The Real Longevity Secrets Hidden in Blue Zones with Dan Buettner

If you want to live longer, don't try to change your behavior or your habits. That fails for almost all people almost all the time in the long run. The things to invest your time and money and effort in are the things that you're gonna do almost every day for the next few decades.

My mother lived till 93, and I am convinced that one of the big reasons she did is she lived in a 2-story house.

You know, in Okinawa, I found the longest-lived women in the world. About 30 times more people, or women, reach age 100 than the similar population from the United States. And one of the things I observed, there was no furniture.

What do you think the biggest misconception we have about longevity here in the States?

That there's a quick fix.

You mean a biohack? You can't biohack our longevity. Come on.

You can biohack their early death.

I am sure you've heard of the term Blue Zones, those places in the world where people routinely live to 100. But what if I told you that the secret to living longer might not be about discipline or supplements or biohacks? But about taste, my guest today, Dan Buettner, who discovered the Blue Zones, spent 2 decades studying the world's longest living people, and that's where he uncovered again the Blue Zones. And what else he uncovered may surprise you. His latest book, The Blue Zones One Pot Meals, doesn't just promise delicious food, although it is, it claims these recipes can add, wait for it, up to 12 years to your life. So I am digging into all of this today with him. Like, really, 12 years, Dan? And then what are they doing besides what they're eating, and what can we take away from that and bring into our world not living in a blue zone? So that's we're going to be digging into. I met Dan years ago out in San Diego, then spent some time with him in Miami. He is absolutely a delight, and I'm super excited to share him with you. I'll be right back with Dan, and I'm going to have links links to all the cool stuff he talks about at jjvirgin.com/bluezones. So be sure to check that out. Dan Buettner, welcome to Well Beyond 40.

Great to be here. Not necessarily beyond 40, but on your podcast.

I, you know what, I gotta tell you, if I could have jumped to 50 and skipped a lot of the 20s and 30s, at least the 30s, I would've happily done so.

Well, I gotta tell you, if I could jump from 65 to 18, I'd do it.

But you'd wanna take the 65 learnings, right? Yeah.

My bank account.

Exactly. So, so, you know, it's a toss-up. Let's talk about your new book. And in your new book, you make this bold statement right from the start that your recipes could add 12 years to someone's life. That's like, really? So what do we need to do?

Well, you know, I made my career identifying these Blue Zones areas where people live the longest, and it took 3 years just to identify them. And then to understand what people do there to actually reach age 100, we did something called a meta-analysis. So it. So if you want to know what a centenarian, a 100-year-old, did to live to be 100, you have to know what she ate as a little girl and as a teenager and a young adult and newly retired, et cetera. You can't just ask them what they're eating lately. And to get at that, my team and I aggregated 155 dietary surveys, which are like a snapshot in time, all 5 Blue Zones. These are 5 areas where people live the longest over the last 90 years. And we averaged them out. We worked with Harvard. To help us do that. And what people who make it to 100 really eat are mostly a whole food diet— very little processed food, about a third the amount of sugar we eat, about a tenth the amount of meat we eat in America. The 5 pillars of every diet of longevity in the world are whole grains, greens and other garden vegetables, tubers like sweet potatoes, nuts, and the cornerstone of every longevity diet is beans. And I know these foods are not in vogue right now. They have been, and I believe they will be in the future, but that's what people daily ate, the ones who are making it to 100. And the reason I say 12 years is twofold. Number one, in these Blue Zones, a middle-aged person could expect about 12 more good years than an American. And number two, there was a giant epidemiology study that followed the equivalent of about 10 million people for 30 years, and they found people who are eating mostly a whole food diet— it doesn't have to be 100%, you know, I'm not here pitching a vegan diet or necessarily even a vegetarian diet,, but a plant-forward whole food diet. Those people were living about 12 years longer than their counterparts eating a standard American diet. And the book, it's called The Blue Zones Kitchen: One Pot Meals, takes a maniacal focus on making that food, plant-forward whole food, taste delicious.

I mean, how much do you think it's just the fact that they're not eating the processed crap we eat?

A lot. I can't give you an exact percentage, but I can tell you that the more processed food we're eating and the better chance you have at developing type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease or ending up tipping the scales at a number that you don't like.

When you look at their diet, I'm assuming, like in the US, I know that it'd be— we consume on average 60 to 70% of our diet is processed food, which is just insane. And you said it was less than 10%, and I'd assume in some of these places it's maybe even zero.

The diet of longevity we were able to capture, we had to start in the 1940s, and in the '40s in Blue Zones, all the way up to about 2000, there was virtually zero processed or ultra-processed food. And now in the last 20 years, these Blue Zones are looking more and more like Tampa, you know, or Minneapolis. It's, it's, uh, they're starting to adopt tragically adopt the American style of eating, and the exact same time their chronic disease is skyrocketing, and so is their weight, while their longevity plummets.

God, why are people seeing this? Like, how do you miss this stuff? Let's move it over to longevity. And looking at this now, what do you think the biggest misconception we have still about longevity here in the States?

That there's a quick fix.

You mean a biohack? We can't biohack our longevity. Come on.

You can biohack their early death. You know, I have a neighbor here who invited me over to dinner, very wealthy guy. And I show up for dinner. He wasn't there. His wife said, well, he had a little problem down in Central America. Come back next week. And I came back next week and he was dead. He went down to Central America for stem cells. A lot of people where I live go to the exact same place. And he got a bad dose and developed a blood clot and it killed him. Biohackers never tell you about the infected dose or the bad reaction or what happens in the long term when we take these. I take the approach with Blue Zones. Here's what the longest— statistically longest-lived people have done over time, and here's how you might want to set up your life so you can do it yourself unconsciously. And it's worked.

You know, I look at what's been going on in the biohacking movement, and I find a lot of it fascinating. Like, you look at what Bryan Johnson's doing, and I go, your whole life, all you do is focused on what you can do. Like, like, I go, is this really a life? And then you look at the blue zones and I go, I bet they're not spending any amount of time thinking about being healthy.

They don't. They don't. They don't exercise in the way we exercise. They don't take vitamins or supplements. They don't get on diets every January 1st. They just live their life. And the insight, JJ, is that if you want to live longer, don't try to change your behavior or your habits, because that fails for almost all people almost all the time in the long run. You know, you can, you can convince people to get on a plan or an exercise program for a few months or a year. But when it comes to longevity, there's no short-term fix. The things to invest your time and money and effort in are the things that you're gonna do almost every day for the next few decades. The Blue Zones approach is set up your environment So you unconsciously make slightly better health decisions every day, unconsciously for decades. And that will add those extra 12 years we all have coming. Our body and the capacity of the American body, uh, offers about 12 more years than we're, than we're getting in this country.

But you look at it and go, okay, but we've got an environment in this country that is set up to be so unhealthy that it's almost at a point where you'd need to move to one of these areas. Cuz you look at the typical, like someone moving to New York New York City. Yes. I mean, at least in New York they're walking, as opposed to somewhere like LA where you're not going to walk at all.

That's right. Place like New York or, or, uh, Boulder, Colorado, or Santa Barbara, California, on average people are getting between 9,000 and 11,000 steps a day. If you live in a car-focused sort of suburban sprawly, uh, city like Atlanta or Houston, people there are getting about 4,000 steps a day without thinking about it. So the difference between 4,000 and 10,000 steps a day is about 4 years of extra life expectancy. You're never going to get that at a gym. I mean, there are people like you, and I can— I look at your pipes there and I can tell you, you, uh, you may— you put a lot of effort into what you do, but, you know, 75% of Americans don't even get 20 minutes of physical activity a day. So, you know, you can sort of pitch this idea all day long, it ain't going to work. Hasn't worked since we entered— introduced the idea of exercise in this country during the Eisenhower administration.

Even if they started doing that 20 minutes of exercise, what the research also shows is they'd stop doing the other steps. So, yeah, I feel like the steps always need to be the foundation. I'm convinced— my mother lived till 93, and I am convinced that one of the big reasons she did is she lived in a two-story house and she went up and down, up and down. And, and, you know, you, you hear people talking about they're going to downsize and, you know, for their later years and shift into a one-story. I'm like, no, get to a three-story house.

That's the exact kind of thinking. The problem with older people though is they, uh, they fall down. One of the top 5 causes of death over age 70 is simply falling. So stairs and, you know, the things that work really well for a middle-aged or younger family. One of them I would 100% advocate a 2 or 3-story house. Gets a little dicey for, for older people. And, you know, in Okinawa, I found the longest-lived women in the world. About 30 times more people or women reach age 100 than the similar population in the United States. And one of the things I observed, there was no furniture. People sat on tatami mats, slept in futons, sat cross-legged, and they were getting even into their hundreds, getting up and down from the floor. 20, 30 times a day. Now that's like a squat, and it's also keeping their lower body limber, keeping their lower body strong. That's an idea I can really get behind for older people.

Yeah, that's interesting. I lived in Japan, and they literally— I lived in, uh, in a small little place called Kochi, so I was like the only white person there, and everyone would sit and wait for the bus. They'd squat, they'd be in a deep squat waiting for the bus. It was crazy. 80 years old in a deep squat.

Great idea. Yep. They also have a lot fewer back problems in Japan. And I think it's no coincidence having that flexibility in the hips from squatting translates to a healthier lower back.

Yeah, I came home and I did that and people kind of looked at me sideways. You can't really wait in line being in a deep squat. I guess you could now. You'd look kind of cool. Let's go on over to the protein. I'm sure this is a contentious little, little area. I know that you're buddies with my long-term friend Mark Sisson because this, this is plant-based, your, your book, but Yet when you look at the Blue Zones, they weren't vegans. No. And I always wonder, you know, when you look at the difference in how they eat and how we eat, is it that we're eating these processed, you know, bologna and hot dogs and all this kind of garbage? Because they still had fish and they've had different types of meats in these countries, right?

Well, their primary source of protein came from plant-based sources. Okinawa, tofu, you know, until about 1980, only about 2% of their diet came from meat.

What about fish? No fish?

Very little fish in Okinawa. Japan, the rest of Japan, yes, but Okinawa, no. All the blue zones, even though they're on islands for the most part, they're always inland. And until very recently, it was a day's schlep to get to the coast and catch those fish. There wasn't refrigeration, and by the time the fish got back up to the village, it was no good. Most of the foods these people ate were the foods they got out of their gardens, out of their vineyards, out of their olive groves. They did have animals, they ate on average about 20 to 22 pounds of meat a year. That equates to about 5 times per month. And when you compare that to American— the average American eats about 240 pounds of meat per year. That's a bathtub of dead animal. And there's just no question that, that, that amount of meat is associated with about a tripling of your chances of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancers in the GI tract.

I just wonder though, what type of meat? Like, I think there's a big difference between, say, a lean grass-fed, grass-finished steak and, you know, a lot of the garbage that we're eating here. Had they looked at that or no?

In the Blue Zones, they were eating mostly goat and pork. But you know, this, this grass-fed myth is another— if you look and you can Google this, less than 5% of the, of the meat we eat in America is grass-fed. People say, yeah, I'm gonna eat grass-fed meat, but then they go to a restaurant and where they, they want a steak, right? They're getting corn. Never grass-fed, right? And by the way, you know, people should eat what they want to eat, but you know, you and I were around in the '90s, and I don't know if you remember the '90s, the common sense for getting healthy was running marathons and carbo-loading. That was the— what was— what we were supposed to do. That wasn't— now it's pumping iron and protein loading. Which one are we supposed to believe? You know, my approach has been skip over the fads, carefully look at the populations that have achieved the outcomes we want, i.e. Long life without disease, and then pay attention to what they did over time. And they did eat meat. It was a portion the size of a deck of cards, 5 times a month.

And they're also getting legumes, you said tofu, nuts and seeds. So they're getting a great omnivore blend of phytonutrients, of great fiber, of protein. They're getting what they need. And what you said, and I, I wonder when you said they lived inland, I'm assuming then they lived in more hilly mountainous areas.

Yes, that's correct.

Which would also have a big impact because then that would help them maintain their muscle mass. Because everything that I've seen, and I think you were with Mark Hyman somewhere, or he told me about this, where like he was watching these 90-year-olds, you know, out on the hills carrying things up, you know, doing stuff that was hard that you wouldn't see most people doing here.

Yeah. So, we found, especially in Sardinia, correlation between the steepness of the village and their life expectancy. So, the steepness of their village predicted longevity. Wow. The farmers weren't living any longer than their Italian counterparts. It was the shepherds. And, you look at the life of a farmer and they tend to work really hard, really hard, really hard to get the crop in and then it's 6 months of less physical activity, whereas the Shepherds, they got to take their sheep out every day. Wasn't hard work, was gentle, low-intensity physical activity. Remember, this is a population that at our age live about 10 years longer than Americans do, and probably better too.

Like, not just longer, they're probably not living like how Peter Attia talks about that last marginal decade. Like, I would imagine they don't have the marginal decade that we have here in the States.

They don't. So in America You know, we have on average about 3.5 years of morbidity, which are the really bad years at the end of our lives. You spend about 95% of your healthcare dollars if you're an average American and you're disabled or at home. In Blue Zone, that morbidity period is compressed to about 6 months. So they not only live longer, they die quicker, and they leave a lot more left over for their descendants. But the reason is because they're not getting the diseases that foreshorten our lives.. And those diseases, by and large, 85% of them are completely avoidable. And they're avoidable by the same things we hear over and over. Move naturally, eat low on the food chain, largely whole food, plant-forward diet, be socially connected, shed stress, sleep 8 hours, have a sense of purpose, and live that purpose. Those are the things that work. But what most people miss is how to actually do those things for long enough so you don't get a disease. And what my work largely focuses on doing is the how, not the what. Most of us know what the what is, and we slice and dice the what in 5 dozen different ways. But how, how do you actually do it long enough? And that's been the foundation of most of my work.

Well, I love that, the how around the food, because honestly, if you want to change your health, changing what's at the end of your fork is probably the single fastest way to start to feel better, that then you'll start doing other things. This whole idea of this flavor, the Stanford Flavor Study, I'd like to dig into this because, you know, when you nail the flavors, then you can actually eat healthier, right? Yeah. So how did you discover this? Like what people really want, what they crave, and, and how did you then put that into your recipes?

Most of my work, I, I work with cities. I get paid by insurance companies to lower the, the heart disease and diabetes of cities. And, and then I get a percentage of that savings at the population level.. And part of that is helping people move from the standard American diet to a largely whole food Blue Zones diet. And people say, well, what is that? So the book The Blue Zone Solution unpacked what the foods for longevity are. These latest books, these Blue Zone Kitchen books, I try to make it easy for Americans. And this last book, which just came out a couple of months ago, it's a New York Times bestseller called The Blue Zone Kitchen: One Pot, meals book, 100 Recipes to Live to 100. I tried to achieve 4 things, and they overcome most of the arguments that people have for not wanting to eat healthy. Number 1, they say, I can't afford it. Actually, the ingredients of longevity are peasant foods. They're beans and grains and sweet potatoes— very inexpensive thing. All the recipes in here cost less than $5 a serving. Number 2, big one: I don't have time. I don't have time to cook. I got to go to work. I got to get my kids off to school. You spend $50 to get an Instant Pot or a pressure cooker or even just a regular pot, heavy pot on your stove. They take between 15 and 25 minutes to prepare. You push a button, put the lid on, you come home, you got 8 servings of really good food. The big one, though, is taste. It's not going to taste as good as a Pizza Hut pizza or a bucket of Kentucky KFC chicken. To reverse engineer deliciousness, I teamed up with an AI lab at Stanford run by Johannes Eichstätt. This was about a 4-month project, and we found 650,000 recipes from very popular sites like the New York Times. And then we identified all the recipes with 100 or more 5-star reviews. So we know people love them. And then we analyze them for their flavor profiles. And there's 7 profiles, and I'll tell you what they are. All right, ready? The 7 profiles of food that Americans love the best. Number 1, stir-fries and curries. Easy sell. You make a good curry, people are going to like it. Tex-Mex flavors, which include all kinds of chilies, whether it's beefy, cheesy, or plant-based. Traditional Italian flavors. Not a big revelation there. Cheese. People love cheesy things.

I was gonna say, cheese is a flavor profile. Yeah.

Where cheese is the most prominent ingredient in the recipe. Cheesy mac and cheese or cheesy hot dishes or casseroles and that sort of thing. Remember, my book is 100% plant-based, and it turns out you can mimic cheesy very closely by using cashews. You soak them a little bit, you put them in a Vitamix, and it tastes just like cream.

You make a great cheesecake with those too.

Yeah, yeah, and without all the saturated fat. And then nutritional yeast, you put those two together. We may— I have a recipe for mac and cheese that has no cheese in it, and it tastes exactly like mac and cheese, and it's 100% healthy. Another very interesting combination that Americans love. I had no idea. Broccoli and mushrooms.

Really?

That floated to the top. That shocked me. But that shows up. And then lemon and herbs. Mix in a very, very Greek. The last category is what we call spiky flavors. So you have a comforting, oozy component to it, or, and then a crunchy component. The best example is something like an Oreo cookie where you have an outside that's a dark chocolate and slightly bitter and crunchy, and then you got that soft, sweet, comforting center. So we have a number of recipes that mimic those sort of that tension, which Americans really love. So we reverse engineered deliciousness.

How did you think to do that? That's so smart.

You know, I've written a few books on happiness that are all data-driven, so I got familiar with how to find and manipulate data to offer insights. And, um, it's probably just an offshoot of what I was doing.

Now, have you tested— it would be very interesting to take these meals and test them against some of those other meals and see if the people that are used to eating that garbage food, you know, like them.

The sales of this book suggest they do. It's gotten great reviews and a lot of people have bought it. But it would be interesting to hit them again. You know, I mean, this is kind of a plug, but it also answers your question. 2 years ago, I did with a team here, I developed Blue Zone Kitchen frozen meals, which are all formulated for longevity. We spent an entire year to get 4 recipes right. I insisted on maniacal delicious, and we tested them all with meat eaters. People are used to eating, you know, chicken, meaty, cheesy frozen foods, and they outsell about 90% of all the meat.

Where are they sold?

Everywhere. Publix, Target. I never go to the store. So, you know, Whole Foods is probably the best place to get them.

Do you have more than 4 now, or do you still have the 4?

Now I have 8.

And what are they? I'm hungry right now because we're getting ready for dinner, so I shouldn't be asking.

They're single serving. They're in the back. They're in a bamboo bowl, so you're not dealing with plastic.

Nice.

We have a minestrone, a burrito bowl. We have a kimchi bowl inspired. We have an adobe mushroom bowl inspired by Mexico. We have a Hawaiian pineapple bowl, but they're all whole food, plant-based. Wow. You know, there's a few tricks to make them taste delicious. And I'll tell you a little secret about frozen food. This is the way frozen food's made. They put almost all the ingenuity in the sauce, and the sauce is full of sodium and sugar and flavor enhancers. And then they batch cook everything underneath it at same temperature. It's kind of slop, but they put this crack-like delicious sauce on top of it and we eat it. That was good. For every ingredient, we go to the farm. We meet the farmer. Every ingredient is specially grown for us, and we cook them at different temperatures so the texture and the flavors are retained. You know, we have sauces on ours as well, but it doesn't have the sodium and the sugar and all the other artificial flavor enhancers because we retain the flavors of the core ingredients.

Wow. I'm ordering these. We will link to these.

Blue Zones kitchen. Very exciting. Frozen foods.

I, I mean, I never buy anything frozen except for cauliflower rice because all that's such junk.

This is all 100% vegetables, you know, nuts or nice beans.

What's the price point on them?

$7. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more cheaper than a drive-through.

Yeah. Cheaper than going to Starbucks. So let's dig into time. I always like to say eat by the plate, eat by the clock, and And what did you see with the Blue Zones in terms of timing when they ate? What do you subscribe to with time-restricted feeding, et cetera? I mean, I'm thinking of some of the places I've been, and it seems like when you eat is all over the place with some of the different countries. So is there anything that's—

Here's, yeah, this is all the easiest thing to remember. Don't snack.

I've been an anti-snacker for ever. Forever. I still remember when this all happened because I was living in LA and all of a sudden they took all the fat out of food and everyone had to eat every 5 minutes.

Oh yeah, yeah, because your sugar was spiking.

You can't do cardio all day long and go fat-free and not snack. It's not possible.

So number one, no, don't snack. And that sort of takes away the late night eating. They're typically, of course, waking up in the morning and eating something, and it's almost always a savory breakfast. You don't see any bacon and eggs in any of the Blue Zones. You don't see any cereal, which is usually just a bowl of sugar with dairy on it. Sardinia— I start my day every day with a Sardinian minestrone, which has about 12 kinds of vegetables, 3 kinds of beans. I'm getting more than half of the fiber I need for the day. That bowl of minestrone has more protein than 2 eggs. So they tend to consume most of their calories by midday and a small dinner, and that's it. The Adventists their eating pattern is a giant kind of brunch, and they're all plant-based. And the Adventists are plant-based people. They take their diet from the Bible, where in Genesis, God actually prescribes the diet of the Garden of Eden, which is every plant that bears seed— nuts and grains and beans and legumes— every tree that bears fruit— citrus and apples and avocados and tomato. And then God goes on to talk about green plants. No mention of meat or cheese or eggs in there. So that's what the Adventists eat. They'll have a giant brunch at 10 and then what I call a linner halfway between lunch and dinner at 4, and that's it.

Which makes the most sense when you really think about it. It's like a 10 o'clock and a 4 o'clock, you know?

That's right. And nothing in between.

How much fiber were they like— do they typically get these different areas?

Well, it's the equivalent of 2 cups of beans a day. Different things have different amounts of fiber. Beans are a really good source. Only about 10% of Americans get enough fiber. And, you know, we talk a lot about our healthy microbiome and probiotics, etc. The only thing the healthy bacteria in our gut consume is fiber. If you're not eating enough fiber, your gut cannot synthesize the vitamins. Much better vitamins synthesized in your own gut. Or create the short-chain fatty acids to modulate your inflammation and your immune system and create the precursors to serotonin. Did you know most of the serotonin is not produced in your brain? It's produced in your gut. And if you're not feeding your gut fiber, you're not getting enough serotonin. So lo and behold, your crappy mood or depression or anxiety might be because you started your day with eggs and bacon and then had a burger for lunch and then moved on to a pork chop for dinner and you didn't eat any fiber.

Yeah, I would imagine too, it's— they're also getting a good cross-section of different types of fiber. They're getting resistant starch in there and then they're getting all the polyphenols. That is my biggest concern with the carnivore diet is like, what the heck is going on with those gut microbiomes?

You know? Yeah. Well, the other thing, you know, actually the New York Times interviewed me about this. There is no carnivore population in the world that lives more than— that has a life expectancy beyond age 60.

There is a carnivore population somewhere?

Well, the Inuits and the Maasai.

Ah, they're straight carnivores.

Almost. Carnivores, they find these studies and they extrapolate into the real world for the next 50 years, and you can't do that. Oh sure, it might help build muscle in the, in the short run, but you can't ignore the association with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Or the China Study, the biggest epidemiology study ever done that shows a very clear correlation between cancer and animal protein.

My take on the carnivore diet is that it can be a very effective short-term elimination diet to help someone feel better, but then you get hooked on it instead of realizing the diet that might've helped you feel better is not the diet that's going to be the right diet for the long term. And I think we have to look at diets as tools. And it is so clear that we have to be supporting our gut microbiome. Like that is just a very clear one. Now you've created a One Pot Challenge. What is this? Is this something that all of our listeners can do?

Sure, they can do it. And I would argue, you know, if you later on, if you ask me the question, 3 or 4 things you can do that will most add years to your life.

Well, let's not do that later on, let's do it right now.

Well, let me answer your question first. So one of them is learn how to cook at home. Every time you go out to eat, you consume about 300 more calories than you would if you ate at home.

And I'm assuming from fat, probably, right?

From bad seed, seed oils, simple carbs. You know, you think of a McDonald's meal, or, you know, even if you go to a TGIF or something, they're those, you're always served way more food than you, than you, than you need, and you end up eating it. It's very hard to get a healthy meal when you go out to eat in America. So when you're eating at home, you're controlling the ingredients. You can cook for longevity and you bring the family together and it's much cheaper and it can be much faster, by the way, than driving to a restaurant, ordering, waiting for the food, and then, you know, eating the food and waiting for your check and driving home. I live in Miami here and I funded a program for 20 inner city moms very poor moms. They came in and they had to commit to showing up for 10 sessions. And they came to a place called the Overtown Youth Center. And I gave everybody free Instapots and I brought in a chef, a good chef. And they picked— they chose the recipes from my Blue Zone Kitchen books. They could choose any ones they want. And then we cooked it together. And then while it was cooking in the Instapot, we gave these ladies a chance to get to know each other in a meaningful way. I ask questions like, tell us about something you're proud of that nobody else knows. So I tried to build kind of a social network around these ladies. So at the end of the 10 weeks, they would be friends. And then towards the end, the food was done and we ate the food together. And then what was left over, they got to bring home for their families. So at the end of 10 weeks, they had the hardware. Instapot. They had the skills. They now know how to make 10 meals that they like. That's the most important. We knew they liked them. They chose them. And they had a circle of 4 other friends that they bonded with over this period. So that was all the tools to make it a long-term practice. When it comes to longevity, unless it's a long-term something you're going to undertake for years or decades, don't waste your time unless you're doing it for fun. But it ain't going to help your longevity.

Well, do we know anything about, like, what happened after the fact?

Yes, yes, we've tracked them. Almost all of them, we've seen a drop in weight, we've seen a drop in blood pressure. We had one lady report she reversed her type 2 diabetes, and they're still eating this way. Well, not every meal, but it went from 0 to 20%. Think if you just replaced one meal a day, it would add 3 years to your life expectancy. I'm just shooting from the hip here, but yeah, one good meal— that sardinian minestrone, you start your day with it. By the way, it's delicious, it's hearty. I put some avocado on the top. You can sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on it if you want.

And I love that because that was one of the things I found when I was writing The Virgin Diet is I think that people start the day wrong. It just sets them on a roller coaster of doom. And you look at what most people do and they go to Starbucks, they get a muffin.

Yeah. And their blood sugar spikes.

It's a cupcake. Let's call it what it is.

It's a cupcake without frosting. It's cake.

And then they have a latte, a mocha one. So they had a milkshake, they had a cupcake.

And then they feel like crap a couple hours later and they're just off and running and they're hungry, so they go get another mid-morning cupcake called a donut.

What's one food you make sure you eat every day? Is there anything? No.

I happen to love my sardine minestrone. I make a huge pot on Sunday and I freeze it in glass Tupperwares, Pyrex Tupperwares. Take the top off and I put it in. But, you know, I live in Miami and it's fun here and I go out to eat pretty much every night. So I get, you know, I get it for sure really good. I also have coconut yogurt and blueberries. That's kind of my— after my minestrone, I eat that pretty much every day.

I'll tell you a funny story. I was meeting— I was in for the weekend and I was going to meet Colleen and Jason for dinner, and I was going to meet Mark for dinner.

MindBodyGreen, we love them.

So the MindBodyGreen folks are like, can we go to dinner at 5:30? I'm like, sure.

Yeah, I went out with them.

Yeah, yeah. And then Mark Can we go to dinner at 9? I'm like, okay, guys.

Well, they got little kids and their way of doing things is healthier than our way. If it wasn't so much fun to go out later, I think it's way healthier to eat earlier.

We eat at 6, 6:30 every night because I do not like to eat late. I'm very excited about these frozen meals.

Luzon's Kitchen frozen meal. Thank you. I'm very proud of them.

Like, I need the thing in the freezer so that if we get home from traveling or something else, We got ourselves covered. So that is very exciting.

Well, we've sold over 2 million of these meals. I feel like I've done more for public health than most public health departments have.

I am sure you have. That's it for sure. That's fantastic. We'll link to the book. I'm really hooked on my Wonder Oven from Our Place, and I just saw that they have a really cool crock pot. So I think that that is going to be a little treat. Is to get that to go with the book. So I'll put that in the show notes too. Any parting words of inspiration for everybody, or did you leave it all on the table?

I'll leave you with a parting tip. Okay. When it comes to longevity, you want to think of things you're going to do for the long run. And one of the best strategies to improve your long-term health and behavior is make a friend. We spend a lot of money on diets and longevity hacks and exercise. This New Year's Eve, or this New Year's resolution, make a resolution to add 1 or 2 new people to your immediate social circle. And those people should have as their main form of recreation some— something active, playing pickleball or running or golfing. These new friends should care about you on a bad day. And it's not a bad idea to have a vegan or vegetarian— not to say that you have to go vegan or vegetarian, but they're gonna show you where to find delicious plant-based food. And friends tend to be long-term adventures. I mean, you've been friends with the Periskis for years and years, and every time we hang out with them, you know, it's, it's good energy, it's good food, it's emotional support. Those are the things that work the best, and those are the things that work in the Blue Zones. And, you know, cook at home, know your sense of purpose, make some new good friends, figure out how to walk to work and get your cup of coffee in the morning. And I'll see you when you're 100.

I love that so much. I will tell you the thing that I value the most are my friends. All right, well, thank you so much. I'm gonna put everything at jjvirgin.com/bluezones. So make sure everybody checks that out so that you can get the links to the books and the meals and everything else. And thank you, Dan.

Thank you, JJ. We'll see you when you're 100.

All righty. I can't tell you how excited I am about these frozen meals. I am always looking for those things things to have in the freezer when the day gets away from me or we come in from a trip and we need to have dinner. So that is what I'm doing. Don't tell Dan, I might add a little chicken breast with it, but you know, there you go. I'm really excited about those, and I was really excited about the conversation today. You know, every time I talk to someone who studies longevity, I'm reminded that it's not just what's on your plate, it's also who you're sharing that plate with, what's around that. And I mean, when you look at Dan's research about the fact how steep the hills are, about who you're around, about those social connections, you realize that all of that can be just as important, maybe more important, as to what we're eating. Although I always say that like the thing that you can do quickly to feel better is to change what's at the end of your fork. So here's an easy way to do that: these one-pot meals. And again, I'm going to put some links in the show notes. I am excited about— like, I've got this Our Place Wonder Oven because I was looking for a non-toxic oven. I noticed they had a Crock-Pot, so I think that I'm going to get that to have with these one-pot meals. So I'd love to hear— I'd love to hear your experience with all of these. And again, it's been a pleasure today chatting with Dan. Hope you loved this one. If you did, be sure to like it and rate and review the show. That helps us so much, and I will see you next week. All right, here's to aging powerfully.