5 Eating Habits You Should Know from the World’s Longest Living People — Eat This Not That

There is a breadth of knowledge currently available on nutrition and health, but we can all agree on a very fundamental truth: what you put in your body matters. After reviewing a variety of studies, articles, and opinions, that much is clear. Food is medicine, and like any medicine, it can empower your body to do amazing things.

For example, food can even help you live to be 100 years old. From 2021, more than 70,000 Americans have celebrated their 100th birthday, and it turns out that what they eat matters more than almost anything else. The Blue Zone Project has investigated how centenarians do it, focusing on five “blue zone” communities where people have more incredible longevity in the world.

From the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica to Okinawa, Japan, people in these communities share a variety of behaviors that increase their life expectancy. Community, mindset and movement are important. But there is no match for him food power They nourish themselves. We go deeper and round up the top five eating habits that centenarians share.

We’ve heard of the 80% kitchen, 20% gym rule before, but this is one 80% guideline—one dating back 2,500 years. Apparently, it’s tied to a Confucian mantra called “hara hachi bu” in Okinawa, and it’s a reminder to stop eating when you feel like you’re about 80% full. As the Blue Zone Project puts it, “The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it.”

Depending on your meal times, intermittent fasting may be a version of this tactic. The idea here is that as the day progresses, the human body should consume fewer calories. In Blue Zones, people tend to eat their smallest meal last, and not too late at night, and then not eat for the rest of the day. Good news for those of us who like big breakfasts!

Beans, beans, the magic fruit. Apparently, the magic of it extends to life expectancy: a bean-rich diet is at the core of most centenarian lifestyles. This may mean beans, black beans, and even soybeans and lentils. For more information on how healthy beans really are, check out our research on the Secret side effects of eating beans.

This is perhaps less surprising, given the growing social shift from meat to meat. plant-based diets. On average, people in blue zones eat meat only five times a month. However, the detail that might surprise you here? The main type of meat consumed is pork.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

Here’s another trick that’s been widely touted through many health channels, but confirmed by centenarians: portion size is, in fact, the key. According to the Blue Zone Project, serving sizes generally stay between 3 and 4 ounces, which is about the size of a deck of cards. To get an idea of ​​serving sizes, here they are 18 easy ways to control portion size.

Kaley Roberts