Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.
Is there a magic drink to stay young and healthy for longer? What food should I eat if I want to live a healthy and long life? We often pose these questions to ourselves, especially nowadays, when we have a whole bunch of available information. There are lots of marketing products nowadays promising if not a magical drink for getting younger, then a mixture of vitamins or so-called “superfoods”, water with different minerals, etc.
"Pharmaceuticals and food manufacturers actively push new products into the consumer market, claiming extra nutritional values, yet devoid of harmful effects. The active consumer market has successfully misled the consumer that good health could be maintained, through the purchase of fancy new products, either in the form of drugs or special types of food"
( Leung, 2011, p. 28). But is there really a secret food you can eat in order to live longer? Dan Buettner tried to learn more about it.
Dan is a National Geographic explorer and a journalist who discovered the so called ‘Blue Zones’- communities where common elements of lifestyle, diet and outlook led to longevity. Buettner shares the secrets from Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Loma Linda (California) and the Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica). He discusses different spheres of life, like physical activity, spirituality, socializing and diet (2008, p. 298). As our blog is dedicated to healthy food, the diet of the centenarians mentioned by Buettner is going to be the central focus for us. So what do people from these ‘Blue Zones’ eat? Let’s have a look.
As you can see, eating a light dinner and plant-based diet are common in the areas where most centenarians live. Local food is also an important aspect of their lifestyle. All of the centenarians eat local food, mostly from their own garden.
Nowadays only a few towns in the world have exclusively local food suppliers. In developed countries we have much more food variety; you can buy everything in a supermarket from different countries of the world. That is what I always think about when I am buying something like sugar peas, which are from Kenya or Egypt. As we are in Europe, imagine how much time passes between when they were picked and we get them on a supermarket shelf. Additionally, most of the fruit and vegetables are sprayed with some special chemical so that they stay fresh for longer.
Eating a smaller amount of food, but eating food that has better qualities are the choices the centenarians make. Most of them have their own garden where they grow their fresh, nutrient-rich food, and also get some physical activity and fresh air. You may be thinking: ‘I don’t have time for this!’ Not everyone has the opportunity to grow their own food, especially in big cities. Finding a local farmer would be the next best option. Eating meat from a local farm may be twice or even three times as expensive as the meat from a supermarket, but where there is a will there is a way. So, key point number one is local, seasonal food in smaller quantities but of a better quality.
Eating local food does not only fully nourish your body, but also helps the environment. Vaclav Smil and Kazuhiko Kobayashi in their book ‘Japan ’ s Dietary Transition and Its Impacts’, they explain how massively food production damages the soil and the earth in general (2012, p.42).
The other important thing one should pay attention to, is the earlier you begin the better results you will have. "They also stress that if the restriction of food energy intake begins in one’s forties, the eventual benefits will be small, and turning to such a diet during one’s sixties may not add any years to life expectancy. The full effect of energy-restricted diets might be realized only with lifelong (or nearly so) deprivation, a most unlikely prospect for contemporary Japan where childhood obesity has been increasing"(Smil and Kobayashi, 2012, p. 142).
After having looked at Buetner’s book you may see that food longevity secrets still may differ, and that is the second key point. You may find different opinions and different studies proving that one and the same food is healthy or unhealthy. First they say you should be afraid of fats then they say you need fats. People may get themselves confused because of this. You may be thinking “whom should I believe then?”. I say "yourself", and Mother Nature. We are all unique and there is not one single way of living longer for everyone. Start trusting and listening to your body, you are unique.
Bibliography and Further Reading:
Buettner, D. (2008) Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. Washington D.C.: National Geographic.
Finch, Caleb E. (2007)The Biology of Human Longevity : Inflammation, Nutrition, and Aging in the Evolution of Lifespans. University of Southern California: Elsevier Science & Technology.
Leung, P-C. (ed.) (2011) Healthy Aging, 4th vol. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Mogi, K. (2017) The Little Book of Ikigai: The Essential Japanese Way to Finding Your Purpose in Life. London: Quercus Editions LTD.
Monroe, L. (no date) '5 Traditional Costa Rican Foods for Health and Longevity', Blue Zones. Available at: https://www.bluezones.com/2020/05/5-traditional-costa-rican-foods-for-health-and-longevity// (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
Smil, V. and Kobayashi, K. (2012) Japan's Dietary Transition and Its Impacts Edited by Mun S. Ho. Cambridge, Massachusets: MIT Press.
Please note: all of the small objects (e.g. goats, a glass of wine, sweet potato, tofu, a glass of water) in the pictures dedicated to Okinawa, Sardinia, Loma Linda and the Nicoya Peninsula were taken from different internet sources.