Turn Your New Years Resolution Into A Cooking Habit That Could Add 13 Healthy Years To Your Life

In the lifestyle world, and truth be told, there are few places where single food choices for people aged 100 and over have the largest share.

They are called "blue zones" and for 20 years National Geographic writer Dan Buettner has been studying the longevity habits of these people, who often gather around their desks. Why blue zones? He only started researching the secret to longevity because blue circles were drawn on the map.

Buettner first looked at Okinawa, Japan. Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Loma Linda, California. These geographic areas, estimated to be over a hundred years old, have the highest average age restrictions of any place in the world. Best of all, she turned her findings into a series of journalistic recipes, workshops, and other resources for her to share her secrets.

This year, bestselling author Blue Zones Kitchen made a full US tour.

In his book American Blue Zone Cuisine: 100 Recipes to Live to 100, Buettner hopes to convince many American consumers that using mostly plant-based recipes makes it easier than ever to create your own blue zone. Generic recipes offer inexpensive options found at garden centers, major grocery stores, and grocery stores. The topics of the chapters cover the products and methods of Native Americans and ancient culture; African American; Latin America; Asian American; and a collection of regional and contemporary American recipes.

Read : Consuming 400 calories a day of these foods increases the risk of dementia by more than 20%.

By following the blue zone diet, women can extend their lives by an average of 10.7 years, and men by an average of 13 years. -Dan Butner

Blue Zoners typically suffer five times less heart disease than dementia and six times less certain cancers than Americans who eat our regular food. Obesity and diabetes are always below 5% in each blue zone, although they are increasing. People in the States who eat as much as our ancestors lived nearly ten years longer than the average American and spend only a fraction of what most of us spend on health care.

While there are no tech-limited products to avoid the pitfalls of a fad diet that doesn't work, Buettner told MarketWatch that there are some exceptions.

First, sugar rarely appears in the Blue Zone diet, except when consumed in the form of honey. In general, people in the Blue Zones eat about seven teaspoons of sugar a day, or about one-third of the average American who consumes about 22 teaspoons, which comes with added marijuana or dietary sugar. The main drinks are water, all kinds of tea, black coffee and wine. Of the 350 centenarians Buettner interviewed over the past two decades, most were unfamiliar with soda.

He believes, and counts on the help of medical professionals, that women in the United States can extend their lives by an average of 10.7 years by eating in the Blue Zone, and men can extend their lives by an average of 13 years. .

“The greatest effect comes from eating more grains, whole grains, and nuts, and less red and processed meats,” one study concluded.

Research has also shown that it's never too late to start a new diet. According to the scientists they mentioned, by improving nutrition in this way, a 20-year-old child will extend his life by 13 years, a 60-year-old man by 8.8 years, and an 80-year-old man will extend his life. his life by the age of 13 is 8.8 years. . You can add 3.5 years to the old one.

The following interview with Buettner was partially edited for clarity and length when the book was published in December.

MarketWatch : The National Geographic images are great, there are real accounts from the real world, it's about culture and food, and I can read The Blue Zones in bed and also watch it like sauce from a cookbook. my counter. How would you like people to use it?

Buettner: I took The Dirty Book as a big compliment. We have prepared 100 recipes because it is easy for people to put them into practice in real life. By the way, these recipes are not recipes that Dan Buettner made in the kitchen or test kitchen. The whole book looks like a 300-page article from National Geographic. Each of these recipes was found in people's homes or backyards. Cooks in their kitchen. And all the recipes are different, but of course we tested them for the final shot.

"I place a lot of emphasis on gluttony." -Dan Butner

MarketWatch: There are definitely foods that are taboo and plant foods stand out, but reading these recipes and recipes reveals a lot of texture, flavor, and yes, meat can be included.

Buttner : The people I've talked to eat very little fish and eggs. Meat is a party food usually only eaten five times a month. Although sheep and goat cheese are valued in small quantities, cow's milk products are almost completely absent from the menu.

I think when I wrote the Blue Zone books I decided they were 100% plant based. But I also pay too much attention to sweet foods. With us came my father, 87-year-old Roger Buettner, who was born on a farm in Minnesota and grew up around meat and potatoes all his life. We looked at probably 200 recipes. But Meat-and-Potatoes Roger Buettner didn't go into detail about the book when he gave it a thumbs up.

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MarketWatch : Sugar is certainly a big American problem. We go through these glycemic ups and downs. And you're not just talking about a few teaspoons of sugar in your coffee; They talk about how packaged and processed foods add excess sugar to the diet. So, when do you think Americans will learn about sugar? And since you had a recipe that was in the blue areas with acid and spices and very sweet, are you saying this is a way to change the sugar?

Buettner: Yes, I mean we like delicious food and there are many ways to make it delicious. But in general, if you are overweight and unhealthy in America, then it is probably not your fault. And it still pisses me off. These politicians stand up and say with a raised finger that being healthy is your personal responsibility. But then people submit it to the food section, where 97 out of 100 options are healthy. So, you know, our food environment makes this nearly impossible.

“I guarantee that as consumers increase their demand for plant-based whole foods, the market will respond and make them more accessible and cheaper.” — Dan Butner .

In fact, there are only two sources for solving the problem. First, to change these lobbying laws, as big media companies and big food companies have a lot of influence in the agrarian belt due to lobbying practices. And all the subsidies go to grains used to make junk food and animal feed: corn, wheat and soybeans. Of course, you can die as a farmer trying to grow unsubsidized crops on subsidized land.

This means that the second solution for American consumers is to start cooking with whole, plant-based foods. Learn how to make them cuter, interest will increase. And as consumers increase demand for these products, I guarantee that the market will respond and make them more accessible and affordable.

MarketWatch: Can we stop all this carb confusion?

Buettner: As I wrote before, the word "carbohydrate" is perhaps the worst word ever coined about nutrition. It includes everything from jellies to beans and lentils. Simple carbs like chips, white flour and candy can be the most toxic foods in our diet, while complex carbs like whole grains, legumes and beans are probably the healthiest foods we eat.

In the blue zones, 65% of the food you eat comes from these healthy complex carbohydrates; In fact, whole grains, green vegetables, legumes, nuts, and beans are the five pillars of a long-term diet across four continents.

MarketWatch: People need to eat, period. Calories matter, and we have a huge food shortage in this country, so processed foods could be a way to deliver groceries to American homes. Added to this is simplicity. But none of these recipes seem complicated. Why do we choose seemingly easy-to-prepare foods?

Buettner: As I write in the book , cooking is not new. Ancient civilizations used some form of processing to preserve food in order to survive. We may not even fully understand how much things have changed. Prior to World War II, food processing was relatively simple and mechanical, such as grinding wheat grains into flour that can still be identified, grinding germ and chaff, and packing vegetables in tins. After the war, food technology began to advance, breaking down raw grains to their basic molecular structure and recombining foods that looked nothing like the raw materials they produced.

MarketWatch : Are there concerns that some of these ingredients are still hard to get to people? I'm still interested in maybe a flexible healthy eating part and if you agree? But why, without quotes, do we let economic pressures stop anyone from doing serious research?

Buettner: It's an American cookbook. There may be some semi-exotic ingredients, but most of the ingredients are here today. Let us remember that even in the ages they were poor. farmers. The ingredients in this book are generally not expensive ingredients. These are inexpensive beans, whole grains, seeds and tubers. You can buy a 25-pound bag of beans for $9.99 at Costco and probably make 100 meals.

Comment: Your diet not only makes you fat, but it can also accelerate cognitive decline.

MarketWatch : What about cooking methods?

Büttner: 95% of the recipes were created in a kitchen with just a stove and pot. Okay, maybe a knife and a cutting board. We see a gentleman who specializes in cooking over an open fire, throws a cooked gourd into the fire and knows when to take it out. But anyone with a grill can do the same. It doesn't require skills. It takes courage to drop it and take it out at the right time.

MarketWatch: You can try some of these images in action; Color and texture are very important. Talk about it.

Buettner: Even though these people [who are behind these habits and recipes] are not wealthy, they went through a lot of trial and error to make these recipes seem like solid, satisfying meals. They are allright. You bite into it and you feel resistance, then you bite a little harder and it gives you a meaty mouthfeel and then the herbs and spices come in.

Throwing a steak and a chunk of butter into a frying pan is nothing new. This will be good. The genius that emerges is the Americans, often immigrants, who take Old World culinary traditions and combine them with an American sensibility to invent something very clever.

MarketWatch : This may not be the subject of your research, but you can't ignore the fact that Blue Zone dining tends to be more sustainable. Why?

Buettner: The animals we eat make up 20 to 30 percent of our carbon footprint. For every kilogram of milk, a cow must feed six kilograms of soybeans. And they emit methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If you care about the environment, the biggest step you can take is to switch to a completely plant-based diet. In addition, processing also requires a lot of energy. That is why I say that cooking from this book is an act of caring for the environment.

MarketWatch : I'm sure you'll love 100 Recipes. But are there any that have returned or surprised you? Or maybe your father really loved you?

Buettner: My father's favorite dish is tomato-eggplant-sweet potato sauce (p. 240). This is for those who do not like it and other spices. Garden tomatoes work best, but any canned tomatoes will do. Serve with your choice of pasta and garnish with chopped macadamia nuts to bring out the sweetness. I also love the clarified butter gulla dish with ben butter bean (similar to sesame seeds) and okra (p. 85): hot pepper and seed flavor. It's a lot when you dive. And just cry tears of joy.