Tasty Wednesday/ Lessons from The "Blue Zones"

 

When I was young girl, I could never imagine being 25, 40, 60 or even older. Those ages just seemed so old to me at the time in my life. I really thought that I would always stay young,, never getting gray hair or wrinkles, But of course, time catches up with all of us, and as time goes by reality hits…. that I’m growing old and so is everyone else. That’s life! But the question we all need to ask ourselves, is how do I live a healthy active life into old age? What can I do now to make that happen?

In 1513 Ponce de Leon landed on the northeast corner of Florida searching for the Fountain of Youth This is one of the many tales that illustrates the desire to overcome aging. Today to overcome aging, people use Botox, face lifts, line fillers, and some athletes use steroids to keep their competitive edge. It seems nobody wants to grow old or at least look old.

Over the last few years I would see articles about the “Blue Zones” in different magazines and on the web It fascinated me how people in their 90′s and 100′s could still be healthy and active; caring for their vegetable gardens, visiting friends and relatives, cooking for themselves, and even chopping their own wood! I decided to read the book, The Blue Zones written by Dan Buettner to find out the secrets of the centenarians in these five areas around the world, And I am going to pass some of the secrets on to you.

The five “Blue Zones” are Ikaria, Greece, Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda in California. The author believes that’s it’s no coincidence that the way these people eat, interact with each other, shed stress, heal themselves, avoid disease, and view their world, yields them more good years of life.

The brutal reality about aging is that it has only the acceleration pedal. The name of the game is to keep from pushing the accelerator pedal so hard that we speed up the aging process. The average American however by living a fast and furious lifestyle, pushes the accelerator too hard and too much.

What is interesting  to me, is that we don’t realize eating poorly, not exercising, being overweight, and being stressed most of the time, isn’t going to take a toll on our bodies long-term. It does, how could it not? I think we are definitely in denial.

There are no secrets to living a long healthy life. It’s about using common sense. We can start by eating a reasonable diet. It doesn’t mean that you need to be a vegetarian. One of the goals to a healthy lifestyle is moderation in all things. Concerning eating we need to take in a level of calories that is necessary and balancing those calories across carbohydrates, fats,and protein. Most fast foods are not necessarily healthy. We seem to like a lot of things that are bad for us: salt, sugar, fat. You hear about the people in the Blue Zones that live on legumes and plant food, and that’s probably okay, but it’s not necessary.

As we get older, we lose the resilience that we had when we were younger. We  are more susceptible to lifestyle behaviors that can do us harm.

Besides diet exercise is very important. Rather than exercising for the sake of exercising, we need to make changes in our lifestyles. All the people in the “Blue Zones” walked as part of their every day routine. When I travel In Europe, I would see older people always walking; many of them carrying groceries from the local market. They probably could out-pace many of us even carrying their bags.. Walking doesn’t cost anything, except maybe a good pair of sneakers.

Another good way to exercise is to plant a garden plus you will have fresh vegetables to eat. Speaking of fresh vegetables, I have a great recipe to share with you. It’s vegetarian dish that is tasty and delicious.

POT-ROASTED EGGPLANT with TOMATOES and CUMIN

INGREDIENTS

1 large eggplant, 1 1/4 pounds

4 cloves garlic minced

Kosher salt

1 cup drained, canned diced tomatoes

3 tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

3 tbs. chopped parsley

1 tbs. cilantro leaves

2 tsp. sweet smoked paprika

3/4 tsp. ground cumin

pinch of cayenne pepper

1 tbs. fresh lemon juice

Freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat a large enameled cast-iron casserole. Using a fork, prick the eggplant in a few places. Add the eggplant to the casserole, cover and cook over moderately low heat, turning once until charred on the outside and soft within, about 40 minutes.

2. Transfer the eggplant to a colander set in the sink. Using a sharp knife, make a lengthwise slit in the eggplant; let drain for 10 minutes. Scrape the flesh into a bowl, discarding the skin and any hard seeds; mash to a puree and transfer to a large skillet.

3. Using the side of a large knife, mash the garlic to a coarse paste with 1 teaspoon of salt. Add the paste to the skillet along with the tomatoes, olive oil, parsley, cilantro, paprika, cumin and cayenne. Cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice and season with alt and pepper. Serve warm or at room temperature.

There are other lessons to learn from the “Blue Zones”, but I don’t want to over-load you with information all at once. We are taking baby steps here. Over the next few weeks I’ll write about some of the other ways people can live a healthy happy life into old age.