Longevity Secrets (And Controversies) From The Blue Zones | Dan Buettner

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This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. Today,
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we're diving into the secrets and also the controversies of
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the so-called blue zones. If you haven't heard of the
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blue zones, these are the places on the planet where
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people apparently live the longest and healthiest lives. My guest,
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Dan Buettner, has been playing a huge role in exploring
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and publicizing and popularizing the blue zones. Dan is an explorer,
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National Geographic fellow, and a journalist. He's written a series
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of bestselling books. including The Blue Zones of Happiness and
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The Blue Zones Kitchen. He's also the host of the
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Netflix show Live to 100. In this conversation, we talk
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about the origin story of The Blue Zones, the nine
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common denominators, or the power nine when it comes to longevity,
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the surprising information about much maligned foods such as pasta
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and bread, why trying to pursue good health can actually
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work against you, why the single most important factor in
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longevity is not advertised on Instagram, Tips for integrating Blue
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Zone's wisdom into your daily life, including designing a life
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where you move more naturally. And some of the critiques
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and controversies surrounding Dan's work. I should say this episode
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originally aired back in June of 2024, but we're bringing
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it back because it was an audience favorite. And there
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are so many actionable tips here that I think you
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can put to use right away. One update on the
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critiques I mentioned. Two of Dan's collaborators on the original
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Blue Zone's project, published a rebuttal of the criticism in
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December 2025. So I'm going to put a link both
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to the rebuttal and to the original paper that called
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into question some of the Blue Zones methodology. We'll get
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started with Dan Buettner right after this.
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It's a delight. Let's just say I'm even more than
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10% happier being here.
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I'm happy to hear that. We'll come back to you
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at the end and see what the percentage is.
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Yeah.
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Let me just ask you about the origin story of
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the blue zones. How did this whole thing get started?
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In a previous business, I was solving two mysteries a year.
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I had a whole staff, 14 people, and we had
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a big subscription, subscription base. And, uh, I was looking
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for a good mystery to solve. Most of our mysteries
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had been like, why did the ancient Maya civilization collapse?
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Or did Marco Polo really go to China? And, um,
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We were hired by the Japanese government to find a
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mystery in Japan. And we looked at Bronze Age cultures
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and so forth. And it was actually my brother, Nick,
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who was working for me at the time, stumbled upon
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a report from the World Health Organization that showed that Okinawa, Japan,
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was producing the longest-lived disability-free people in the world. And
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I said, aha, now there's a good mystery. And in 1999,
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we did our first expedition there. We were there for
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about 10 days. And I was absolutely hooked because I
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was meeting people in their 90s and 100s that were
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functioning like 60-year-olds in the United States. And of course,
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in a facile way, I was able to look at how.
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But when I was out of that business, I sold
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it and went back to National Geographic with some ideas
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and suggested that If there are long lived people in Okinawa,
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there must be long lived people in Europe and Asia
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and maybe Latin America or even Africa. And I got
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an assignment back in the days when National Geographic gave
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you nine months to write one article. And I got
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funding from the National Institutes on Aging to do it right.
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And to do it right means you hire demographers to
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find places where people are truly living a long time.
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And then since only about 20% of how long we
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live is dictated by our genes, if we found places
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where populations were living longer, and I'm talking 8 to
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10 years longer than we do in the United States,
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we had a perfect study group to look for correlations
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and common denominators. And that is a very long answer
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to a simple question.
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That was not a long answer. You can go longer
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if you want. Essentially, you and your team found what
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are now called blue zones, which are areas around the
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planet where apparently people are living longer.
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I would go beyond apparently. It is a mathematical fact
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that they have lived longer over the last century and
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a half. And we, working with demographers, were able to
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look at swaths of the population, say 100 to 150
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years ago, look at a swath of birth and follow
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those births for 100 years or more and correct for
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immigration and emigrate and find statistically, empirically, where people are
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living the longest. And that's what blue zones are.
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When's the name blue zones? What's that have to do with?
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My colleague in Sardinia, Dr. Gianni Pesce, He identified the
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Sardinian Blue Zone, and he did so by going village
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to village, looking at birth records since about 1850 and
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doing this exercise, counting how many centenarians have lived in
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these areas over the last 150 years. And ones that
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met the highest criteria, he put a blue checkmark. And
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in the Nuoro and Oleasta provinces of Sardinia and the
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highlands and central highlands, there were so many blue check
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marks that it created a blue blob. And he referred
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to that area in the map as the blue zone.
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And it's between five and eight villages. It changes from
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year to year. But the same region where you have
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about 10 times more male centenarians, proportionally speaking, than you
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would expect to see in a similar population in the
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United States.
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So you've been at this for about 20 years now,
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am I correct?
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Yes.
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How many blue zones are there and what are the commonalities?
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Five blue zones. The longest-lived males are in Sardinia, Italy.
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Longest-lived females, Okinawa, Japan. In the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica,
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you have the lowest rate of middle-age mortality. Also very
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high portion of centenarians there. In the United States, it's
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among the Seventh-day Adventists in and around Loma Linda, California,
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but to a certain extent, all Adventists. And then our
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last Blue Zone was in Ikaria, Greece, very close to
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the coast of Turkey, where you have people living about
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eight years longer with about half the rate of cardiovascular
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mortality and almost no dementia, which makes it an interesting
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outlier among even the Blue Zones.
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And is there something that people or some things that
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the people in all of these places are doing that
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might be instructive for the rest of us?
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So there are nine common denominators. I call them the
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power nine. And then there's one organizing principle, which is
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really the important thing to pay attention to. But in general,
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people who are living a long time are eating mostly
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a whole food plant-based diet, between 90% and 100%. whole food, plant-based.
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It's a very high carbohydrate diet. About 65% of the
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caloric intake comes from things like whole grains, greens, tubers, nuts.
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Cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world is beans.
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And the reason we know this is because we've found
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dietary surveys that go back about 100 years. from all
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five Blue Zones, 155 of them in total. And under
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the aegis of Harvard University, we did a meta-analysis. And
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if you want to know what a 100-year-old ate to
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live to be 100, you have to know what he
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or she was eating as a little kid and middle-aged
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and newly retired. So it's mostly whole food, plant-based. They
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have vocabulary for purpose. We know people with a sense
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of purpose live about eight years longer than rudderless people.
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They have sacred daily rituals that help unwind the stress
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and the ensuing inflammation, which is part of the human condition. Okinawa,
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its ancestor veneration, the Adventists pray several times a day.
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The Ikarians and Costa Ricans take a nap. But just
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a way to lower that inflammation load that accumulates with
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the stress and the worry and the hurry of our lives.
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And by the way, their lives are no different than ours.
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They worry about the same things that we do. They
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drink a little bit every day. And I'm very familiar
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with the recent research suggesting that no level of alcohol
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is safe, but I can tell you people in blue zones,
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over 85% of people make, especially males making it to
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90 or a hundred drink every day of their life.
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Most of the time was homemade wine, but nevertheless, they're drinking.
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They have a, Unconscious strategies to keep from overeating. They
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don't have electronics in their kitchens. They eat with their families.
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They tend to front load their day with calories and
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taper off by late afternoon or early evening. So they're
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de facto 14 hours of caloric restriction a day. They
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tend to prioritize family, which doesn't sound very sexy, but
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if you keep your aging parent nearby as opposed to
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putting them in a retirement home, it conveys somewhere between
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two and six extra years of life expectancy. They invest
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in their relationships. Married people live longer than non-married people.
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They invest in their children. So they have higher survivability
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and lower mortality rates. They tend to belong to a faith.
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People who go to church, temple, or mosque live somewhere
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between 4 and 14 years longer than people who have
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no religion. A number of reasons for that, but it's
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a demographic fact. And then they tend to pay a
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lot of attention to their immediate social circle. Whereas in America,
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we have this loneliness epidemic, somewhere between 20 and 30%
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of Americans are lonely. That's not something people in blue
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zones suffer from. And in many places, it comes along
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with growing up. You're just automatically put in a meaningful
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social circle. But in the absence of that, different social
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constructs bring people together in semi-permanent ways. So They're not
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suffering from the loneliness. Those are the, I would say,
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the common denominators.
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It's fascinating. As a construct or a structure for the
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next little while, I would suggest I want to come
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back to these power nine and really dive into them
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much more deeply. Before we do that, though, let's go
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through the individual blue zones and hear a little bit
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about what you've learned in each of these places and
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then then we'll take a deeper dive into the power nine.
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How does that sound to you as a structure?
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It works for me.
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Okay. A few things before we hear from our sponsors.
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that you can operationalize in your life immediately. This is
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an actionable practice that I'm dropping into your data stream
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that really can color the rest of your day. I
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put a lot of time and effort into it, and
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I'd love for you to benefit from it. It's also,
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by the way, the place where you can get updates
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on the broader 10% Happier Cinematic Universe, including upcoming programming
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you can sign up at danharris.com. I'd love to have
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you reading the newsletter, and we will be right back
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after this. Sure. Okay, so you mentioned Sardinia. What's going
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on in Sardinia that people are living? It's the mountains,
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if I've got it correct, and what's going on there?
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What's their lifestyle like, and what can we learn from that?
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Sardinia is unique among the five blue zones insofar as
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that the people there are actually a Bronze Age culture,
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originated in what is today Spain about 13,000 years ago,
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and moved their way through southern France and probably arriving
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in Sardinia about 11,000 years ago. And unlike a usual
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Mediterranean population where you have a patriarchal society, the people
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in the Blue Zone have a matriarchal society. In other words,
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women are the heads of the household. They manage financial affairs.
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They're usually behind the defense of the village. And they
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just have a different set of practices, ancient music. They
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tend to be poets, about 20 times more poets among
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males than you would expect to see an equivalent population
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in the United States. Until very recently, They ate a
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variant of the Mediterranean diet that was very high in
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fava beans. Before that, which is until about 1950, so
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still when first 30 years of a centenarian's life, they
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were eating mostly bread, sourdough bread, cheese, pecorino cheese, and
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then garden vegetables. And then about 1950 or 1960, the
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roads came and their diet changed again. They're a very
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poor area. So they relied even more heavily on their
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gardens and pastas. I mean, a lot of the worst
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scared to death of carbs from pastas and the longest
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lived people in the world ate a 65% of their
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caloric intake until about 1960 came from pastas and breads,
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which will surprise a lot of people. They have this
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fanatic regard for the family. The reason, and for neighbors,
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the reason is because throughout history, even though they spread
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throughout the entire island of Sardinia, when the successive waves
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of people, the Phoenicians, the Arabs, the Romans, they were
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always subjugating these people. And by about the time of Christ,
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this founder population, blue zone population, realized that they were
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just better off retreating into the mountains and setting up
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almost fortress type towns and sticking together against outsiders. They
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developed a reputation for being barbarians in fact their region
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was given the name barbacha which has the same root
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as the word barbarian and um you know became very
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feared people but in fact they're lovely people uh just
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you know they defend themselves as needed and as a
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result they became very inward focused and and remote their
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things didn't um Evolve is quickly there. The language they
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speak is the language most similar to the Latin the
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Romans spoke 2,000 years ago. They still sing the same songs.
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You still see the same sort of dress people wore
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in the Middle Ages during festivals. Until very recently, their
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diet hadn't changed. I wrote this book called The Blue
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Zone's Kitchen, where I went and sat in old lady's
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kitchens and I captured their recipes. And when I asked
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them what the origin of these recipes were, they said,
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it's always been with us. These are recipes that evolved
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over the millennia. So they're living this very ancient way
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of life and the mountains have helped keep out the
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forces of the standard American diet and modernization, which we've
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seen always corrodes the health and longevity aspects of Blue Zones.
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I'm keying in, perhaps unsurprisingly, to the pasta and sourdough
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bread part of this. I love pasta and bread, and
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I don't deny it to myself, but I don't deny
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myself pasta or bread, but I think a lot of
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people do, and there have been times in my life
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where I did. So why do pasta and bread have
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such a bad reputation, and is it entirely undeserved?
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Well, there are some theories that American pasta and bread contain...
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glyphosate because of the pesticides used on wheat fields in America. Also,
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it's the process. When you have a true sourdough bread,
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as is what is consumed in Sardinia, it's always slow
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fermented sourdough. So it's leavened not with the industrial yeast,
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but rather lactobacillus. And in that process of that slow fermentation,
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About 98% of the gluten is metabolized. So it's very
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low gluten bread. And there's been at least two studies
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that show when you eat a real sourdough bread, it
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lowers the glycemic load of your meal by about 25%.
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In other words, the sugars are absorbed much more slowly,
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which reduces the insulin spike and also makes it more
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likely those calories will be used for energy throughout your
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day rather than being packed on your backside. Pasta is similar.
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The pastas there are made with a durum wheat rather
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than cheaper versions. So once again, they have a lower
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glycemic load. But also, when you mix a pasta with
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a tomato sauce and olive oil and perhaps some protein,
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usually it's beans, by the way, traditionally speaking, you lower
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the glycemic load even further. So if you eat a
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piece of Wonder Bread or two, it metabolizes almost immediately
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into sugar, blood sugar spikes, insulin spikes, bad for you.
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But you eat a piece of sourdough bread or pasta
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with the tomato sauce and beans, pasta and fagioli, you
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don't get the spike. And in fact, bread and pasta
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have important amino acids, which are building blocks for protein
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when you... take a bread or pasta, and you couple
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it with a bean, it gives you all the amino
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acids necessary for human sustenance. In other words, it's a
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whole protein. So it's the way people have been processing
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these foods and combining them that makes all the difference
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in the world. The devil is truly in the details
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when it comes to pasta.
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So what's your policy on pasta now after all these
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years of study?
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You know, I'm half Sicilian. I I, I, I grew
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up in pasta and I still last meal of my life.
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If I have anything to say, it's going to be
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my pasta with my grandma Palermo's pasta sauce. I guess
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you want a universal question. My policy is you should
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feel free to eat it. I'll give you another interesting
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statistic in Northern Italy in 1980 the about 8% of
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people were suffering from obesity. I ate tons of pasta
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up there. Meanwhile, in 1980, about 15% of Americans were
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suffering from obesity. In the ensuing 40 years, the obesity
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rate in the United States has almost tripled. 42% of
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us are obese. In Italy, in northern Italy, it's still 8%.
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And they eat pasta with every meal. So pasta is
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not the problem. Something else is the problem.
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And what is it?
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Well, if you want to be the bottom line, it
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is a fact that 70% or 80% of what we
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eat is processed food. We eat somewhere around 240 pounds
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of meat a year, which would fill a bathtub. Whereas
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in Blue Zones, they're eating about 20 pounds of meat.
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They're eating maybe three eggs a week, very high-quality, low-quantity cheese.
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Very little fish. Like I said, they're eating mostly a
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plant-based diet as opposed to our diet that's far too
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heavily reliant on animal products and processed foods with added
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sugars and flavor enhancers, etc.
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Okay, so that's Sardinia. I'm sure there's more to say,
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but in the interest of time, I want to move
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through the rest of these. You mentioned Loma Linda, California,
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which is a Seventh-day Adventist community. What's going on there?
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They're conservative Methodists who distinguish themselves from other Christians in that,
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number one, they evangelize with health. Many of the biggest
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hospitals in America, down here in Florida, for example, are
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run by Adventists, and they run very well, by the way.
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But they also celebrate their Sabbath not on Sunday, but
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but on, as the Bible prescribes, the seventh day, which
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is Saturday. And they take it very seriously. It's been
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described to me by them as a sanctuary in time
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where 24 hours from Friday night until Saturday night, no
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matter how busy they are, no matter where the kids
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need to be driven or no matter what the social
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schedule is, they stop everything and they focus on their
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families on Friday night. their religious communities on Saturday morning.
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They have a potluck lunch, reinforces their media social circle
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on Saturday afternoon. And then hardwired right in their scriptures
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is to take a nature walk. So rather than something
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we get excited about during the wellness week at work or,
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you know, when one time in our life we run
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a marathon or something, these people are Ritually active and
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socially connecting and slowing down, downshifting every single week for
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decades or a lifetime. This starts to get at something
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that is really important when it comes to longevity. America
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and marketers are constantly focusing on a quick fix. And
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there's no such thing as a quick fix when it
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comes to longevity. adding to your life expectancy. There's nothing
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you can do this week or this month that's going
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to make you live longer in 40 or 60 years.
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So you have to focus on things you're going to
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do almost every day or every week for decades or
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a lifetime. And this Adventist practice, the religious practice, helps
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them stay on a weekly program of reinforcing these behaviors
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that easily map to lower rates of chronic disease and
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higher life expectancy. They also take their diet directly from
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the Bible. Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 through 28. You
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might think I'm a big Bible reader, but I'm not.
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I happen to know this from my research. But God
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says that, or Genesis says that God has provided every,
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for humans, every plant that bears seed, So that's grains
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and legumes and nuts. And then every tree that bears fruit.
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So that's citrus and avocado and tomatoes and apples, et cetera.
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And the Adventists actually adhere to that. Most of them
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are vegetarian. Some are even vegan or pescatarian. So you have,
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once again, another population that's eating mostly a whole food
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plant-based diet. And We now know that health behaviors are
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as contagious as catching a cold. In other words, if
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we hang out with people who smoke or drink too
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much or sit around and watch TV and eat chips
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and drink Pepsi, we're more likely to adopt their behaviors.
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And the contagions that circulate through the Adventist community tend
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to be positive. You know, they get together and they
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walk and they have plant-based potlucks and they reinforce each
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other's spiritual growth, etc. So you have this self-propagating environment
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that helps keep them doing the right things and avoiding
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the wrong things. And manifestly, they're living somewhere between 7
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and 11 years longer than their California counterparts. And they
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both live next to the San Bernardino Freeway. So it's astounding.
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what this population is achieving.
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Another thing I hear in there, and you mentioned this
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when we were going through the Power Nine, and it's
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really come through in many of your utterances thus far,
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is social connection. And I mean, I've got this riff
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on this that some listeners to the show might be
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tired of hearing me go on, but I'm going to
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go on it again just because I want to get
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your reaction to it. But, you know, we live in
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an era of optimization. everybody's striving for ketosis, tracking their sleep,
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counting their steps, counting their calories, subscribing to intense workouts,
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00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:32.589
trying to achieve streaks on their meditation app, et cetera,
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et cetera. We're trying to pull every lever possible to
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be as healthy as possible. But it appears from your
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work and from the work of Robert Waldinger over at Harvard,
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who's done this longitudinal study for people many, many decades
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00:26:48.730 --> 00:26:52.029
on a many generations that the most important thing to
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00:26:52.089 --> 00:26:56.329
control for, to optimize for is the quality of your relationships.
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And yet very few people are talking about that on Instagram.
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00:27:00.690 --> 00:27:03.319
And so that's my rant. What do you think of that?
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Well, I'm good friends with Robert and we violent, I guess,
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I guess the three of us violently agree on that.
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00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:13.059
The reason you don't see it on Instagram is because
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it's very hard for marketers to make money at it.
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And you know, The things that tend to ripple through
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the Internet and Instagram and Twitter and TikTok are supplements
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and superfoods, all of which have anti-aging stratagems and nostrums.
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All those have enormous profit margins. You can't make any
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money off of you going out and making a friend
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and walking with them every day. But my answer is
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actually more expansive, and this sort of gets to the
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central point. premise of Blue Zones. People who are manifestly
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living on it. Now, we're talking of five disparate populations
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on five corners of the world, all of whom are
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living about eight years on average longer than Americans, a
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fifth the rate of cardiovascular disease, a sixth the rate
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of type 2 diabetes, half the rate or less of dementia.
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None of them are tracking their steps or taking superfoods or,
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you know, running down to Costa Rica for stem cells
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or any of this other poppycock that the internet sells
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us for living longer. In fact, further, they don't try
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to live longer. They don't proactively pursue health or longevity,
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which I think is the most important insight that is
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so under celebrated or under acknowledged that, Trying to pursue health,
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whether it's through diets or exercise programs, gym memberships. You
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start with 100 people who get a gym membership today.
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In one year, you lose 80%, actually more than 80%
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of them. Diets, you start with 100 people today. Within
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00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:10.410
nine months, you lose 90% of them. They're great business models,
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00:29:10.549 --> 00:29:15.150
but they're horrible at delivering any meaningful results. outcomes. In
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blue zones, people live a long time not because they
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00:29:18.569 --> 00:29:22.779
pursue health. It's because it ensues. They live a long
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time because they live in an environment wherein their unconscious
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decisions are slightly better all day long as a result
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of their surroundings. And if we want to see a
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healthier America, and as your listeners, if they want to
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00:29:39.089 --> 00:29:43.359
live longer, lose weight, get more exercise, eat better, they'll
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00:29:43.380 --> 00:29:45.819
get a far better return on their effort, time, and
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money by shaping their environment than they ever will by
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buying a gadget or thinking they're going to change their
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behavior for long enough to make any difference. They won't.
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Or maybe single digit percentages will. People with inhuman discipline
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or presence of mind, but that's almost none of us
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over the long run. And I defy people. Everybody I
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talk to, I defy them to show me one behavioral
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change strategy that lasts for more than two years for
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more than 5% of the people who get on it.
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I've never seen it.
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So what's the answer then? You need to be embedded
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in communities where these healthy practices are normalized?
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That's the easiest way, and it's not as hard as
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you think. In Minneapolis, where I was born, there's neighborhoods
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where there's a 13-year life expectancy difference in neighborhoods that
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are less than three miles apart. And you look at
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the neighborhood where people are living a long time, there
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are parks, there are sidewalks. streets are walkable, there are
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bike lanes, there's easy access to fruits and vegetables, easy
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00:31:00.380 --> 00:31:03.400
access to recreation, the air is cleaner, and quite honestly,
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there's lower crime rate. So you can move within your city,
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you can move within your country, life expectancy in places
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like Boulder, Colorado is about 20 years higher than in
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places in Kentucky. So you live in Kentucky, you're way
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less likely to walk places, you're more likely to be
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confronted by fast food restaurants and junk food and live
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in an obesogenic environment as opposed to Boulder where you're
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never more than a few steps from a nature walk
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and healthy food abounds. I know people say, well, I
472
00:31:41.130 --> 00:31:43.450
can't afford to live in Boulder. That may be true.
473
00:31:43.890 --> 00:31:45.609
But the other point, and I wrote a whole book
474
00:31:45.690 --> 00:31:49.130
on this, it's called The Blue Zone Challenge, where I
475
00:31:49.210 --> 00:31:54.220
aggregated about 40 different evidence-based things you can do to
476
00:31:54.259 --> 00:32:00.299
your home your kitchen, your bedroom, your social circle, your commute,
477
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:05.460
and your workplace that will permanently set up nudges or
478
00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:12.250
defaults so you'll unconsciously move more, eat better, sleep better,
479
00:32:13.009 --> 00:32:17.750
socialize more, and know and live your purpose. And those
480
00:32:17.809 --> 00:32:20.829
are the exact same characteristics in place in blue zones.
481
00:32:21.690 --> 00:32:25.269
Almost all of them are portables. But it requires you
482
00:32:25.289 --> 00:32:33.609
to shift away from the anti-aging hoax to paying attention
483
00:32:33.630 --> 00:32:38.220
to environments or strategies we know add years to your
484
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:39.099
life expectancy.
485
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:44.380
Can you give me just a few examples? Give us
486
00:32:44.460 --> 00:32:50.039
a few examples of these, I think you said 40...
487
00:32:50.750 --> 00:32:54.380
Little changes we can make around our homes and social
488
00:32:54.420 --> 00:32:57.559
circles to get us closer to the blue zone effect.
489
00:32:58.380 --> 00:33:00.700
So I'll remind you that this is a sum of
490
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:03.140
lots of little things. In blue zones, there's no one
491
00:33:03.180 --> 00:33:05.099
big thing. So you may say, well, that didn't sound
492
00:33:05.119 --> 00:33:10.480
very big. But removing the toaster from your counter. Cornell
493
00:33:10.519 --> 00:33:12.779
Food Lab showed that if you have a toaster on
494
00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:16.099
your counter, after two years, you weigh about six pounds
495
00:33:16.200 --> 00:33:24.400
more than the study group who removes their toaster. Establishing
496
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:28.319
a junk food drawer where you put your junk food
497
00:33:28.400 --> 00:33:30.599
either down low or way up high or around the
498
00:33:30.660 --> 00:33:33.099
corner in the pantry. Most of us are on what
499
00:33:33.140 --> 00:33:36.799
I call a seafood diet. We eat the food we see.
500
00:33:37.859 --> 00:33:39.420
So if you have a bag of chips with a
501
00:33:39.539 --> 00:33:42.049
clip on your counter, you're way more likely to eat
502
00:33:42.089 --> 00:33:43.789
that than you will if you have a fruit bowl.
503
00:33:44.849 --> 00:33:47.289
We know that if your three best friends are obese
504
00:33:47.349 --> 00:33:51.109
or overweight, there's 150% better chance that you'll be overweight.
505
00:33:52.130 --> 00:33:57.039
So changing your social environment by proactively adding people whose
506
00:33:57.119 --> 00:34:05.160
idea of recreation is walking or playing pickleball, who care
507
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:09.989
about you on a bad day, who challenge your mind who, um,
508
00:34:10.809 --> 00:34:12.610
it's not a bad idea to have a vegan or
509
00:34:12.679 --> 00:34:15.920
vegetarian in your immediate social circle because they're going to
510
00:34:15.980 --> 00:34:18.260
show you where and how to eat more whole food
511
00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:22.199
plant-based as opposed to your friends who's, you know, beef obsessed.
512
00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:27.969
One time learning how to take the bus to work
513
00:34:28.250 --> 00:34:31.719
as opposed to driving all the time. So having a,
514
00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:35.780
You have to do it once, but automatically buying a
515
00:34:35.900 --> 00:34:41.039
bus pass for the next six months. Having shoes, buying
516
00:34:41.059 --> 00:34:44.440
a comfortable pair of tennis shoes and parking them right
517
00:34:44.519 --> 00:34:48.280
next to your door so you're reminded to walk. Buying
518
00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:51.989
a high-quality bicycle that's comfortable for you. We know, by
519
00:34:52.030 --> 00:34:57.159
the way, that just taking... A public transportation to work
520
00:34:57.239 --> 00:35:02.800
lowers your chances of dying from cardiovascular disease by about 19%.
521
00:35:02.800 --> 00:35:06.389
So I say that's changing your commute environment. So these
522
00:35:06.469 --> 00:35:07.610
are a few examples.
523
00:35:08.429 --> 00:35:11.170
Because driving is just so stressful, being in traffic?
524
00:35:11.869 --> 00:35:17.230
Well, you know Daniel Kahneman's research that on a day-to-day basis,
525
00:35:17.969 --> 00:35:21.409
the activity we hate most is driving, the one that
526
00:35:22.010 --> 00:35:27.440
causes the unhappiness. But also, so you get the stress
527
00:35:27.480 --> 00:35:31.260
from driving. But because you're driving, you're therefore not walking.
528
00:35:32.039 --> 00:35:34.380
Gallup also came up with a recent study that showed
529
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:37.079
that the number of people you wave to every day
530
00:35:37.239 --> 00:35:42.340
is highly correlated with your overall happiness and health. Very
531
00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:45.639
hard to wave to people when you get in your car,
532
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:50.119
in your attached garage, drive downtown to an underground garage
533
00:35:50.179 --> 00:35:51.920
and take the elevator to your office.
534
00:35:52.739 --> 00:35:52.920
So.
535
00:35:53.510 --> 00:35:57.789
It's both the opportunity cost and the activity itself that
536
00:35:58.269 --> 00:36:02.750
are creating lower life expectancy. You know, in blue zones,
537
00:36:03.449 --> 00:36:07.489
nobody exercises. There's no CrossFit. There's no yoga class, no
538
00:36:07.570 --> 00:36:11.699
Pilates class. Nobody's running. There's no blue zone marathon. But
539
00:36:11.739 --> 00:36:16.840
they live in communities where every time they go to work,
540
00:36:17.559 --> 00:36:20.760
a friend's house, or out to eat, it occasions a walk.
541
00:36:21.449 --> 00:36:24.409
They're taking about 8,000 steps a day without even thinking
542
00:36:24.469 --> 00:36:27.989
about it. Just getting around. They have gardens out back,
543
00:36:28.349 --> 00:36:30.889
usually three to four, two to three seasons a year.
544
00:36:31.690 --> 00:36:35.949
So they're out there bending and lifting and low intensity
545
00:36:36.010 --> 00:36:41.889
physical activity. They have, their houses aren't full mechanical conveniences
546
00:36:41.949 --> 00:36:45.179
to do their own work. Need bread by hand and
547
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:50.679
grind corn tortillas by hand. And, What we don't realize
548
00:36:50.699 --> 00:36:55.409
in sort of this exercise-obsessed culture we live in, that
549
00:36:55.489 --> 00:36:58.809
it's far better for our bodies to move every 20
550
00:36:58.809 --> 00:37:03.349
minutes than it is to sit in our chairs all
551
00:37:03.389 --> 00:37:05.349
day long, whether it's in our office, in our homes,
552
00:37:05.969 --> 00:37:08.199
and then expect to make it up 45 minutes to
553
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:11.440
the gym. That's not how we evolved. If you're moving
554
00:37:11.500 --> 00:37:13.460
every 20 minutes or so, like people do in the
555
00:37:13.480 --> 00:37:17.750
blue zones, you're keeping your metabolism higher. And you're burning
556
00:37:18.010 --> 00:37:20.880
considerably more calories than you would trying to do it
557
00:37:20.980 --> 00:37:24.079
all in one 45-minute burst at the end of the day. Yeah,
558
00:37:24.420 --> 00:37:27.559
this just all goes to support the notion that you're
559
00:37:27.639 --> 00:37:31.619
way better off living in an environment that nudges you
560
00:37:31.719 --> 00:37:36.610
unconsciously than to try to consciously pursue it, as is
561
00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:37.800
the case with exercise.
562
00:37:38.110 --> 00:37:40.949
Just curious, do you exercise or do you just try
563
00:37:40.989 --> 00:37:42.389
to move every 20 minutes or both?
564
00:37:42.889 --> 00:37:46.320
Well, I'm very, you know, I live in Miami Beach here,
565
00:37:46.500 --> 00:37:49.539
the very southern tip, and I'm looking at the ocean
566
00:37:49.800 --> 00:37:52.280
in which, you know, I can't wait to go jump
567
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:53.619
in and swim at the end of the day. I
568
00:37:54.559 --> 00:37:58.619
have 20 restaurants very nearby, Whole Foods that I bike to.
569
00:37:58.639 --> 00:38:02.760
I do most of my calls walking around. So I
570
00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:05.929
live in an environment, a neighborhood that's very easy for
571
00:38:05.949 --> 00:38:09.110
me to get healthy food, to recreate, to get physical
572
00:38:09.170 --> 00:38:12.610
activity and to walk. But I happen to also love
573
00:38:13.909 --> 00:38:20.380
exercise in the more traditional modality. And I usually get
574
00:38:20.440 --> 00:38:21.739
out and do something every day.
575
00:38:22.519 --> 00:38:26.889
So it's a yes and. You're not sedentary 23 hours
576
00:38:26.929 --> 00:38:29.969
and 15 minutes and then 45 minutes of working out.
577
00:38:30.690 --> 00:38:33.130
You do some working out, but your life is designed
578
00:38:33.469 --> 00:38:34.570
to move naturally.
579
00:38:35.769 --> 00:38:41.389
Correct. And I don't I don't exercise in the way
580
00:38:41.610 --> 00:38:47.650
most people exercise. It is not, I'm not competitive. I'm not,
581
00:38:47.829 --> 00:38:50.530
it's not in my outlook. It's not a chore. It's
582
00:38:50.590 --> 00:38:53.639
part of my day. I really make it a rule
583
00:38:53.960 --> 00:38:57.579
for myself. Two rules. One, I'm going to do something
584
00:38:57.619 --> 00:39:00.619
every day. But the second part of it is that
585
00:39:00.840 --> 00:39:03.699
I enjoy. Today it might be swimming. It might be
586
00:39:03.929 --> 00:39:06.909
a fat tire bike. I go pedal in the sand.
587
00:39:07.409 --> 00:39:10.030
I have a bunch of friends who play pickleball or Padel.
588
00:39:10.070 --> 00:39:12.760
Maybe it's to go out with them. I do go
589
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:15.780
to a gym, but it's very social. And I go
590
00:39:15.820 --> 00:39:21.010
down there and I listen to my favorite podcast, 10% Happier,
591
00:39:21.010 --> 00:39:24.510
and lift weights and stretch a little bit. And it's
592
00:39:24.510 --> 00:39:26.909
a joy. You know, it's not it's not a chore.
593
00:39:27.539 --> 00:39:32.079
The minute it becomes a chore, people stop doing it.
594
00:39:32.500 --> 00:39:34.940
And again, if it, when it comes to longevity, unless
595
00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:39.139
you're doing it close to daily for a lifetime, it's
596
00:39:39.300 --> 00:39:42.300
probably not making a difference in how long you're going
597
00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:43.219
to live over the long run.
598
00:39:44.070 --> 00:39:45.710
Let me go back to something small. This was at
599
00:39:45.730 --> 00:39:48.449
the beginning of your list of little nudges and hacks
600
00:39:48.469 --> 00:39:50.409
that you can do around your house to make it
601
00:39:50.690 --> 00:39:54.699
more conducive to longevity. You said something about ditching the toaster,
602
00:39:54.739 --> 00:39:57.559
and maybe I'm being obtuse, but I didn't quite understand
603
00:39:58.059 --> 00:40:00.820
why having a toaster could have deleterious effects.
604
00:40:02.099 --> 00:40:05.909
Because there's almost nothing that comes out of a toaster
605
00:40:05.949 --> 00:40:09.429
that's good for us. Most of the breads and the
606
00:40:09.550 --> 00:40:13.510
Pop-Tarts and the bagels are It's not good. It provides
607
00:40:13.550 --> 00:40:15.920
a prompt for you. You know, we walk through our
608
00:40:15.980 --> 00:40:19.239
kitchen a dozen times a day. You don't remember you're
609
00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:22.119
hungry until you see the toaster and say, oh, toaster.
610
00:40:22.699 --> 00:40:25.599
You go into our pantry and we find that raisin
611
00:40:25.639 --> 00:40:28.179
cinnamon bread or white bread that we're going to put
612
00:40:28.559 --> 00:40:31.510
butter and jam on, whatever it is, or Pop-Tarts, and
613
00:40:31.530 --> 00:40:35.889
we pop it in our toaster. Again, it's what we see.
614
00:40:37.150 --> 00:40:40.719
As opposed to having a high-quality fruit bowl....
615
00:40:42.179 --> 00:40:44.889
He's walking to get his fruit bowl. Now he's returning
616
00:40:44.929 --> 00:40:49.489
with said fruit bowl. That looks like a still life.
617
00:40:50.170 --> 00:40:55.289
Well, it's avocados and tangerines and limes and lemons. And,
618
00:40:56.630 --> 00:40:58.969
you know, that's what I see. So when I'm hungry,
619
00:40:59.889 --> 00:41:02.329
I'm way more likely to pick this up than to,
620
00:41:02.789 --> 00:41:06.070
you know, put something in a toaster that I'm going
621
00:41:06.090 --> 00:41:09.510
to put butter on or the worst thing is chips.
622
00:41:10.460 --> 00:41:13.889
Those chip clips, those are the worst. The Cornell Food
623
00:41:13.929 --> 00:41:16.190
Lab has done a study, and I can't quote you
624
00:41:16.230 --> 00:41:20.250
right now what the results were, but I remember seeing
625
00:41:20.309 --> 00:41:26.050
a study that those are the worst source of eating
626
00:41:26.110 --> 00:41:29.449
junky food in your home. The other little hack is,
627
00:41:29.829 --> 00:41:32.030
you know, I like to treat myself like everybody else
628
00:41:32.070 --> 00:41:34.570
does with ice cream and sweets and sort of. I
629
00:41:34.590 --> 00:41:37.699
just don't bring them in my house. So then when
630
00:41:37.739 --> 00:41:39.760
I'm here, I'm not even tempted by it because I
631
00:41:39.800 --> 00:41:42.070
can't get at it. But I go out and I
632
00:41:42.070 --> 00:41:47.650
like to treat myself. I think it's wrong-minded to restrict yourself.
633
00:41:48.630 --> 00:41:53.289
Because if you're restricting yourself, you're eventually going to fail. So, Dan,
634
00:41:53.329 --> 00:41:55.329
if you invite me over to your house and you
635
00:41:55.369 --> 00:41:58.309
serve me chocolate cake and ice cream, I'll eat it.
636
00:41:59.260 --> 00:42:00.420
But you won't find it in my house.
637
00:42:01.019 --> 00:42:03.409
If and when you come to my house... I will
638
00:42:03.449 --> 00:42:05.360
definitely serve you cake and ice cream. I'm a fan
639
00:42:05.699 --> 00:42:06.099
of both.
640
00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:09.980
Well, I'm expecting an invitation, Dan. You know, given your
641
00:42:10.019 --> 00:42:10.579
first name.
642
00:42:12.500 --> 00:42:14.639
Let's keep going through some of these Blue Zones just
643
00:42:14.679 --> 00:42:17.380
so we can get some more flavor of the locales.
644
00:42:17.599 --> 00:42:20.900
Another one, and I'm probably going to make a mincemeat
645
00:42:21.079 --> 00:42:24.940
of this name, but it's an island in Greece. Ikaria?
646
00:42:25.860 --> 00:42:26.699
Ikaria.
647
00:42:27.320 --> 00:42:28.840
What do we need to know about Ikaria?
648
00:42:29.929 --> 00:42:33.989
It is a, once again, isolated island of 10,000 people,
649
00:42:34.030 --> 00:42:38.389
largely overlooked by Western civilization. Live about eight years longer
650
00:42:38.449 --> 00:42:41.739
than us, but about one-tenth the dementia we suffer in
651
00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:46.119
the United States. We don't know why, but along with
652
00:42:46.239 --> 00:42:49.119
living a long time, they're staying sharp to the very end. Now,
653
00:42:49.159 --> 00:42:52.019
a few things that are interesting. Number one, it's very
654
00:42:52.059 --> 00:42:56.349
hard to find more than 100 yards of flat terrain there,
655
00:42:56.630 --> 00:42:59.900
except for the airports. And just like Sardinia, where we
656
00:42:59.960 --> 00:43:03.719
found that the steeper the village, the higher the life expectancy.
657
00:43:03.860 --> 00:43:06.519
First of all, they eat the strictest version of the
658
00:43:06.559 --> 00:43:12.300
Mediterranean diet in the world. And they also include in
659
00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:18.980
their diet liberal use of herbs, specifically rosemary, sage, oregano,
660
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:23.190
and kind of a mint, catnip, they call it. And
661
00:43:23.710 --> 00:43:26.369
these herbs are used not only for medicinal purposes and
662
00:43:26.389 --> 00:43:30.119
to flavor food, but as teas. largely because they weren't
663
00:43:30.159 --> 00:43:32.929
importing coffee, but they liked warm beverages. So they just
664
00:43:32.989 --> 00:43:35.389
go into the fields or their backyard and they take
665
00:43:35.429 --> 00:43:39.909
these herbs, which grow like weeds and they make infusions
666
00:43:39.969 --> 00:43:44.090
from them. But all of these herbs are, are anti-inflammatory.
667
00:43:44.489 --> 00:43:49.349
They're oxidant, uh, they're diuretics, which lower blood pressure. So,
668
00:43:49.989 --> 00:43:54.380
you know, one theory is this, uh, one of the
669
00:43:54.880 --> 00:44:00.849
possible contributors to longevity, they, um, They have lower blood
670
00:44:00.869 --> 00:44:04.750
pressure for a long time, fewer heart attacks, and less
671
00:44:04.789 --> 00:44:05.789
vascular dementia.
672
00:44:06.690 --> 00:44:10.380
Let's keep going through the two others, and then I
673
00:44:10.380 --> 00:44:13.860
have a million other questions for you. Nicoya, Costa Rica.
674
00:44:14.480 --> 00:44:18.340
What stuck out to me is, and you may have
675
00:44:18.400 --> 00:44:20.599
other things you want to say about Nicoya, but is
676
00:44:20.699 --> 00:44:24.929
this notion of purpose. They have this concept in Nicoya
677
00:44:25.050 --> 00:44:28.829
of plan de vida, which is like a life plan,
678
00:44:28.869 --> 00:44:29.070
I guess.
679
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:34.539
In all blue zones, there's vocabulary for purpose. In Okinawa,
680
00:44:34.599 --> 00:44:38.920
it's ikigai. And believe it or not, people who can
681
00:44:39.239 --> 00:44:43.239
articulate their sense of purpose live about eight years longer
682
00:44:43.280 --> 00:44:46.980
than people who are rudderless. A lot of it in
683
00:44:47.460 --> 00:44:51.219
Nicoya comes from their religion. About 95% of them are Catholic.
684
00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:54.179
They're very family-oriented. So if you ask most of them
685
00:44:54.219 --> 00:44:57.110
what their plan de vida, it almost always involves the
686
00:44:57.139 --> 00:45:02.380
Lord and family. And for as cliched or trite as
687
00:45:02.420 --> 00:45:04.420
that may sound, it actually does work.
688
00:45:06.059 --> 00:45:07.000
What's the mechanism?
689
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:13.030
When you're clearing your sense of purpose, day-to-day decisions are easier.
690
00:45:13.050 --> 00:45:18.530
It forms sort of ballast in hard times. You're not
691
00:45:18.710 --> 00:45:21.710
dealing with the existential stress of, you know, what am
692
00:45:21.750 --> 00:45:26.670
I doing on this planet? Where's my self-worth? Where's my value?
693
00:45:27.550 --> 00:45:32.159
It's a very useful mechanism. way to make life less stressful.
694
00:45:32.179 --> 00:45:34.840
You know, I know you've made a lot that your
695
00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:37.659
study of the Blue Zones has had an impact on
696
00:45:37.699 --> 00:45:41.699
how you live your life. Do you have an articulation
697
00:45:41.739 --> 00:45:44.070
of your purpose that has been useful to you?
698
00:45:45.289 --> 00:45:53.010
Yes. My purpose is going out into the world, researching
699
00:45:53.130 --> 00:46:00.630
traditional peoples, learning their wisdom, and translating their wisdom to
700
00:46:01.789 --> 00:46:06.139
my audiences, I guess, in my writing. I've done that
701
00:46:06.139 --> 00:46:10.639
40 years ago. My first quote-unquote job after college was
702
00:46:10.739 --> 00:46:14.719
biking from Alaska to Argentina, and I biked around the world,
703
00:46:14.739 --> 00:46:18.460
and then I biked across Africa. And in a more
704
00:46:18.539 --> 00:46:22.210
superficial way, I wrote books, and I wrote for Outside
705
00:46:22.269 --> 00:46:25.449
Magazine and Chicago Tribune, and then I did a series
706
00:46:25.510 --> 00:46:30.190
of these expeditions that solved mysteries. And it never really
707
00:46:30.250 --> 00:46:32.150
occurred to me, you know, they started out as kind
708
00:46:32.190 --> 00:46:36.989
of facile. Why did the Maya civilization collapse? But ultimately,
709
00:46:37.010 --> 00:46:40.880
the best answers came from talking to the contemporary people
710
00:46:40.900 --> 00:46:43.920
who are still living there today. And I was more
711
00:46:43.940 --> 00:46:47.969
and more intrigued with how their quality of life was
712
00:46:48.090 --> 00:46:50.789
greater than ours. I mean, even though they're not necessarily
713
00:46:50.849 --> 00:46:55.070
as rich, they lived richer lives. And Blue Zones is
714
00:46:55.190 --> 00:46:58.610
the summation of that. And my books, Blue Zones of Happiness,
715
00:46:58.690 --> 00:47:04.800
also sought to even delve into that notion even deeper.
716
00:47:04.820 --> 00:47:08.039
It reminds me of, I think it was Benjamin Franklin
717
00:47:08.079 --> 00:47:13.920
who observed that there were so many white people running
718
00:47:13.980 --> 00:47:18.599
away and joining indigenous tribes, but never the opposite or
719
00:47:18.679 --> 00:47:21.360
rarely the opposite. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
720
00:47:23.309 --> 00:47:26.090
I believe it. A lot of these people go to
721
00:47:26.150 --> 00:47:30.050
these blue zones and never come back, especially in Costa Rica,
722
00:47:30.389 --> 00:47:34.639
because once you start living there, maybe you're not living
723
00:47:35.079 --> 00:47:38.659
in as big of a house or shopping at Costco
724
00:47:38.679 --> 00:47:41.420
or driving a fancy car, but the quality of life,
725
00:47:42.579 --> 00:47:47.010
it's an important aspect. I mean, you're familiar with the
726
00:47:47.210 --> 00:47:52.070
Gallup's life satisfaction data. When you look at these blue zones,
727
00:47:52.090 --> 00:47:55.230
they're all in the top quintile of the happiest places
728
00:47:56.030 --> 00:47:59.320
in the world. And in fact, Costa Rica, which is
729
00:47:59.380 --> 00:48:03.139
near the top and positive affect is also a blue zone.
730
00:48:03.960 --> 00:48:07.159
You know, you, you spend, we spent about $ 83 billion
731
00:48:07.199 --> 00:48:11.590
a year on anti-aging. None of it's been proven to
732
00:48:11.949 --> 00:48:15.710
stop slower reverse aging in humans and And even if
733
00:48:15.769 --> 00:48:20.110
it does work, it would probably just prolong a crappy life. Meanwhile,
734
00:48:20.139 --> 00:48:24.579
in blue zones, they're living a long time because they're
735
00:48:24.599 --> 00:48:27.380
growing their own food and they live close to nature
736
00:48:27.519 --> 00:48:29.940
and they walk to their friend's house and they eat
737
00:48:29.980 --> 00:48:33.340
with their families and they go to church or temple
738
00:48:33.449 --> 00:48:37.710
on Sundays or they, uh, they slow down. They know
739
00:48:37.750 --> 00:48:41.130
their purpose and their path for an extra eight to
740
00:48:41.130 --> 00:48:46.719
10 years is joyous. And, uh, I mean, that's the
741
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:48.010
real value proposition.
742
00:48:49.030 --> 00:48:51.670
Staying on the subject of purpose, and this will get
743
00:48:51.750 --> 00:48:55.710
us to the fifth blue zone, you mentioned in the
744
00:48:55.769 --> 00:49:00.909
context of Okinawa, the Japanese island, this notion of ikigai.
745
00:49:01.969 --> 00:49:02.710
What is that?
746
00:49:03.769 --> 00:49:10.840
It's basically purpose, but it always has a altruistic dimension
747
00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:16.469
to it. In other words, it's not just... pursuing your hobby.
748
00:49:16.489 --> 00:49:22.710
It's pursuing something because it benefits you. somebody else, either
749
00:49:22.750 --> 00:49:26.590
the community or a younger generation or a family. So
750
00:49:26.630 --> 00:49:29.210
it's sort of a purpose on steroids.
751
00:49:29.409 --> 00:49:32.150
Maybe you would call this a kind of enlightened self-interest.
752
00:49:34.289 --> 00:49:36.780
Well, I suppose. I don't know if they think of
753
00:49:36.820 --> 00:49:38.880
it as self-interest, though. I think they think of it
754
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:42.059
as they're doing their duty to their family or their community.
755
00:49:43.260 --> 00:49:47.340
But I guess to the extent that doing your duty
756
00:49:47.380 --> 00:49:50.050
makes us feel good, it would be self-interest.
757
00:49:50.360 --> 00:49:54.389
Yes, it's a slippery concept, but it reminds me of
758
00:49:54.429 --> 00:49:58.869
the Dalai Lama's idea of wise selfishness. Everybody's selfish, he says,
759
00:49:59.349 --> 00:50:02.900
but if you want to do selfishness correctly... you should
760
00:50:02.940 --> 00:50:06.090
live an altruistic and compassionate life because that is what
761
00:50:06.119 --> 00:50:08.050
will make you feel the best.
762
00:50:09.010 --> 00:50:09.750
That's beautiful.
763
00:50:10.329 --> 00:50:15.449
Okay. So Okinawa, I have not watched this video myself,
764
00:50:15.489 --> 00:50:17.389
but my staff told me about it, that there was
765
00:50:17.409 --> 00:50:19.769
a recent video, I believe, posted by you saying that
766
00:50:19.849 --> 00:50:24.190
maybe Okinawa had been disqualified as a blue zone. What's
767
00:50:24.210 --> 00:50:24.869
happening there?
768
00:50:26.190 --> 00:50:29.679
Well, since I started studying the place 25 years ago
769
00:50:29.699 --> 00:50:35.300
in 1999, They were producing the longest of human beings
770
00:50:35.480 --> 00:50:40.260
in the history of the world. But now, thanks largely
771
00:50:40.300 --> 00:50:44.210
to the American military base, it attracted a forest of
772
00:50:44.309 --> 00:50:48.550
fast food restaurants, McDonald's, KFCs, Pizza Huts, A & W,
773
00:50:49.989 --> 00:50:57.369
and also a snarl of highways. And now, Okinawa has
774
00:50:57.469 --> 00:51:01.530
among the highest obesity rates, the highest type 2 diabetes rates,
775
00:51:01.590 --> 00:51:06.010
the highest smoking rates, and it's the least healthy of
776
00:51:07.010 --> 00:51:13.480
Japan's prefectures. So in one generation, they've lost their blue
777
00:51:13.519 --> 00:51:16.739
zone standing. You can still see vestiges of it. If
778
00:51:16.780 --> 00:51:20.579
you go to the villages and the smaller islands, Okinawa
779
00:51:20.699 --> 00:51:23.659
is 151 islands. It's not just one island. So some
780
00:51:23.699 --> 00:51:27.539
of the smaller islands are still blue zone-ish. And in
781
00:51:27.579 --> 00:51:32.239
the north, the Motobu Peninsula and places like Ogimi, you
782
00:51:32.280 --> 00:51:38.159
still see, it's still blue zones. But most of the 1.6
783
00:51:38.159 --> 00:51:43.519
million people in Okinawa are among Japanese, Japan's least healthy people.
784
00:51:44.260 --> 00:51:45.159
And that's a tragedy.
785
00:51:45.599 --> 00:51:49.420
Are you seeing similar threats to the other blue zones
786
00:51:49.500 --> 00:51:53.090
or because many of them are isolated, are they safe?
787
00:51:54.309 --> 00:51:58.590
They're only isolated to an extent and they're all disappearing.
788
00:52:01.630 --> 00:52:05.110
They'll all be gone in a generation, I think. I mean,
789
00:52:05.150 --> 00:52:08.840
I was just in Nicoya about three weeks ago. And
790
00:52:08.980 --> 00:52:11.119
there's a city of Nicoya as well as a peninsula.
791
00:52:11.159 --> 00:52:13.579
And as you enter the city of Nicoya, you see
792
00:52:13.639 --> 00:52:19.559
a McDonald's, a Burger King, and a KFC. And that
793
00:52:19.619 --> 00:52:22.800
is the beginning of the end. Obesity is on the rise.
794
00:52:22.840 --> 00:52:24.889
You have two diabetes on the rise in all of
795
00:52:24.929 --> 00:52:28.110
these blue zones. A little bit more protected at Icaria.
796
00:52:28.510 --> 00:52:32.690
The young people there really do honor older people and
797
00:52:32.809 --> 00:52:36.059
older traditions. And the younger generations are bringing back these
798
00:52:36.179 --> 00:52:43.300
and preserving these traditions of gardening and panayiri, their social
799
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:48.019
gatherings and so forth. But I'm afraid Blue Zone will
800
00:52:48.039 --> 00:52:52.139
be a thing of the past in the very near future.
801
00:52:52.699 --> 00:52:55.789
So the bad news is? As you just said, Blue
802
00:52:55.829 --> 00:52:58.090
Zones may be a thing of the past. I guess
803
00:52:58.130 --> 00:53:03.179
the good news is we can still take the lessons
804
00:53:03.880 --> 00:53:06.719
from the traditional lifestyles and apply them to our own lives.
805
00:53:06.760 --> 00:53:11.739
That's right. We captured the blueprint. My daytime job, I've
806
00:53:11.820 --> 00:53:16.780
worked with 72 cities in America, and we get paid
807
00:53:16.820 --> 00:53:20.530
by insurance companies or hospital systems to lower the obesity rate.
808
00:53:21.239 --> 00:53:24.360
And the chronic disease loads of entire cities, thereby raising
809
00:53:24.400 --> 00:53:27.760
their life expectancy. And it actually works. And it works
810
00:53:27.820 --> 00:53:30.719
not by trying to convince a million people to change
811
00:53:30.760 --> 00:53:34.699
their behavior. But it works because we change people's environments.
812
00:53:34.820 --> 00:53:37.090
So the healthy choice is the easy choice or the
813
00:53:37.170 --> 00:53:42.730
unavoidable choice. And therein, Blue Zones will survive. And I
814
00:53:43.449 --> 00:53:48.329
also had a Netflix series called Live to 100 Secrets
815
00:53:48.369 --> 00:53:51.469
of the Blue Zones. And in the fourth episode of that,
816
00:53:51.530 --> 00:53:57.500
I announced a Blue Zone 2.0 Singapore, where in one lifetime,
817
00:53:57.559 --> 00:54:01.619
life expectancy has jumped by over 20 years. And now
818
00:54:01.699 --> 00:54:05.599
they currently have the longest health-adjusted life expectancy in the world.
819
00:54:05.639 --> 00:54:07.880
In other words, they live more years in full health
820
00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:10.539
than any place else in the world. And that is
821
00:54:10.599 --> 00:54:16.579
a wholly manufactured Blue Zone. It's the result of leadership
822
00:54:16.739 --> 00:54:23.780
that has proactively... aggregated policies that favor human health and well-being,
823
00:54:24.639 --> 00:54:29.329
and they have manifestly produced healthier people. Further proof of
824
00:54:29.369 --> 00:54:32.309
the central premise that if you create an environment where
825
00:54:32.630 --> 00:54:36.110
humans can thrive, you see it in their life expectancy
826
00:54:36.150 --> 00:54:42.059
and their happiness. And if you rely on diets and
827
00:54:42.119 --> 00:54:45.739
exercise programs and a bloated healthcare system like we do
828
00:54:45.780 --> 00:54:49.070
in the United States, we get very expensive ill health.
829
00:54:49.750 --> 00:54:51.389
I want to go back to the Powered Nine. These
830
00:54:51.429 --> 00:54:55.110
are the lifestyle habits of the world's healthiest and longest
831
00:54:55.190 --> 00:54:58.309
lived people. You ran through, you kind of did a
832
00:54:58.329 --> 00:55:01.670
drive-by of them. And then when we were talking about
833
00:55:01.710 --> 00:55:05.210
the specific blue zones, you said a lot about many
834
00:55:05.250 --> 00:55:07.469
of these, but I'm just going to read them quickly
835
00:55:07.550 --> 00:55:11.030
to the audience and then pick a few where I
836
00:55:11.070 --> 00:55:15.969
feel more could be said. So first move naturally. We've
837
00:55:16.010 --> 00:55:19.070
talked about that, that the world's longest lived people aren't
838
00:55:19.139 --> 00:55:21.760
necessarily going to the gym. They just live in environments
839
00:55:21.800 --> 00:55:24.599
that encourage them to work without thinking to, to move
840
00:55:24.639 --> 00:55:28.400
without thinking about it to purpose. We've talked about that
841
00:55:28.860 --> 00:55:33.619
three downshift might be worth stopping on this for a second.
842
00:55:33.659 --> 00:55:35.480
I know we've touched on it a little bit, but
843
00:55:36.559 --> 00:55:40.730
it seems like life in a blue zone is, has
844
00:55:40.809 --> 00:55:45.550
built into it breaks that many of us in our
845
00:55:45.809 --> 00:55:49.710
headlong effort to check things off our to-do list do
846
00:55:49.789 --> 00:55:53.590
not have in our lives. So what more would you
847
00:55:53.679 --> 00:55:54.559
say about that?
848
00:55:55.260 --> 00:55:59.260
I would say our grandparents knew it. You know, I'm
849
00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:03.079
not a religious person, but prayer is a pretty good
850
00:56:03.119 --> 00:56:05.860
strategy to slow down and take the focus off of
851
00:56:06.760 --> 00:56:10.570
whatever you're busy with onto something else. Taking a nap.
852
00:56:11.829 --> 00:56:16.690
You see it throughout the Mediterranean area in Europe. People
853
00:56:16.730 --> 00:56:19.250
taking a siesta. You see it in Latin America as well.
854
00:56:19.309 --> 00:56:21.989
But we know people who take a nap, their lower
855
00:56:22.050 --> 00:56:26.550
cortisol levels. I saw one study that showed the chance
856
00:56:26.610 --> 00:56:29.929
of cardiovascular disease is about 30% lower in people who
857
00:56:30.010 --> 00:56:34.130
nap than people who don't nap. Ancestor veneration or taking
858
00:56:34.190 --> 00:56:37.409
a moment to remember that you're not just a point
859
00:56:37.449 --> 00:56:40.539
in time but part of a continuum. as we see
860
00:56:40.559 --> 00:56:44.280
it in Okinawa and Sardinia, it's almost all, you know,
861
00:56:44.300 --> 00:56:46.989
we call it happy hour, but at the end of
862
00:56:47.050 --> 00:56:50.070
a day's work, there's always the reward where you're going
863
00:56:50.110 --> 00:56:53.630
to walk down to the town square, the town tavern
864
00:56:53.670 --> 00:56:57.690
and see your friends, have an hour of conviviality, maybe
865
00:56:57.710 --> 00:57:00.869
a glass or two of wine. These are the things that,
866
00:57:01.429 --> 00:57:04.420
that not only bring joy to life, but they actually
867
00:57:04.840 --> 00:57:09.710
lower cortisol levels. They lower stress levels and they, We
868
00:57:09.769 --> 00:57:16.849
know that inflammation is the root of every major age-related disease.
869
00:57:17.710 --> 00:57:20.929
And if you're muscling through your day, you're working nine
870
00:57:20.969 --> 00:57:25.199
hours a day, you drive home, your hour-long commute, it's
871
00:57:25.409 --> 00:57:29.420
a stressful commute. You get home, your kids are screaming
872
00:57:29.539 --> 00:57:33.260
or kids are hungry. You got to bring dinner together quickly.
873
00:57:33.280 --> 00:57:37.860
You go to bed late and tired. You wake up tired. Sure,
874
00:57:38.099 --> 00:57:41.619
that might be a recipe for making more money, but
875
00:57:42.219 --> 00:57:45.909
blues on that whole process is slowed down without the
876
00:57:45.949 --> 00:57:49.489
hormones and could very well explain much of their seven
877
00:57:49.510 --> 00:57:51.630
to eight year life expectancy gain.
878
00:57:52.570 --> 00:57:55.469
Thanks for that. Number four on the list is the
879
00:57:55.469 --> 00:57:59.940
80% rule, which I also think bears some explication from you.
880
00:58:00.840 --> 00:58:04.579
It has to do with not overeating. Can you explain it?
881
00:58:05.619 --> 00:58:09.460
So it's riffing off of a Confucian adage, hara hachi bu,
882
00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:14.099
which means roughly stop eating when your stomach is 80% full.
883
00:58:14.480 --> 00:58:18.159
And in Okinawa, you'll still see people before a meal,
884
00:58:18.219 --> 00:58:22.869
instead of saying grace, they'll say hara hachi bu. So
885
00:58:23.869 --> 00:58:27.389
I expanded it a little bit to evidence-based strategies to
886
00:58:27.449 --> 00:58:30.730
keep from overeating. And a few things we know work,
887
00:58:31.389 --> 00:58:36.550
taking screens, TV screens out of the kitchen, eating with family,
888
00:58:37.829 --> 00:58:42.190
saying some prayer or some gratitude before a meal to
889
00:58:42.250 --> 00:58:46.199
put some punctuation between your busy life and your meal time,
890
00:58:48.599 --> 00:58:53.820
front-loading your calories at the beginning of the day and
891
00:58:54.139 --> 00:58:57.510
eating a light dinner and then not eating for 14 hours.
892
00:58:57.550 --> 00:59:01.449
These are all strategies to keep from overeating. This runs
893
00:59:01.570 --> 00:59:07.000
right in opposition to where we've been marketed for most
894
00:59:07.039 --> 00:59:11.139
of our lives, this idea that we need more nutrients.
895
00:59:12.179 --> 00:59:18.679
Every power bar and every vitamin fortified cereal and vitamin
896
00:59:18.699 --> 00:59:23.750
D fortified milk. We've been told for decades that the
897
00:59:24.150 --> 00:59:31.349
path to health is through these additive minerals and vitamins
898
00:59:31.409 --> 00:59:35.690
and nutrients. But actually in Blue Zones, it's about taking
899
00:59:35.750 --> 00:59:39.460
calories out of the meal, not adding new things to it.
900
00:59:40.690 --> 00:59:44.639
I love that. Number five on the list is plant slant.
901
00:59:44.780 --> 00:59:48.579
We've covered that, that many of these people are not
902
00:59:48.659 --> 00:59:52.179
eating too much meat. Number six is wine at five,
903
00:59:52.460 --> 00:59:56.230
which you also talked about that folks are drinking alcohol
904
00:59:56.369 --> 01:00:01.000
moderately and regularly. How do you square that with, and
905
01:00:01.019 --> 01:00:04.179
I know you referenced this earlier, the more recent data
906
01:00:04.360 --> 01:00:08.099
that suggests that alcohol is basically poison at any dose?
907
01:00:08.739 --> 01:00:12.699
First of all, I know it's not mutually exclusive with
908
01:00:12.739 --> 01:00:18.239
living a long, healthy life because these people are manifestly
909
01:00:18.300 --> 01:00:21.019
living eight or 10 years longer and they're drinking every day.
910
01:00:21.199 --> 01:00:24.019
And obviously you can't draw a causal relation, but you can,
911
01:00:24.719 --> 01:00:26.409
and maybe if they didn't drink at all, they live
912
01:00:26.449 --> 01:00:29.739
two or three more years or maybe not. But I
913
01:00:29.800 --> 01:00:38.670
think these studies miss the healthy byproducts of drinking. Coming
914
01:00:38.710 --> 01:00:41.050
together around a glass of wine is part of a
915
01:00:41.110 --> 01:00:48.489
daily ritual that socializes people and sheds stress. It's the
916
01:00:49.199 --> 01:00:55.039
fuel for these parties, the panayiris, which ultimately are fundraisers
917
01:00:55.159 --> 01:01:01.820
for the village and cement social... Bonds, also the type
918
01:01:01.860 --> 01:01:05.849
of alcohol they drink in blue zones. You know, these
919
01:01:05.989 --> 01:01:09.030
studies are done with alcohol. Well, when you drink a
920
01:01:09.070 --> 01:01:13.389
blue zone, a Continental, for example, in Sardinia, that has
921
01:01:13.429 --> 01:01:16.590
the highest levels of polyphenols of any other wine in
922
01:01:16.639 --> 01:01:20.500
the world. One of those polyphenols is known to reduce
923
01:01:20.579 --> 01:01:24.300
inflammation of the endothelia, the lining of the arteries. So
924
01:01:24.320 --> 01:01:26.980
when you're drinking that every day, as opposed to a
925
01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:30.650
margarita or a beer, you're biochemically, the results could be
926
01:01:30.690 --> 01:01:35.820
hugely different. So all I know is people in the
927
01:01:35.860 --> 01:01:38.719
blue zones live a long time and they drink a
928
01:01:38.760 --> 01:01:40.960
little bit every day and they enjoy it.
929
01:01:41.659 --> 01:01:45.800
The final three entries in the Power Nine all are
930
01:01:45.860 --> 01:01:49.489
about social connection. Number seven is belong. And that's about
931
01:01:50.610 --> 01:01:52.789
the data that seems to suggest that belonging to a
932
01:01:52.849 --> 01:01:58.610
faith-based community, no matter what the denomination, has longevity implications.
933
01:01:59.309 --> 01:02:03.630
Eight is loved ones first, people putting their families first,
934
01:02:03.969 --> 01:02:07.289
which we've talked about. And nine is having the right tribe,
935
01:02:07.949 --> 01:02:12.630
being in a tight-knit social circle that lasts for quite
936
01:02:12.650 --> 01:02:17.280
a while. Anything more worth saying about this portion of
937
01:02:17.340 --> 01:02:18.809
the list, or do you think we've covered it?
938
01:02:19.360 --> 01:02:20.139
I think you've covered it.
939
01:02:23.159 --> 01:02:25.420
There was a recent study that suggested that the number
940
01:02:25.440 --> 01:02:31.320
of centenarians in Blue Zone's is factually inaccurate in part
941
01:02:31.360 --> 01:02:35.730
because of errors in record keeping or because some people
942
01:02:35.769 --> 01:02:38.030
are claiming to be older than they are in order
943
01:02:38.050 --> 01:02:42.809
to get their pensions earlier. So this data has been
944
01:02:42.869 --> 01:02:45.570
warped in some way. What's your pushback on that?
945
01:02:46.050 --> 01:02:50.539
You're probably referring to a plant scientist by the name
946
01:02:50.579 --> 01:02:56.400
of Saul Newman, who wrote one paper, which actually wasn't
947
01:02:56.420 --> 01:03:01.829
accepted by an academic journal. He brought up errors in
948
01:03:02.230 --> 01:03:06.340
recording areas in non-blue zone area, other parts of Japan,
949
01:03:07.010 --> 01:03:12.059
not in blue zones. I work for National Geographic. The record,
950
01:03:12.159 --> 01:03:16.940
the fact checkers occupy the corner offices. We hired the,
951
01:03:17.320 --> 01:03:21.139
or we collaborate with the top demographers in the world
952
01:03:21.159 --> 01:03:25.760
to carefully check ages in each one of the blue zones. And, um,
953
01:03:27.179 --> 01:03:29.940
In every case, we were able to find birth records
954
01:03:30.239 --> 01:03:32.739
and death records and do the math between the two.
955
01:03:32.760 --> 01:03:40.739
So, summation, this guy Saul Newman is criticizing the Blue
956
01:03:40.780 --> 01:03:44.289
Zones methodology, but you're saying the methodology is sound.
957
01:03:45.369 --> 01:03:50.809
Yeah, he's finding places that aren't Blue Zones, and he's
958
01:03:50.889 --> 01:03:55.889
leveling criticisms that maybe true elsewhere, but not better. They're
959
01:03:55.909 --> 01:03:59.510
not true in blue zones, at least in record keeping accuracy.
960
01:04:00.409 --> 01:04:03.730
He also correctly, you know, as an effort to undermine
961
01:04:03.750 --> 01:04:08.809
a blue zones works, he cites Okinawa is high rates
962
01:04:08.869 --> 01:04:12.710
of obesity, but what he doesn't do is go back
963
01:04:12.710 --> 01:04:16.349
25 years. When I started my work to discover that
964
01:04:16.510 --> 01:04:19.389
actually then it was the highest, they produced in the
965
01:04:19.489 --> 01:04:22.650
longest of people in the world, And it has deteriorated
966
01:04:22.750 --> 01:04:25.070
in the last 25 years. Nothing I can do about that.
967
01:04:25.150 --> 01:04:28.110
Something I readily acknowledge in my writings and in Netflix,
968
01:04:28.989 --> 01:04:33.039
but it no way undermines the fact that they did
969
01:04:33.079 --> 01:04:35.139
live a long time and that there were a set
970
01:04:35.219 --> 01:04:39.420
of attending characteristics that went along with that longevity.
971
01:04:40.300 --> 01:04:42.840
Let's talk about the diet. There have been some folks
972
01:04:42.860 --> 01:04:47.159
who've said that the Blue Zone diet is based less
973
01:04:47.280 --> 01:04:50.940
on solid science and more on speculation. How solid, in
974
01:04:50.960 --> 01:04:54.500
your view, is the science of the Blue Zone diet?
975
01:04:55.539 --> 01:04:59.280
So the criticisms are usually from the carnivore crowd who
976
01:04:59.420 --> 01:05:02.559
go to Sardinia or Okinawa today, and they look at
977
01:05:02.599 --> 01:05:05.619
what people are eating today, and they correctly see that
978
01:05:05.679 --> 01:05:09.239
people are eating a lot of meat. My work, however,
979
01:05:09.260 --> 01:05:14.090
I wrote about in the New York Times Sunday magazine article,
980
01:05:14.130 --> 01:05:17.190
The Island Where People Get to Die, and also the
981
01:05:17.250 --> 01:05:21.050
book called The Blue Zone Solution, which was a two-time
982
01:05:21.090 --> 01:05:25.380
New York Times bestseller. For that, we did a meta-analysis
983
01:05:25.440 --> 01:05:31.099
of 155 dietary studies, dietary surveys that were, if you
984
01:05:31.119 --> 01:05:32.800
want to know what, as I said before, what a
985
01:05:32.840 --> 01:05:35.719
centenarian ate, you have to look not what they're eating today,
986
01:05:35.760 --> 01:05:38.800
but they were eating throughout their lives. And the closest
987
01:05:38.840 --> 01:05:42.929
we could approximate that was pulling dietary surveys and doing
988
01:05:42.969 --> 01:05:47.550
a meta-analysis, which essentially is an averaging. And is it
989
01:05:47.550 --> 01:05:52.460
100% accurate? No, but it's the best available. And it's
990
01:05:52.559 --> 01:05:56.340
very clear that in all of these places, these were
991
01:05:56.420 --> 01:06:02.000
poor areas. There weren't any McDonald's. People didn't have enough
992
01:06:02.139 --> 01:06:04.500
money to be able to eat meat more than about
993
01:06:04.679 --> 01:06:09.539
once a week. There were no processed foods. So to
994
01:06:09.599 --> 01:06:14.050
assert that somehow I've made this up is just foolishness.
995
01:06:14.340 --> 01:06:19.909
What did this mean? somehow import burgers from the mail
996
01:06:19.989 --> 01:06:22.349
or something like that. They just weren't around to eat.
997
01:06:22.849 --> 01:06:26.429
What was around was peasant foods, beans and grains and
998
01:06:26.530 --> 01:06:30.869
sweet potatoes and tubers and vegetables they could get in
999
01:06:30.889 --> 01:06:34.730
their gardens and greens that were available. Yes, they did
1000
01:06:34.789 --> 01:06:38.070
have a family pig, which they butchered once a year.
1001
01:06:38.190 --> 01:06:41.090
They might have had a few goats. There weren't cows
1002
01:06:41.139 --> 01:06:45.409
in Blue Zones except for the Nicoya Peninsula. So I
1003
01:06:45.469 --> 01:06:46.369
stand by my work.
1004
01:06:46.670 --> 01:06:50.469
And have there been any longitudinal studies on people on
1005
01:06:50.590 --> 01:06:53.409
the Blue Zone diet as you prescribe it?
1006
01:06:54.019 --> 01:06:57.800
I don't prescribe anything. I simply say, here's what the
1007
01:06:57.860 --> 01:07:00.980
longest lived people have eaten over their lifetime. You can
1008
01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:01.699
do what you want.
1009
01:07:03.159 --> 01:07:06.010
And what about the fact that the diets are often
1010
01:07:06.070 --> 01:07:09.170
hyper localized? You know, there's raw honey and grease, the
1011
01:07:09.210 --> 01:07:13.360
sourdough bread that you mentioned in Sardinia. squash in Costa Rica.
1012
01:07:13.659 --> 01:07:18.739
Can the recommendations be translated to Des Moines and Dubuque?
1013
01:07:19.619 --> 01:07:22.570
I don't see why not. I mean, all of the
1014
01:07:22.849 --> 01:07:26.969
products eaten in Blue Zones are available in Des Moines.
1015
01:07:27.989 --> 01:07:31.949
You may not have the exact same honey, but anybody
1016
01:07:31.969 --> 01:07:34.860
with an Amazon account can get Ikari and honey delivered
1017
01:07:34.880 --> 01:07:37.809
to their house. If you want to eat a If
1018
01:07:37.849 --> 01:07:40.090
you want to mimic the way people in any one
1019
01:07:40.110 --> 01:07:42.329
of the five blue zones eat, you can very easily
1020
01:07:42.389 --> 01:07:46.380
do it in the United States. For much cheaper, by
1021
01:07:46.420 --> 01:07:51.840
the way, than you would spend eating steaks and having
1022
01:07:52.619 --> 01:07:55.909
customized meals delivered via Amazon.
1023
01:07:56.750 --> 01:07:58.429
One last critique I want to run by you has
1024
01:07:58.449 --> 01:08:00.610
to do with the blue zone checklist that you talked
1025
01:08:00.650 --> 01:08:05.000
about before, the 40 or so tweaks that we can
1026
01:08:05.440 --> 01:08:09.400
put into our environment to get our lives closer to
1027
01:08:09.420 --> 01:08:11.860
the way life is lived in the blue zones. And
1028
01:08:11.880 --> 01:08:14.409
this is a quote from one paper that looked at
1029
01:08:14.570 --> 01:08:17.710
the checklists. It said that the checklists assume that an
1030
01:08:17.789 --> 01:08:21.489
individual lives in an environment that allows pets, has space
1031
01:08:21.529 --> 01:08:23.770
for a garden, has a garage and a separate space
1032
01:08:23.829 --> 01:08:27.529
for an exercise area. The implication being that the checklist
1033
01:08:27.630 --> 01:08:31.439
is not universally accessible to people who don't have a
1034
01:08:31.460 --> 01:08:34.380
bunch of dough. Is that a fair critique?
1035
01:08:35.479 --> 01:08:38.060
I didn't know that study existed and I'm kind of
1036
01:08:38.439 --> 01:08:41.489
flattered that somebody would take the time to critique it.
1037
01:08:42.079 --> 01:08:47.590
There's about 40 things and it's a multiple choice. The
1038
01:08:47.659 --> 01:08:50.329
more that you can check off, the bigger impact it
1039
01:08:50.350 --> 01:08:53.210
would have. But I mean, if you have a kitchen,
1040
01:08:54.029 --> 01:08:57.069
most of what I suggest you do to your kitchen
1041
01:08:57.250 --> 01:09:01.449
is easily implementable. The most powerful part of that checklist is,
1042
01:09:01.850 --> 01:09:06.960
I would argue, is optimizing or curating your immediate social circle,
1043
01:09:07.779 --> 01:09:09.920
which anybody can do no matter how rich or poor,
1044
01:09:09.939 --> 01:09:14.840
to a certain extent, I guess. So yeah, not everybody
1045
01:09:14.880 --> 01:09:18.319
can do everything on that list, but if you get
1046
01:09:18.380 --> 01:09:21.550
half of a man, I would bet that your weight
1047
01:09:21.600 --> 01:09:24.100
drops and your life expectancy goes up.
1048
01:09:25.069 --> 01:09:29.010
It's very super interesting to, to talk about this with you.
1049
01:09:29.350 --> 01:09:31.449
Are there things you were hoping to talk about that
1050
01:09:31.489 --> 01:09:32.409
we didn't get to?
1051
01:09:34.029 --> 01:09:37.090
No, I think we covered it pretty well. Yeah, we
1052
01:09:37.109 --> 01:09:38.989
covered it. Well, I've been at, I've been at this
1053
01:09:39.050 --> 01:09:42.829
for 20 years and, and the central premise of blue zones.
1054
01:09:42.890 --> 01:09:47.979
If you want to live longer, don't try to change your, uh, environment.
1055
01:09:48.020 --> 01:09:50.300
Don't try to change your behavior, change your environment. I
1056
01:09:50.319 --> 01:09:54.470
think that's the most important takeaway. I guess a couple
1057
01:09:54.489 --> 01:09:58.789
of interesting things. There's an association between eating beans and
1058
01:09:58.850 --> 01:10:01.970
higher life expectancy. People eat a cup of beans a day,
1059
01:10:02.029 --> 01:10:05.069
live about four years longer than people who get their
1060
01:10:05.090 --> 01:10:08.810
protein from less healthy sources. A handful of nuts a
1061
01:10:08.850 --> 01:10:12.340
day is associated with about two extra years of life expectancy.
1062
01:10:12.819 --> 01:10:15.840
People are interested in easy longevity hacks, and those are
1063
01:10:15.880 --> 01:10:20.060
two of them. And, you know, I've written six books
1064
01:10:20.159 --> 01:10:23.439
on Blue Zones. Four of them are New York Times bestsellers,
1065
01:10:23.979 --> 01:10:26.979
and I'm proud of them. And if people have any
1066
01:10:27.039 --> 01:10:30.359
other questions, I'm at Dan Buten on Instagram, and I
1067
01:10:30.460 --> 01:10:33.619
answer all my questions, all my direct messages personally.
1068
01:10:34.039 --> 01:10:37.140
That's very cool. You're making me sheepish about the fact
1069
01:10:37.159 --> 01:10:39.840
that I don't answer. I answer a fraction of mine.
1070
01:10:40.979 --> 01:10:43.260
And I suspect I get a fraction of yours. Let
1071
01:10:43.279 --> 01:10:46.079
me just go back to beans for a second, because
1072
01:10:46.220 --> 01:10:48.520
I was a vegan for five years. Now I'm mostly
1073
01:10:48.579 --> 01:10:53.119
plant based, but I do eat some animal products. And
1074
01:10:53.260 --> 01:10:56.670
one of the reasons was I just could never build
1075
01:10:56.729 --> 01:11:01.109
up a tolerance for beans, even with taking Beano and whatever.
1076
01:11:01.390 --> 01:11:04.229
I just it made me very unpleasant to be around
1077
01:11:04.369 --> 01:11:07.310
for reasons that I'm assuming you can put together. Any
1078
01:11:07.369 --> 01:11:07.970
thoughts on that?
1079
01:11:09.340 --> 01:11:11.840
Okay, there are outliers, and you might be one of
1080
01:11:11.880 --> 01:11:14.510
the outliers that will just never be able to metabolize
1081
01:11:14.590 --> 01:11:18.470
beans very well, but your gut has about 100 trillion
1082
01:11:18.729 --> 01:11:27.130
bacteria in it. Most of them, bacteria are almost 100%
1083
01:11:27.130 --> 01:11:33.250
responsible for extracting energy out of our plant food. Of
1084
01:11:33.680 --> 01:11:37.880
those 100 million bacteria, most of them depend on their
1085
01:11:37.939 --> 01:11:42.449
survival fiber or plant-based material. There's no fiber in meat.
1086
01:11:43.600 --> 01:11:47.979
If you feed your gut meat and cheese and eggs,
1087
01:11:48.739 --> 01:11:53.590
the bad bacteria start to proliferate. Whereas if you feed
1088
01:11:53.649 --> 01:12:00.189
it high fiber food, like beans, the good bacteria proliferate.
1089
01:12:00.229 --> 01:12:02.930
So the good bacteria, the ones that take fiber and
1090
01:12:02.949 --> 01:12:06.260
they convert it into short chain fatty acids and, um,
1091
01:12:07.100 --> 01:12:12.020
which make their way into our bloodstream and they provide
1092
01:12:12.100 --> 01:12:15.739
energy for our cells. They lower inflammation. They fine tune
1093
01:12:15.819 --> 01:12:19.000
our immune system. They're the precursor, a lot of the
1094
01:12:19.140 --> 01:12:21.720
feel good hormones. If you're not eating fiber, you're not
1095
01:12:21.760 --> 01:12:25.180
getting that. To your question about beans, often if people
1096
01:12:25.239 --> 01:12:28.699
start with just a tablespoon or two of beans and
1097
01:12:28.779 --> 01:12:32.560
work up to a cup gradually over two or three weeks,
1098
01:12:33.380 --> 01:12:37.930
they sort of prune their bacterial gardens such that they
1099
01:12:37.949 --> 01:12:41.569
can handle the beans as opposed to starting today with
1100
01:12:41.609 --> 01:12:43.680
a cup of beans. It might be too much for
1101
01:12:43.979 --> 01:12:48.100
people who aren't used to eating these high fiber diets.
1102
01:12:48.539 --> 01:12:52.239
I like the sound of that. Start small. Dan, you
1103
01:12:52.279 --> 01:12:55.539
mentioned your six books. Can you just remind us of
1104
01:12:55.579 --> 01:12:57.979
the names of some of them, any that come to mind?
1105
01:12:58.039 --> 01:13:00.789
And also remind us again of the name of your
1106
01:13:00.890 --> 01:13:04.489
Netflix show, which was and is super popular.
1107
01:13:05.170 --> 01:13:09.539
Thank you. Blue Zones, Nine Lessons from the World's Longest-Lived People,
1108
01:13:09.800 --> 01:13:13.460
The Blue Zone Solution, Blue Zone Kitchen, which was a cookbook.
1109
01:13:13.479 --> 01:13:16.380
It was the number one New York Times bestseller. Blue
1110
01:13:16.420 --> 01:13:22.699
Zones of Happiness. And the Netflix show is Live to 100,
1111
01:13:22.699 --> 01:13:26.500
Secrets of the Blue Zones. And then in All Whole Foods,
1112
01:13:26.600 --> 01:13:30.590
I have Blue Zone Kitchen Frozen Meals, which are formulated
1113
01:13:31.109 --> 01:13:35.380
for longevity with a maniacal focus on deliciousness. So I'm
1114
01:13:35.619 --> 01:13:39.739
starting to create a retail environment of healthy eating as well.
1115
01:13:40.399 --> 01:13:42.399
Dan Buettner, thank you very much for your time.
1116
01:13:44.220 --> 01:13:46.779
Dan, it was a delight. And you'll be pleased to
1117
01:13:46.819 --> 01:13:50.859
know that I am now 19% happier. So we're trending.
1118
01:13:51.600 --> 01:13:52.439
Your show works.
1119
01:13:53.079 --> 01:13:55.000
I love it. May also be the fact that you're
1120
01:13:55.020 --> 01:13:57.819
now free to go swimming in the ocean, but I'll
1121
01:13:57.859 --> 01:13:58.439
take it.
1122
01:13:59.239 --> 01:14:01.539
No, a real delight, Dan. Nice to spend time with you.
1123
01:14:03.569 --> 01:14:05.930
Thank you so much to everybody who works so hard
1124
01:14:05.989 --> 01:14:09.020
to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara
1125
01:14:09.180 --> 01:14:12.619
Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled
1126
01:14:12.640 --> 01:14:14.899
by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith
1127
01:14:14.979 --> 01:14:18.619
is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer.
1128
01:14:18.680 --> 01:14:22.149
DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of
1129
01:14:22.159 --> 01:14:25.050
the great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. Also,
1130
01:14:25.210 --> 01:14:27.550
one last thing before you go. Remember to sign up
1131
01:14:27.689 --> 01:14:30.770
for my new app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris.
1132
01:14:31.170 --> 01:14:34.060
You can sign up over at danharris.com. On the app,
1133
01:14:34.069 --> 01:14:37.359
you'll find a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers,
1134
01:14:37.600 --> 01:14:42.760
ad-free access to the full expertise of our podcast guests,
1135
01:14:42.920 --> 01:14:46.279
meaning you'll get this podcast with no ads, exclusive live
1136
01:14:46.319 --> 01:14:48.970
stream events, which we do weekly, sometimes twice a week,
1137
01:14:49.310 --> 01:14:52.869
robust discussion threads to connect you with our team, with
1138
01:14:52.909 --> 01:14:55.850
our teachers, and with one another. There's a free 14-day
1139
01:14:55.869 --> 01:14:57.869
trial if you want to try before you buy.
1140
01:14:57.890 --> 01:14:58.390
Peace.