The meal is only as good as what goes into it.

A century ago, food was simply food. Grown nearby, eaten in season and cooked from raw. Nutrition was the default option.

As we developed and found new ways to store food, refrigeration, then long-haul logistics, crops were bred for yield, size and shelf-life. Distribution went national, then global. A carrot grown in 1950 and one grown today are not nutritionally the same vegetable. Today, many crops show measurable decline in nutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin C[1].

Now most of what fills a supermarket is ultra-processed, produce is bred to survive transport, and “fresh” vegetables are often days old before they’re cooked. Spinach can lose roughly a third of its vitamin C within 24 hours of being cut[2].

How plants are affected by soil.

A plant is built from what it can pull out of the ground. Biologically healthy soil produces crops denser in minerals and higher in polyphenols, the compounds plants make to defend themselves[3]. Depleted soil and crops bred for yield give you the opposite.

How animals are affected by what they eat.

An animal’s food becomes your food. Cattle on pasture, hens with genuine range, fish from the wild, eating what their biology evolved for, show better nutrition in fat and vitamins[5][8]. Grain-fed, confined animals produce a measurably different product.

What this does is straightforward. It lowers what burdens the body, fewer pesticide residues, less cadmium and mercury, none of the ultra-processed food now linked to higher rates of heart disease and early death[9]. And it raises what protects it, the fibre, omega-3s and plant compounds most people don’t get enough of[10].

Our BioChefs work to a sourcing standard with a list of recommended suppliers. Suppliers vary by region, you may be in New York, London, or somewhere else entirely.

Generally, chefs shop from a mixture of green-grocers, butchers, fisheries, online health shops and organic supermarkets. You get the receipts to see where your BioChef bought your ingredients.

BioChefs will also use whole-food suppliers for pre-made foods, fermented foods, broths and the like, when they come from trusted sources and make sense. These foods can take days to make; it saves your chef from setting up a laboratory in your kitchen, and is more cost-effective for you.

The Modern Ancestral Diet is the framework we use for ingredient sourcing. Your BioChef builds your menus around your body, your goals, intolerances, biomarker data, and your practitioner’s plan.

Same framework, different plate, every time.