Want to live a longer life? Take notes from the longest-living people on the planet.
"The Blue Zones diet reflects guidelines based on the diet and lifestyle of the world's longest-living people in 5 different parts of the world," says Pincus. To create the Blue Zone diet, Dan Buettner, founder of the
, researched the five parts of the world where there was the highest percentage of centenarians, people who live to be 100 years or older.are Loma Linda in California, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Sardinia in Italy, Ikaria in Greece, and Okinawa, Japan.After researching and spending time in these parts of the world, the Blue Zones Project determined the common denominators among the regions so that people could adopt these principles themselves.
"Though the exact foods differ depending on the local foods available around the world, eating to live longer can be boiled down to several key principles," says Pincus.Make at least 90% of your diet. People in the Blue Zones get the majority of their nutrients from vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and nuts.
"People in the blue zones move naturally about every 20 minutes, have strong social connections with a sense of purpose and community, spend little time with electronics, and do work by hand whether in the kitchen or garden," says Pincus.everything on this list, but that we take a look at potential areas we can improve on in our own lives."Anything we can adopt to improve the quality of our diets and our lifestyle habits is beneficial," says Pincus.