Like fashion, dieting has its trends that come and go. It used to be low-fat everything, while now many of us are all about low carb to blunt those insulin spikes. Full continental breakfasts are still a mainstay; just now their presence is padded by the likes of avocado toast, overnight oats or superfood smoothies. To those without a firm understanding of nutrition, it may seem a bit haphazard, but underneath every new menu unveiling is a hidden trail of scientific research suggesting a healthier path forward.

One of the latest dietary trends that have emerged attempts to answer the question, “Before the agricultural revolution, what would our ancestors have eaten to keep themselves healthy through all four seasons?” Slightly controversial because of how it repudiates veganism and the larger push for plant-based eating, ancestral eating is grounded by the anthropological evidence that the human species has always been an ‘opportunistic omnivore’ – that we are flexible scavengers as well as crafty fishers and tenacious hunters.

Without getting too far into the weeds of what our paleolithic cousins ate (although weeds like purslane were on the menu for our ancestors), this meant that in summer and early autumn, we laid traps and gorged on wild fruit, while in winter we tracked down great beasts then found a way to fire roast every last morsel of flesh. Nothing went to waste. With animal husbandry in its infancy, any dairy that was eaten was either as raw milk or as a microbially diverse, fermented product like kefir. Similarly, grains and pseudocereals were at the ‘hobbyist farmer’ stage at this point and only ever consumed in a slow, yeast-worked form.

Besides the overarching lesson in eschewing ultra-processed foods and opting for more organic ingredients, the tenets of ancestral dieting can be applied to any F&B outlet to differentiate the operation from competitors, offer menu items that are science-backed to support better health and appeal to the growing subculture that’s willing to pay a bit more for paleo-approved options. Here are several to consider that will put you on the right track.

1. Wild berry cultivars. What’s happened over the past few centuries is that we’ve started breeding fruits for bigger yields and heightened sweetness to boost profits and palatability. The consequence is that our fruits now have an unnaturally high amount of sugar and reduced antioxidant levels; they aren’t as ‘nutrient dense’ as their wild progenitors. Make no mistake: consuming any fruit is a step in the right direction (except for diabetics). But if you are to opt for ‘nature’s candy’, why not consume the best possible version of it?

With berries highlighted for their low fructose content (that’s the type of sugar that can overload the liver) and high amounts of polyphenols, let’s consider blueberries – irrefutably one of the healthiest foods on the planet. Whether organic or not, most blueberries that reach the market are of the highbush cultivar which has been engineered for its large size and high sugar content. Restaurants can thus wow their patrons by sourcing the antioxidant-laden lowbush varietal (often sold as frozen from Nova Scotia), which is a fraction of the size but has a mystifyingly deep indigo colour.

2. Sourdough bread. With F&B outlets now having to label items as gluten-free as well as come up with alternatives for celiacs such as chickpea-based pastas, researchers have simultaneously started investigating why people in Southern Europe and the Levant can regularly indulge in grains well into their nonagenarian years without any chronic issues while we North Americans will feel bloated and lethargic after one or two portions of bread. While there are numerous other contributing factors from the revered Mediterranean diet, one culprit on this side of the pond is that we don’t let yeast to its thing.

Bread that is mechanically processed over a few hours doesn’t give the microbes enough time to chew away at the gluten. This process takes days, with the yeast breaking down those gut-irritating proteins with the fermented byproduct of acid for that unmistakable sour taste. While working with sourdough requires patience and therefore is an added cost for a commercial kitchen, the word itself is highly marketable and you needn’t limit yourself to only bread, with sourdough pizza and pasta both in vogue.

3. Soaked or sprouted nuts. One important aspect of evolution to understand is that while animals avoid getting eaten by running away, plants fight back through chemical warfare. Flora don’t want you to eat their young and they coat their seeds with compounds that can be highly toxic (or indigestible) to a would-be scavenger to allow the next generation to flourish. With this in mind, we often forget that nuts are the seeds of trees and that the outer layer is laced with antinutrients that can present problems when consumed in large quantities.

The solution that our ancestors came up with was to simply soak nuts in water for half a day or a full 24 hours so that the tannins and phytic acid would dissolve away from the shell. A step further was to cycle the nuts through several periods of wet and then dry conditions so that the seeds would sprout (this works for beans, too). From there, you simply dehydrate the nuts back to their dry form. Again, this is a slow and costlier process, but adjectives like ‘soaked’ or ‘sprouted’ come with a justifiable surcharge.

4. Goat or sheep dairy. Shifting into the animal kingdom, we have already mentioned kefir which does wonders for restoring the gut microbiome. What nutritionists have found, though, is that the milk of goats and sheep is significantly healthier for us than that from cows, with further anthropological evidence pointing to an earlier domestication point for these two species over the larger livestock.

Goat and sheep dairy products naturally contain more medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) which are keto-friendly and help to promote metabolic flexibility for a healthier liver. Moreover, unlike cows of Northern European pedigree that contain the potentially harmful A1-casein protein, goat and sheep milk or cheese won’t have this, making both safer for those who feel bad after drinking regular cow’s milk.

5. Nose-to-tail burgers or sausages. One core mantra espoused by ancestral dieters is that our ancestors ate every part of an animal; the nose, the offal, the oxtail and every other bit of sinew was often boiled down into a collagenous stew. It follows that we should all be eating more organ meats because gram-for-gram these are technically the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. North America is a bit of an oddity in this regard because we are one of the only places on the planet where you can’t regularly find these cuts on the menu.

Italians have trippa alla parmigiana (tripe); a common street food in Turkey is kokoretsi (spit-roasted offal); and you can easily find barbecued chicken hearts at any Thai night market. We aren’t asking you to go full Liver King with your menu, but luckily meat producers are starting to incorporate the healthier organs into a form that’s palatable for Canadians and Americans by grinding offal products into burgers and sausages. It’s but one way to ease your guests into these foods.

6. Intermittent fasting. We close not on a particular ingredient but on a way of eating that’s gaining popularity. On a traditional hunt, our ancestors likely went long periods without any food, with study after study showing the huge health benefits of giving your digestive tract regular breaks from meals.

Thinking existentially about your F&B revenues and how they fit into the greater profitability mix at a hotel, as this trend gains ground what happens when a large number of your guests no longer eat breakfast and thus aren’t motivated by your B&B offers? The obvious answer is to have incredible coffee service, but alas the idea around fasting is something every hotelier will have to confront insofar as how it affects foodservice revenues and hotel packaging.