With all that in mind, here are 15 foods that turn up again and again across 2 decades of research into the world’s longest-living people, the so-called Blue Zones. That’s 5 different regions where people are living longer and healthier lives compared to the rest of the world: Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Ikaria (Greece), the Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica), and Loma Linda (California).
The regions are distinct in many ways, including culture. But they overlap a great deal in what they eat. All of them lean on the same whole, plant-forward foods as staples, and none of it runs on supplements or powders.
All Blue Zone research is observational and descriptive. There’s no way to know whether any one food is the secret to living longer. Diet is one piece of the puzzle. So are staying active throughout the day, having a sense of community and purpose. All together, these factors can add up to a healthier, happier, and longer life, but this research by no means provides a fail-safe recipe for yours.
The 15 Longevity Foods, Ranked
#15. Papaya
Nicoyans don’t eat papaya as a health food. Papaya is just an everyday breakfast food in Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula (one of 5 Blue Zones), where it provides vitamin C, vitamin A, folate and potassium.
It also has an enzyme called papain, which is why the fruit can be used as a meat tenderizer to break down protein. Papaya flesh is also high in lycopene and beta-carotene (carotenoid antioxidants). In Nicoya it arrives halved and seeded with a squeeze of lime over the flesh, eaten with a spoon, and it works just as well cubed into a fruit salad or blended.
#14. Whole Grain Sourdough Bread
Shepherds in the mountainous Barbagia region of Sardinia eat pane carasau every day. But the bread is made with whole grain durum wheat or barley, not white flour, and is prepared as sourdough. The latter is important since sourdough’s slow, long rise results in lower phytic acid content. Phytic acid binds to minerals, reducing their availability. Lower phytic acid breads allow for better absorption of minerals like iron, zinc and magnesium.
Sourdough bread also tends to produce a lower blood sugar response than bread made with commercial yeast. But the best-supported benefit of whole grain breads is their higher fiber content. Worth looking for is a loaf with nothing in it but flour, water, salt and starter, which a good bakery will usually sell as a long-fermented option. It takes olive oil poured over the toast, or gets torn into soup.
#13. Fennel
You can find fennel growing wild on Ikaria and in Sardinia. It makes its way into salads, stews and teas. Anethole is responsible for fennel’s signature anise-like flavor, but this herb is also rich in vitamin C, potassium and fiber.
In households around Ikaria, fennel has been brewed into a tea for centuries as a digestive aid.
It is another example of a pattern. People living in Blue Zones consume a much more varied diet than most people do. They eat all types of vegetables, many of which they forage themselves. Raw, it shaves thin into a salad and sits well against citrus. It also roasts in olive oil until the edges caramelize and chops into pasta sauce, and the fronds and seeds steep as tea.
#12. Eggs
People on Ikaria eat eggs, so do Adventists in Loma Linda who eat animal products, and so do people on Nicoya. They aren’t eating them by the dozen, they’re just scrambling them with vegetables or eating them alongside greens and beans.
An egg provides complete protein, choline, vitamin D, vitamin B12, selenium and lutein. Large studies have shown that eating up to 1 egg a day is not associated with increased risk of heart disease in healthy adults. Soft-boiled, poached, or scrambled with whatever greens are in the drawer, and pasture-raised if you can find them.
#11. Tofu
Tofu is also a staple of the diet in Okinawa and appears in almost every meal. Okinawan tofu is often made fresh and is firmer than vacuum-packed silken tofu, but any minimally-processed tofu provides the same nutrition benefits.
Tofu is made from soybeans, a complete protein. You get isoflavones (plant compounds being studied for associations with heart health and bone density), and people who consume it regularly tend to be less likely to suffer from heart disease than people who don’t. Firm tofu holds its shape cubed into miso soup or stir-fried with vegetables and a ginger and soy glaze, while silken tofu blends into a smoothie. The shift worth making is treating it as its own ingredient rather than a substitute for meat.
#10. Wild Greens and Herbs
The people of Ikaria eat a lot of plants that might be considered weeds: dandelion, purslane, chicory, amaranth. Generations of Sardinian shepherds have eaten wild plants growing on the hillsides. Wild greens and herbs appear to be common to some of the diets of the longest-lived people in the world.
Purslane is a source of alpha-linolenic acid, one of the omega-3 essential fatty acids found in plants. Omega-3’s aren’t commonly found in leafy greens. Dandelion greens are loaded with iron, calcium, vitamin K, vitamin A and vitamin C. Wild plants tend to have a wider array of polyphenols than cultivated plants.
Again, none of this proves that these compounds lead to long lives. All that is established is that they are in these populations’ diets. You don’t need to go out and scrounge around in the bushes. just expand your repertoire of greens beyond romaine and spinach. The farmers market is where that rotation widens for most people, and dandelion greens take well to a saute with garlic and lemon. Arugula, watercress and mustard greens all work, and herbs will grow on a windowsill.
#9. Sweet Potatoes
Purple sweet potatoes, or beni imo as they’re known, have always played a starring role in an already-stellar diet in Okinawa. To an extent that’s true: The purple spuds have been Okinawa’s main source of calories for generations.
One survey from 1949 and 1950 put the percentage of total calories derived from sweet potatoes at 69 percent (a stat that’s been questioned), or some 849 of the total 1,262 grams of food consumed per day. But the survey reflects the postwar period, which was a time of true scarcity, and is more representative of that period than diets throughout Okinawan history.
And, for good reason: Sweet potatoes offer complex carbohydrates, along with fiber, so they don’t spike your blood sugar like refined starches. Purple varieties contain anthocyanins, which are the same antioxidants found in blueberries. Orange sweet potatoes are a great source of beta-carotene (which the body converts to vitamin A), vitamin C, and potassium. Pierced with a fork and baked whole at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes they need little else, though they mash well with a little coconut milk or roast cubed with olive oil and rosemary. The Okinawan version is simpler still, steamed and eaten plain.
#8. Nuts (Especially Almonds and Walnuts)
People in Loma Linda, California, also eat nuts every day. In 1992, Fraser and colleagues published their findings from the Adventist Health Study of Seventh-day Adventists who live in Loma Linda, California. This group of Adventists has been well-studied because of its longevity.
Fraser’s epidemiological study looked at 31,208 Adventists in California, finding that Adventists who ate nuts 5 or more times a week had a 48 percent lower risk of heart attack and a 38 percent lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease when compared to Adventists who ate nuts less than once per week.
You may be pleased to learn that Adventist nut-eating consisted of a small handful of nuts on most days. Walnuts are one of the best plant sources of the plant omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), and almonds are a source of vitamin E, magnesium, and fiber.
Keep in mind that this is an observational study that can show associations, not causes. Nonetheless, this was a study large enough to find a difference in risks between the two groups. That handful runs about 1 ounce, roughly what fits in a cupped palm, and it is easier to remember when the jar sits somewhere visible. Walnuts go into oatmeal, almonds work mid-afternoon, and crushed nuts scatter over salads and yogurt, raw or dry-roasted rather than sugared or salted.
#7. Garlic
People on Ikaria, in Sardinia and in Nicoya all use garlic in abundance. Garlic contains allicin, a bioactive with antimicrobial activity. Crushed garlic has a greater allicin content since crushing or chopping causes an enzyme reaction which creates it. However, the enzyme that creates allicin is destroyed by heat, which is why crushed garlic is often left to stand for about 10 minutes before heating.
Allicin has been studied in relation to blood pressure and cholesterol. Observational studies suggest high garlic consumers have a lower incidence of some cancers, especially stomach and colorectal. It crushes into dressings, sautes as the base of a soup or sauce, and roasts whole until the cloves go soft enough to spread on bread. It works better as a daily ingredient than an occasional accent.
#6. Whole Grains (Oats, Barley, and Brown Rice)
All the Blue Zones have one thing in common: they eat a staple of whole grain, be it barley in Sardinia, brown rice (mixed with sweet potato) in Okinawa or oats in Loma Linda.
A dose-response meta-analysis by Aune and colleagues published in 2016 in BMJ included 45 studies with almost 700,000 subjects. The authors concluded that higher intake of whole grains was associated with a significantly lower risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular diseases, all-cancer and total mortality with continued decrease in risk up to an intake of 210-225 g/day.
One reason for this could be barley’s beta-glucan, a soluble fiber shown to reduce LDL cholesterol. Another might be what is left out. In the process of refining grains, the germ and the bran are removed, taking most of the fiber, a substantial amount of the B vitamins and most of the phytonutrients with them, though the calories remain. Steel-cut or rolled oats in the morning rather than the instant packets with sugar already in them, barley in soups and stews where pasta would otherwise go, and brown rice or farro instead of white rice. Freekeh, millet and amaranth are there when the rotation gets dull.
#5. Tomatoes
Tomatoes are used liberally in Sardinian cuisine, in sauces, salads, stews and spread on bread. One of the richest sources of a compound called lycopene, the carotenoid that gives tomatoes their red color, of any commonly eaten food, tomatoes have been linked in observational studies with better cardiovascular health.
Cooking them enhances bioavailability (you get more lycopene you can absorb from a well-cooked sauce than from eating a raw tomato). And since lycopene is fat-soluble, the availability is enhanced further by eating them with fats, such as the ubiquitous olive oil in Sardinia (and in Ikaria) that’s commonly paired with tomatoes. Tomatoes are also sources of vitamin C, potassium, folate, beta-carotene and lutein. And canned tomatoes (which are processed when fully ripe) can be equivalent to fresh in their lycopene content.
Tomatoes, it should be noted, are a commonly eaten food in places where people live a long time. Again, that’s not the same as saying there’s evidence tomatoes make you live a long time. Only that they’re associated. A plain sauce of tomato, garlic, olive oil and basil covers most of it, and cherry tomatoes roast until they blister. Raw with olive oil and salt in summer. Canned are as good as fresh, since they are picked and processed at ripeness.
#4. Red Wine (In Moderation)
Red wine consumption is associated with longevity in some of the Blue Zones, but it’s consumed differently there. It’s sipped slowly with food, with friends and family. The context of drinking could be as important as what’s in the glass. And there’s a major difference between one small (5-ounce) glass of wine with food and friends and heavy or solo drinking.
A 2012 analysis of Cannonau wine from Sardinia, which is made from Grenache grapes, found that it has as much as 3 times the concentration of polyphenols (which include resveratrol as well as other compounds, including procyanidins) as some other reds.
Polyphenols like those can be found in grapes and berries and in dark chocolate, so there’s no health-related reason for people who don’t drink to start. Where it is drunk this way it is a small glass, about 5 ounces, with dinner rather than on its own, and the full-bodied dry reds like Cannonau carry the most polyphenols. Grapes, berries and dark chocolate carry the same compounds, so there is no reason to start on wine to get them.
#3. Olive Oil
Olive oil is the dietary element that all of the Mediterranean Blue Zones have in common. In particular, Ikarians and Sardinians use olive oil generously and consume it every day. On Ikaria, locals consume olive oil 5-7 times per week and get about half of their dietary fat from olive oil.
Olive oil, specifically extra virgin olive oil, is rich in oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat, along with vitamin E and polyphenols. One of those polyphenols, oleocanthal, gives a fresh oil a peppery tingle in the back of the throat. Extra virgin means the oil is extracted using only mechanical means without the use of chemicals or excessive heat that can diminish the amount of polyphenols in the final product. Light or plain olive oil is highly processed and has lost most of its polyphenols.
One large clinical trial (PREDIMED) found that when added to a Mediterranean-style diet, extra virgin olive oil reduced major cardiovascular events by about 30 percent. While the original 2013 trial was retracted because of concerns with how participants were randomized into the study, the trial has since been republished (2018) with similar findings. It works as the default cooking fat and also poured over food that is already cooked, from vegetables to soup to bread. A dark green oil in a dark bottle with a harvest date on the label is the one to look for, kept away from light and heat.
#2. Leafy Greens
Another commonality is the regular consumption of dark, leafy greens. On Ikaria people eat wild horta, Okinawans eat sweet potato greens and bitter melon, Loma Linda runs on kale and chard, and Sardinia and Nicoya have fava greens and chaya.
Few foods rival the amount of folate, vitamin K, vitamin C, calcium, iron, fiber, and more you get for each calorie you consume when you eat your greens. They’re also rich in lutein and nitrates, which help your body’s blood vessels work properly.
A study published in the journal Neurology in 2018 found a positive association between leafy-green consumption and reduced cognitive aging. Morris and colleagues followed 960 older adults enrolled in the Rush Memory and Aging Project and found that those who consumed the most greens (median: 1.3 servings/day) fared better on tests of thinking and memory than those who ate the least (median: 0.09 servings/day) performing as if they were 11 years younger. Although the study does not show that eating leafy greens slows cognitive decline and other explanations cannot be ruled out, these findings provide another reason to fill your plate with colorful plants. 1 generous serving cooked, or 2 cups raw, is the daily mark. Kale and chard take a saute with garlic and olive oil, a large handful disappears into soup or scrambled eggs, and a salad built on a dark leafy base goes further than iceberg.
#1. Beans and Legumes
Beans or legumes are a daily staple in every one of the 5 Blue Zones, and beans are the only food that shows up in meaningful quantity in all of them. Dan Buettner’s team calculates a goal of about 1 cup a day: black beans in Nicoya, lentils and chickpeas in Ikaria, fava and white beans in Sardinia, soybeans in Okinawa, all kinds of beans in Loma Linda.
Beans provide an abundance of nutrients, including plant-based protein, complex carbohydrates, both soluble and insoluble fiber, folate, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. Plus, beans are rich in resistant starch, a carbohydrate your body doesn’t readily digest and instead passes on to the good bacteria in the gut, which ferments it into short-chain fatty acids with broad-reaching benefits for the body.
Darmadi-Blackberry and colleagues analyzed data from the Food Habits in Later Life study, a collection of cohorts including 785 people over 70 years of age in Japan, Sweden, Greece, and Australia, and found that each additional 20 grams of legumes consumed per day was associated with 7 to 8 percent reduced risk of dying. Legumes were the only food that consistently predicted survival in all four cohorts. Though not the same as the Blue Zones, this study offers additional evidence of the power of beans.
Beans are the least expensive source of protein on the grocery shelf. They’ll keep indefinitely. And they’re delicious, lending body and depth to soups and stews and flavor and texture to salads and dips. Half a cup of cooked beans a day is the floor and a full cup is better. Canned are fine, rinsed to cut the sodium, and a pot of dried beans cooked on a Sunday lasts the week. Chickpeas go into salads, white beans blend into soup for body, black beans mash onto tortillas with avocado, and lentil soup makes an unglamorous weeknight default.
Martha ‘Marti’ Jones founded Fitness Four after three decades of living with IBS, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and pernicious anemia. She spent two decades in the food industry, so she knows how important it is to be aware of what you’re eating.
She’s 76, lives in Eastern North Carolina, walks and is learning to get used to lifting weights more and more. She spends as much time as she can in her backyard garden.
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