Eating for Health the Blue Zone Way

When it comes to what we eat and what's considered a healthy diet, we can be left feeling confused, overwhelmed and end up feeling like we are getting it wrong.

My general approach to nutrition is a sensible and realistic one, where we focus on eating real, whole food and avoid processed foods.?Eating well doesn’t mean we all have to be strictly gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free or that we have to quit caffeine or alcohol to be healthy and feel good.?

I’m not a fan of restricted diets.?I believe when it comes to restricted diets unless there is a good medical reason or you have identified that you definitely feel unwell when you eat certain foods, then cutting out things entirely from your diet is often unnecessary.

There’s no doubt?it’s become trendy in the wellness industry to be gluten, dairy, sugar, grain-free. And we are told the road to wellness is to eat our acai smoothie bowls, drink bone broth and munch on activated almonds daily. These relatively new ways of eating are expensive, faddish and unnecessary when we have time tested good ways of eating you can adopt from various cultures.?

When it comes to ways of eating?I LOVE the diet principles of the people from the five blue zones?across the globe. You may or may not be familiar with the blue zones. Blue zones are areas around the world that have been identified as homes to some of the oldest and healthiest people in the world.

Named for the blue circles researchers drew to identify the first one on a map, blue zones are where more people live to 100 and they live healthy, disease-free lives.

Well where are they? And how do they do this? Let’s take a look each one briefly.?Sardinia in Italy is home to the highest concentration of centenarians?in the world. Sardinian’s eat a largely plant based diet, engage in physical activity daily, drink antioxidant rich red wine and have very close knit families.

The second blue zone is found in Okinawa, Japan.?The women of Okinawa are the longest-living women in the world.Okinawans are supported by their moai, a small but tight-knit social circle which provides people with emotional support to navigate life’s stressors and hardships.

The people of Nicoya in Costa Rica eat a whole food diet?and have a plan de vida, or guiding life purpose to help them stay mentally and spiritually fulfilled to age 90 and beyond.

In Loma Linda in California, USA you will find many Seventh-day Adventist Church followers who adhere to the Sabbath to ensure that they regularly rest, reflect and recharge. They are vegetarians that avoid eating any processed food.?

And?the final blue zone is Ikaria, a beautiful island located in Greece. One in three Ikarians live into their 90’s and do so dementia and chronic disease-free. It must be living the island life of late nights and daytime naps that’s their secret. These cultures seem to share some things in common.

So what can we learn from these cultures around the world that are living longer and healthier?

By adopting the ways of eating that these blue zone communities have eaten and found helped them live well and live to 100.?What I love about it is there is no cutting out entire food groups, there is no weighing up macro’s for meals and there is no demonising sugar, alcohol or caffeine involved!

Eating like the people from the Blue Zones around the world is pragmatic, attainable and accessible. No need for a visit to the health store for special ingredients.?

If you are after a weight loss approach this way of eating requires adaptation. It's important to be clear that this is a maintenance diet. It is a way of eating and a way of life to adopt. Just to be clear this way of eating is not specifically treating medical conditions like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or heart disease.

However, it is a very similar diet to the Mediterranean diet and that’s a diet that?a number of systematic reviews and meta analyses in medical journals have found to be the best way of eating for quality of life?and to avoid developing metabolic diseases like heart disease and diabetes.

By eating the Blue Zone way, you will most likely find that you will begin to the reverse the negative effects of metabolic problems and feel lighter, healthier, better!?