Credit: Unsplash

Bella Breakdown

Man has searched centuries for the secret of living longer and there are a couple of countries around the world that hold the secret. Scientists and researchers have indicated 5 countries around the world called blue zones that have citizens with a high population of centenarians (people who are over 100 years of age).

Scientists have researched blue zones to find the secret of living a longer life and diet seems to play a big role. Here are a couple of changes you can make to your diet to ensure you live a long and healthy life.

The official website for Blue Zones offers dietary recommendations to improve your diet with the goal of living a healthier, longer life. They offer a ton of recipes to try but also offer food guideline recommendations to see how you can change your life for the better in relation to time.

To start off, you can transform your diet to the blue zone diet with things you can change monthly. Less is more when it comes to cutting back on foods sourced from animals. It’s recommended to cut back to eating about 2 ounces or less of meat over 5 times per month and reduce daily intake as much as possible.

You can also look at making changes weekly to improve your health that cuts out more sugar and animal products. Try to cut down your sugar intake of only 28 grams (7 teaspoons) of sugar daily. The blue zone diet also recommends cutting the weekly intake of fish to 3 ounces, up to 3 times weekly and eating no more than 3 eggs per week.

If you’re ready to commit to this age extending diet on a daily basis, you’ll start with cutting back eating an unhealthy snack and replace it with at least 1-2 handfuls of nuts a day. One of the basic rules of the blue zone diet is to increase drinking water to about 7 glasses per day allowing drinking tea, coffee, and wine in moderation.

The key daily blue zone diet recommendation is having a diet consisting of 95-100% plant-based. The blue zone diet recommends eating a daily dose of one half to one cup of beans per day and utilizing raw whole grains (not highly processed single-ingredient, cooked, fermented, or ground) into the daily diet.

The ideal blue zone diet consists of 65% carbs, 20% fats, and 15% proteins with 95% plant-based and 5% animal-based foods. This diet might seem like a drastic change of what you’re used to but changing the way you eat can lead to a longer life, it might be worth the try.