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What do centenarians around the world eat?

Tannith said:
By whom (apart from yourself), and on what grounds. Evidence please.
And has it been debunked because the centenarians don't actually eat what the researcher said, or because the debunkers don't fancy changing their own diets?
I don't fancy eating bitter melons myself, but that wouldn't make me suggest that the centenarians didn't eat them, and the researcher was making it up.
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If you type
"blue zone debunked" into google you'll find plenty of articles.

Don't you find it odd that apart from Loma Linda all the places listed are either islands or next to the sea yet so far as I can see fish isn't mentioned at all... Or that the first import to Okinawa post the second world war was pigs?

I'll let you do some research.

Have you watched the video yet?
 
JohnEGreen said:
Organized by Hawaiians who's families had emigrated from Okinawa in the past in the hope that the pigs would breed and become a reliable future food source.
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A sensible hope, I should think. I have read elsewhere that pigs have traditionally been kept by families as a reliable food source, in other places as in Hawaii. As well as for other products, e.g., pigskin.
 
Some fascinating articles about this online, @JohnEGreen . I had no idea that pork had been a staple in Okinawa and that the people there have a long tradition of farming. From 500 pigs to 100,000 in four years! :)

One of my oldest friends has lived in Hawaii for more than 20 years now. I think I know what one topic in my next letter to her will be! :)
 
bulkbiker said:
As they had been pre-war?
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Why ask me I thought you knew every thing your post was about after the war yes they did eat meat including pork pre war the average consumption of pork in Okinawais is now about 3 grams a day the quantity of pork consumption per person a year in Okinawa in 1979 was about 8 kg.

Most of their live stock perished in the three month long battle as did over a hundred thousand Okinawan civilians most of them young people leaving the remaining population with a preponderance of elderly people and giving the impression of unusual longevity for the whole population at that time.
 
In my family history and social history studies over the last 20 odd years has taught me that in England almost every household kept at least one pig. My ex father-in-law's home in South Wales, an old small terraced house, had a pig sty at the bottom of his garden. Thankfully no longer used in the days I used to visit. In East Lancashire near the Yorkshire border people made a lot of money growing and selling turnips for pig fodder. I have a copy of an accounts book kept by a shop keeper. On one day in 1804 she sold "half a load of turnips" to a man for 3 shillings, 1 stone of turnips to a lady for 6d. and another stone to a man for 6d. All for the pigs. She also sold 4 and a half stones of apples, which I also assume was mostly for the pigs. We have just returned from a cottage holiday in Warwickshire. The terraced cottage was built around 1880 in a row of about 20 others. Behind the back gardens were stone built outhouses now used as storage, but they have troughs round the walls. A neighbour informed us they were piggeries. Bacon was part of their every day staple diet.
 
I'd agree with @Bluetit1802 -my understanding is that pig were regularly kept as a food resouce
Mr_Pot said:
Quality of life needs to go with longevity. All very well being Captain Tom but living as a near vegetable in a miserable nursing home is not something I would want, just to get the telegram.
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That's my biggest fear, having seen both my mum and my 100+ year old MIL "away with the fairies" for the last 10 or so years of their lives.
 
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Bluetit1802 said:
In my family history and social history studies over the last 20 odd years has taught me that in England almost every household kept at least one pig. My ex father-in-law's home in South Wales, an old small terraced house, had a pig sty at the bottom of his garden. Thankfully no longer used in the days I used to visit. In East Lancashire near the Yorkshire border people made a lot of money growing and selling turnips for pig fodder. I have a copy of an accounts book kept by a shop keeper. On one day in 1804 she sold "half a load of turnips" to a man for 3 shillings, 1 stone of turnips to a lady for 6d. and another stone to a man for 6d. All for the pigs. She also sold 4 and a half stones of apples, which I also assume was mostly for the pigs. We have just returned from a cottage holiday in Warwickshire. The terraced cottage was built around 1880 in a row of about 20 others. Behind the back gardens were stone built outhouses now used as storage, but they have troughs round the walls. A neighbour informed us they were piggeries. Bacon was part of their every day staple diet.
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Very interesting. Thank you for posting this. I'd read about families keeping pigs, but only brief mentions in some historical novels and nonfiction histories so I'm glad to hear from you since you've done so much research into family life.

@Mr_Pot and @Robbity I feel the same way about old age. If I can't be me I don't want to be here at all.
 
Tannith said:
So are you suggesting that ALL the centenarians in ALL the diverse Blue Zones are lying about their food intake? Why would they bother?
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Not in the slightest I'm saying the guy who wrote the Blue Zones book had an agenda. Plus the details of many of the blue zone centenarians maybe have been a bit flaky to due to them being very old and their records incomplete.

I guessing you still haven't watched the video or read anything..

Maybe that makes me a "Blue Zone" denier too? That one may well be true.
 
I don’t know what centenarians ate around the world, long-telemere spaghetti seems likely, but one thing that many Europeans mention is a daily tipple.
On the pigs info, they’re a good thing for a household, they’re omnivores, eat up scraps and just about the whole pig can become food for carnivores. Just don’t let the baby fall into the pig stye.
 
I think that whatever centenarians around the world eat we can be pretty sure it isn't a diet of factory made, meal replacement shakes with only 800 cals...
 
SaskiaKC said:
In an attempt to get back on track with @Cocosilk 's original question --



I have read that the Mediterranean Diet can help with longevity.

I don't know about specific ways of eating for longevity; I do know that my mother lived to be 90 and her diet was well rounded (like herself) but she did not eat a lot of fish, I don't imagine she ever ate olive oil; she did use margarine instead of butter, skim milk instead of whole, black coffee without cream, and she loved chocolate, chili dogs, and ice cream. My father, on a fairly high-carb diet due to diverticulitis, lived to be 89. His father lived to be 70-something, but his eldest brother died of a heart attack at 57 (he smoked).
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It's probably just as much to do with something else as it is with diet. My husband's nona is 98 years old and he thinks she's still alive in spite of whatever she has eaten all her life. So there's that too. Some people are just survivors I guess.
 
Cocosilk said:
It's probably just as much to do with something else as it is with diet. My husband's nona is 98 years old and he thinks she's still alive in spite of whatever she has eaten all her life. So there's that too. Some people are just survivors I guess.
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I agree. Environment and genes play a major role in longevity.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
I agree. Environment and genes play a major role in longevity.
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And not having accidents or catching diseases, my grandfather was a healthy 75 when he was hit by a car and killed, the perfect diet wouldn't have helped.
 
Mr_Pot said:
And not having accidents or catching diseases, my grandfather was a healthy 75 when he was hit by a car and killed, the perfect diet wouldn't have helped.
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Maybe that is part of "environment."
Cars, rusty nails, rabies, snakebite, bad water in the well or stream ...
My grandfather's youngest brother died in his 20s when he fell off the roof of a house he was working on. He was young and healthy enough to be up on the roof, working ...

A person can eat healthful food, take all their meds faithfully, get regular checkups, and then one day out walking for exercise and to enjoy the countryside they could be bitten by a copperhead and die before the paramedics arrived with antivenom.
 
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