Aging well

I’ve heard a bit of talk recently about the show about the Blue Zones on Netflix. I don’t have Netflix so can’t speak about this particular series; however, I have read a fair bit about the Blue Zones and about Dan Buettner.  If you’re unfamiliar with the term blue zones, they are basically areas in the world that have a higher than “normal” incidence of centenarians (people living to 100 and beyond). Some of the reasons that have been given for this are:

• ·        Diet – people still eat a fairly traditional diet, with very little or no modern convenience foods
• ·        Community – people are still in contact with family or friends – in most areas, multi-generational living continues – old people aren’t put in aged care facilities.
• ·        Purpose – people still led an active life and had a reason to get up and about.

What I’ve read about Dan Buettner, is that he seems to have “cherry picked” some of the zones that support his theory that being vegetarian is one of the key reasons. This annoys me because it is simply not true. There are some that are completely vegetarian – the seventh day Adventists are, but they also don’t drink or smoke.

An Icelandic community has a high rate of centenarians, eat a lot of meat – mostly well fermented fish. Traditionally, it would have been difficult to be a vegetarian in a very cold climate.

I remember listening to an interview done by Richard Fidler with a gentleman that had written a book about Sardinia (a blue zone) and he was shocked that even though they ate mutton, and cooked in a lot of fat, they were healthy – they were healthy despite this fat consumption!! I say they were healthy because of the fat consumption! Incidentally, I got that book out of the Library to read, and they didn’t eat a lot of meat, but they ate some and traditionally cooked a lot of meals in Lard. This is common in a traditional Mediterranean diet – lard for cooking and olive oil poured over everything before eating! They would often grow out a pig to preserve for salami and ham and of course lard etc.  

My problem with someone trying to suggest that being a vegetarian is going to enable you to live to 100, is missing the whole point. These people are living a long time because they are eating a traditional diet, they keep active, they are happy and they have community around them.

It is very difficult to eat the perfect diet for perfect health! There are so many conflicting views about what to eat, and even when to eat. It makes it almost impossible to work out what is right. I think what is right for you, maybe totally different for someone else. Start at the beginning……learn to cook what you like to eat, learn to listen to your body to see if what you like to eat makes you feel good. If you don’t feel good, learn to cook food that makes you feel good. Listen to your body!

I eat freshly ground spelt sourdough, because I like a little bread and only want to eat what makes me feel good.

Take away the obvious inflammatory things like gluten, dairy and bad fats. Cook meat and veg, make soups, eat eggs instead of cereal. Eat real food! Don’t eat packet food. When you take away gluten and then you eat it again, if it doesn't make you feel bad, then you can probably continue to eat it. But eat it in moderation. Our bodies don’t need a lot of grains whether they have gluten or not. Dairy may not worry you, or it might…..listen to your body. And fats, well stick to the saturated variety and you will be much better off – animal fats and coconut oil are the best to cook with. Olive oil for everything else.

A pretty typical breakfast for me - eggs, tomatoes and cheese.

Salad - a meal in a bowl - meat with lots of salad ingredients!

Once you start eating better, you feel better and then you want to do more…..you can move more, walk in nature, dig a garden, play! Then when you feel happy because you feel well and are enjoying moving more, you start to meet more people and enjoy that community. And then you have the secrets to aging well!

That is my plan, what’s yours?