Mandy Muenzer joins me to share her journey of coming off birth control and reconnecting to her feminine wisdom. We explore how somatic movement, emotional healing, and spiritual psychology can help us recover what modern life often asks us to ignore. Mandy is the cr...

What if true health isn’t about getting more flexible or pushing yourself harder, but about starting each day with presence and purpose? In this episode, I sit down with Doron Hanoch, a former monk and experienced yoga teacher, to explore the real origins of yoga and how those teachings can apply to modern life. Most people think yoga is about stretching or physical poses. Doron explains that yoga...

HPV is one of the most common viruses in the world, yet so few people are given real answers or real options when they test positive. Most only find out they have it through a routine test or once it becomes something more serious. It’s confusing and often leaves you feeling powerless. But there’s a different way to understand what’s happening in your body, and it starts with stress, immunity, and...