Want to live longer? A local National Geographic journalist found four American diets that could help
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There were more than 100 cookbooks released this year from major publishers and one of them comes from a Minnesota native. It has wound up on the LA Times list of the best cookbooks of 2022.
Twin Cities native, adventurer, National Geographic journalist and longevity expert Dan Buettner has spent the last 20 years studying and writing about areas of the world. He calls them Blue Zones. They’re places where people live longer and with less disease than anywhere else in the world. His research finds the diets of those long lived cultures are remarkably similar.
In December, Buettner is out with Blue Zones American Kitchen, where he found four American food traditions that match the longevity diets he’s found elsewhere in the world.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: There were more than 100 cookbooks released this year from major publishers, and one of them comes from a Minnesota native. And it's wound up on the LA Times list of The Best Cookbooks of 2022.
Twin Cities native, adventurer, National Geographic journalist, and longevity expert, Dan Buettner, has spent the last 20 years studying and writing about areas of the world. He calls them Blue Zones, where people live longer and with less disease than anywhere else in the world. His research finds the diets of those long-lived cultures are remarkably similar.
This month, Buettner is out with Blue Zones American Kitchen, where he found four American food traditions that match the longevity diets he's found elsewhere in the world. Now, the American diet isn't known as being terribly healthy, so I asked him what he learned about it for his book.
DAN BUETTNER: We have a cuisine that kills 680,000 Americans prematurely every year. I'm sort of, Cathy, looking for a diet of longevity in America. And the approach was to look at dietary surveys that were done for the last 150 years, so what populations were doing.
And I discovered that among African, Asian, Latin, and Native Americans, about 100 years ago, were following the exact same dietary pattern we found among the longest-lived people in the world, Blue Zones and it was like this aha moment, that all of a sudden, there is an American diet that's not only healthy, but we figure could tack another 10 to 13 years of life expectancy onto your life over eating a standard American diet.
CATHY WURZER: And we're talking plant-based, right?
DAN BUETTNER: It's mostly plant-based. And to be honest, these cultures used a little bit of meat, but meat was not something you had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a condiment, maybe a little piece of pork the size of a marshmallow to flavor a pot of food, or it was a celebratory food.
CATHY WURZER: Let me go back for folks who are not familiar with the work of Blue Zones. What's the science behind some of the recipes in the book and some of the stories, by the way?
DAN BUETTNER: About 20% of how long we live, collectively, is our genes. The other 80% is something else. And based on that premise, with National Geographic, we hired demographers worldwide, looked through worldwide census data, and we found the places around the world where people are living longest. In some cases, 10 times more centenarians, a fifth the rate of heart disease and diabetes that we suffer.
And then our teams just went there over the years-- it's been 20 years now, this project-- to find out the common denominators in all of these places. So instead of looking for secrets of longevity in test tubes or Petri dishes, we found real populations who are achieving the health and longevity outcomes we want. And then we just reverse engineered it.
CATHY WURZER: So when you now start looking at-- as you say, there are elements of the American diet that actually are pretty healthy, and they're focused on certain communities of color. Let's just take, say, the Hmong community in Minnesota, for example. What did you find?
DAN BUETTNER: Well, Yia Vang, who's become quite a celebrity around town here with his TV series with Andrew Zimmer, his mother-- we met his mother in a field in Anoka, about 200 feet from a Target parking lot. And she had brought over a number of plants from Cambodia, I believe, or maybe it was Thailand. She was a refugee.
And here, you're in suburban Minnesota, and it looks like you're in Phnom Penh or something. It was this-- and they, traditionally, for their everyday food, it was almost all plant-based.
Now, they teach us how to identify and harvest greens. We kind of know spinach and kale, but Yia's mother could probably identify 50 greens, all of which have many times more antioxidants than, say, red wine. Probably the healthiest food on the planet are greens, and we only take advantage of a fraction of them.
CATHY WURZER: Do you have a favorite? Or you always have a favorite recipe in every book you have. Do you have one in this one that you want to pass along?
DAN BUETTNER: So one of the most interesting groups of people were the Gullah Geechee, and they were descendants of African slaves. And the Gullah Geechee cuisine, very interestingly, fuses Native American, European influences, and then West African.
And I captured a few gumbo recipes. We think of gumbo as New Orleans. But actually, gumbo is a West African word for okra, and they make these fabulous okra stews. Okra kind of imparts sort of a thickening agent to stew, so they're really thick. And they'll use some vinegar for acid and some searingly hot peppers for spice and then sesame seeds, which they call benne seeds, for umami. And the result is the hearty soup/stew that makes you cry tears of joy.
CATHY WURZER: Oh. [LAUGHS] God, I got to try that.
DAN BUETTNER: [LAUGHS]
CATHY WURZER: I've known you for a long time, and I don't think I've ever asked you this question. How has the Blue Zones way of life changed your life?
DAN BUETTNER: I eat mostly plant-based now. You get a very clear-eyed view in what works and what doesn't work when it comes to health and longevity. What doesn't work-- about now, about 80 million people will start New Year's resolutions. And by January 19, over half of them will fail. Getting on this treadmill of diets and exercise plans, they're all good-intentioned, but they never last.
What I learned, and I've put it to work in my own life, that living in a walkable community will occasion a lot more physical activity than thinking you're going to go to the gym every day, that knowing your sense of purpose is worth about eight years of life expectancy over being rudderless.
And there's no drug on the market. There's no drug, or pill, or supplement on the market that can give you eight years of extra life expectancy. And we quickly overlook these things because they're not sexy and because they're not relentlessly marketed to us.
But when you look at real populations of real people who are making it to 100, they live in walkable communities. They have a strong sense of purpose, and they pay especially close attention to the four or five people they surround themselves with, to make sure those influences are healthy.
CATHY WURZER: Yes. And so here's the thing. Do you think you're going to make it to 100?
DAN BUETTNER: I think there's a strong possibility, and I'll tell you why. I'm 60 now. Based on my behaviors, my life expectancy is probably 94 or 95. But since 1840, life expectancy of humans has gone up two years per decade. It's almost a straight line progression. So if that trend remains the same, I should get six more bonus years as the human species lives longer, and that should put me right at age 100.
[LAUGHTER]
CATHY WURZER: And when you get there, we're going to have a big Party.
DAN BUETTNER: We're going to have a huge one. We're going to blow it out.
CATHY WURZER: No kidding.
Dan Buettner, I always love talking to you. Thank you so much. Best of luck, by the way. And happy New Year.
DAN BUETTNER: Thank you, Cathy. And best of luck with those New Year's resolutions.
CATHY WURZER: I'm going to need help with those resolutions, by the way. That's Minnesota-born Dan Buettner, the founder of Blue Zones and the author of The Blue Zones American Kitchen.
Dan mentioned Minnesota chef Yia Vang in that story. Have you seen TPT's digital series called Relish? It's great. This year, in season four of Relish, Yia Vang visited with chefs across the metro area to make egg rolls, mole, Jamaican fruitcake, tortas, and a lot more. Check it out when you have an opportunity. It's called Relish, and it is on wherever you get your digital offerings, YouTube, and the like. So check that out.
Twin Cities native, adventurer, National Geographic journalist, and longevity expert, Dan Buettner, has spent the last 20 years studying and writing about areas of the world. He calls them Blue Zones, where people live longer and with less disease than anywhere else in the world. His research finds the diets of those long-lived cultures are remarkably similar.
This month, Buettner is out with Blue Zones American Kitchen, where he found four American food traditions that match the longevity diets he's found elsewhere in the world. Now, the American diet isn't known as being terribly healthy, so I asked him what he learned about it for his book.
DAN BUETTNER: We have a cuisine that kills 680,000 Americans prematurely every year. I'm sort of, Cathy, looking for a diet of longevity in America. And the approach was to look at dietary surveys that were done for the last 150 years, so what populations were doing.
And I discovered that among African, Asian, Latin, and Native Americans, about 100 years ago, were following the exact same dietary pattern we found among the longest-lived people in the world, Blue Zones and it was like this aha moment, that all of a sudden, there is an American diet that's not only healthy, but we figure could tack another 10 to 13 years of life expectancy onto your life over eating a standard American diet.
CATHY WURZER: And we're talking plant-based, right?
DAN BUETTNER: It's mostly plant-based. And to be honest, these cultures used a little bit of meat, but meat was not something you had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a condiment, maybe a little piece of pork the size of a marshmallow to flavor a pot of food, or it was a celebratory food.
CATHY WURZER: Let me go back for folks who are not familiar with the work of Blue Zones. What's the science behind some of the recipes in the book and some of the stories, by the way?
DAN BUETTNER: About 20% of how long we live, collectively, is our genes. The other 80% is something else. And based on that premise, with National Geographic, we hired demographers worldwide, looked through worldwide census data, and we found the places around the world where people are living longest. In some cases, 10 times more centenarians, a fifth the rate of heart disease and diabetes that we suffer.
And then our teams just went there over the years-- it's been 20 years now, this project-- to find out the common denominators in all of these places. So instead of looking for secrets of longevity in test tubes or Petri dishes, we found real populations who are achieving the health and longevity outcomes we want. And then we just reverse engineered it.
CATHY WURZER: So when you now start looking at-- as you say, there are elements of the American diet that actually are pretty healthy, and they're focused on certain communities of color. Let's just take, say, the Hmong community in Minnesota, for example. What did you find?
DAN BUETTNER: Well, Yia Vang, who's become quite a celebrity around town here with his TV series with Andrew Zimmer, his mother-- we met his mother in a field in Anoka, about 200 feet from a Target parking lot. And she had brought over a number of plants from Cambodia, I believe, or maybe it was Thailand. She was a refugee.
And here, you're in suburban Minnesota, and it looks like you're in Phnom Penh or something. It was this-- and they, traditionally, for their everyday food, it was almost all plant-based.
Now, they teach us how to identify and harvest greens. We kind of know spinach and kale, but Yia's mother could probably identify 50 greens, all of which have many times more antioxidants than, say, red wine. Probably the healthiest food on the planet are greens, and we only take advantage of a fraction of them.
CATHY WURZER: Do you have a favorite? Or you always have a favorite recipe in every book you have. Do you have one in this one that you want to pass along?
DAN BUETTNER: So one of the most interesting groups of people were the Gullah Geechee, and they were descendants of African slaves. And the Gullah Geechee cuisine, very interestingly, fuses Native American, European influences, and then West African.
And I captured a few gumbo recipes. We think of gumbo as New Orleans. But actually, gumbo is a West African word for okra, and they make these fabulous okra stews. Okra kind of imparts sort of a thickening agent to stew, so they're really thick. And they'll use some vinegar for acid and some searingly hot peppers for spice and then sesame seeds, which they call benne seeds, for umami. And the result is the hearty soup/stew that makes you cry tears of joy.
CATHY WURZER: Oh. [LAUGHS] God, I got to try that.
DAN BUETTNER: [LAUGHS]
CATHY WURZER: I've known you for a long time, and I don't think I've ever asked you this question. How has the Blue Zones way of life changed your life?
DAN BUETTNER: I eat mostly plant-based now. You get a very clear-eyed view in what works and what doesn't work when it comes to health and longevity. What doesn't work-- about now, about 80 million people will start New Year's resolutions. And by January 19, over half of them will fail. Getting on this treadmill of diets and exercise plans, they're all good-intentioned, but they never last.
What I learned, and I've put it to work in my own life, that living in a walkable community will occasion a lot more physical activity than thinking you're going to go to the gym every day, that knowing your sense of purpose is worth about eight years of life expectancy over being rudderless.
And there's no drug on the market. There's no drug, or pill, or supplement on the market that can give you eight years of extra life expectancy. And we quickly overlook these things because they're not sexy and because they're not relentlessly marketed to us.
But when you look at real populations of real people who are making it to 100, they live in walkable communities. They have a strong sense of purpose, and they pay especially close attention to the four or five people they surround themselves with, to make sure those influences are healthy.
CATHY WURZER: Yes. And so here's the thing. Do you think you're going to make it to 100?
DAN BUETTNER: I think there's a strong possibility, and I'll tell you why. I'm 60 now. Based on my behaviors, my life expectancy is probably 94 or 95. But since 1840, life expectancy of humans has gone up two years per decade. It's almost a straight line progression. So if that trend remains the same, I should get six more bonus years as the human species lives longer, and that should put me right at age 100.
[LAUGHTER]
CATHY WURZER: And when you get there, we're going to have a big Party.
DAN BUETTNER: We're going to have a huge one. We're going to blow it out.
CATHY WURZER: No kidding.
Dan Buettner, I always love talking to you. Thank you so much. Best of luck, by the way. And happy New Year.
DAN BUETTNER: Thank you, Cathy. And best of luck with those New Year's resolutions.
CATHY WURZER: I'm going to need help with those resolutions, by the way. That's Minnesota-born Dan Buettner, the founder of Blue Zones and the author of The Blue Zones American Kitchen.
Dan mentioned Minnesota chef Yia Vang in that story. Have you seen TPT's digital series called Relish? It's great. This year, in season four of Relish, Yia Vang visited with chefs across the metro area to make egg rolls, mole, Jamaican fruitcake, tortas, and a lot more. Check it out when you have an opportunity. It's called Relish, and it is on wherever you get your digital offerings, YouTube, and the like. So check that out.
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