​Lessons from centenarians: What the world’s longest-living people eat

Longevity researcher Dan Buettner writes in his book ‘Blue Zones Kitchen’, “None of the blue zones centenarians I’ve ever met tried to live to 100. No one said at age 50, “You know what, I’m going to get on that longevity diet and live another 50 years!” They don’t count calories, take vitamins, weigh protein grams, or even read labels.
The centenarians celebrated food. Let’s take a look at what the world’s longest-living people eat.

Centenarians from different parts of the world mostly consume plant food or plant products. These include beans, yams, sweet potatoes, fruits, nuts, whole grains and seeds. Leafy greens such as spinach, kale, beet, turnip tops, chard and collards. The longest-living people also consume a lot of fruits.

Olive oil is the most-used oil in blue zones. Olive oil consumption has been linked to a lot of health benefits like increasing good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol. Olive oil consumption is also linked with diabetes management.
In the book ‘Blue Zones Kitchen,’ it is mentioned that in Ikaria (one of the world’s five blue zones), it was found that for middle-aged people about six tablespoons of olive oil daily seemed to cut the risk of dying in half.

Black beans in Nicoya; lentils, garbanzo, and white beans in the Mediterranean; and soybeans in Okinawa, this is what the centenarians consume. In fact, one five-country study, financed by the World Health Organization, found that eating 20 grams of beans daily reduced a person’s risk of dying in any given year by about 8%.

Did you know, nut-eaters on average outlive non-nut-eaters by two to three years (according to the Adventist Health Study 2). This is what exactly the longest-living people snack on!

Lastly, longevity diets are not short-term interventions. They are embedded in daily life; shared meals, slow eating, social connection, and physical activity.