‘Ensure that your diet is 90% to 100% plant-based’
More than 15 years ago, I set out to reverse-engineer a formula for longevity. Working with renowned doctors and nutritionists, I identified several Blue Zones: Places around the world where people live the longest.
Along the way, I met experts who helped me understand why the foods people ate led to longer lives.
We also distilled 150 dietary surveys of centenarians, or those who live to 100 or longer, to reveal the secrets of a strong longevity regimen.
These nine simple guidelines reflect what foods (and how of much of it) Blue Zone residents eat to stay healthy:
1. Ensure that your diet is 90% to 100% plant-based.
Centenarians eat an impressive variety of garden vegetables and leafy greens (especially spinach, kale, beet and turnip tops, chard and collards) when they are in season.
During the off-season, they pickle or dry the surplus. Beans, greens, sweet potatoes, whole grains, fruits, nuts and seeds dominate Blue Zone meals all year long.
Olive oil is also a staple. Evidence shows that olive oil consumption increases good cholesterol and lowers bad cholesterol.
In the Greek island Ikaria, for example, we found that for middle-aged people, about six tablespoons of olive oil daily seemed to cut the risk of premature mortality by 50%.
2. Retreat from meat.
On average, Blue Zone residents eat about two ounces or less of meat about five times per month (usually as a celebratory food, a small side, or as a way to flavor dishes).
One 12-year study, which followed a community of 96,000 Americans in Loma Linda — a Blue Zone region in California — determined that people who lived the longest were vegans or pesco-vegetarians who ate a small amount of fish.
Vegetarians in Loma Linda, according to the researchers, were more likely to outlive their meat-eating counterparts by as many as eight years.
Okinawans in Japan probably offer the best meat substitute: Extra-firm tofu, which is high in protein and cancer-fighting phytoestrogens.
4. Eat a daily dose of beans.
Beans reign supreme in Blue Zones and are the cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world: Black beans in Nicoya; lentils, garbanzo and white beans in the Mediterranean; and soybeans in Okinawa.
All the rest is here ... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/10/90-t...or-longer.html
Seems it was lucky to get 48