13 Blue Zone Recipes For Health & Longevity | Elizabeth Rider (2024)

FAQs

What is the Blue Zone diet for longevity? ›

The blue zone diet suggests that a reduced consumption of meat (about two ounces five times a month) can also significantly impact health and longevity. The longest-living Americans were found to be vegans or pesco vegetarians, who followed a plant-based diet with a limited bit of fish.

Eggs are consumed in all five Blue Zones diets, where people eat them an average of two to four times per week. Cut down your consumption of cow's milk and dairy products such as cheese, cream, and butter. Try unsweetened soy, coconut, or almond milk as a dairy alternative.

“The five pillars of every longevity diet, including the blue zone, are whole grains, vegetables in season, tubers, nuts and beans. In fact, I argue the cornerstone of a longevity diet is beans.”

Avoid dairy when possible. If cheese is a must, try ice-cube size portions of sheep (pecorino) or goat (feta) cheese to flavor foods. If you eat eggs, limit intake to three times a week.

In fact, a 2022 research review found that diets with moderate to high levels of carbohydrates were associated with longevity—but only if they were unrefined carbohydrates (think: whole and minimally processed plant foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains).

The diet is mostly plant-based. The daily food intake of people living in Blue Zones is about 95% vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. They do not eat much meat, dairy, sugary foods or drinks, and processed food. Food is not the only reason that people in Blue Zones live long, healthy lives.

Let's take a minute to celebrate peanut butter — if you're looking for the perfect blue zones lunch, this is where it's at. You can just do bread and peanut butter (which I like), or you can add some thinly-sliced banana, or you could add a natural, no-sugar-added jam (in place of typical highly-processed grape jelly).

I would make one key tweak to the recipe. In the Loma Linda Blue Zone, people live on average 10 years longer than the rest of the US. They eat oats as part of their high-fiber, high-carbohydrate diets. I would stir spices into the oats rather than sprinkling them on top.

Blue Zones centenarians typically drink coffee at breakfast, tea in the afternoon, wine at 5pm, and water all day. To live to be 100, keep your beverages simple and avoid sugary beverages like soda and fruit juices.

A healthy breakfast on the longevity diet might contain whole grains, nuts, and fruit. Longo himself likes to have friselle, a whole-grain bread from Italy, with a nut spread containing almond and cocoa, as well as an apple.

What are two meals a day for longevity? ›

If you are overweight or tend to gain weight easily, consume two meals a day: breakfast and either lunch or dinner, plus two low-sugar (less than 5 grams) snacks with fewer than 100 calories each.

Papaya has a reputation for such a trove of health benefits it's been called the “fruit of long life.” It's listed as one of the “longevity superfoods” eaten in the Blue Zones — places around the world where people live extraordinarily long and healthy lives.

Whole, plant-based foods like leafy veggies, fruits, beans, and grains are pervasive in Blue Zones. In contrast, the regional diets tend to avoid processed foods, refined grains, sweet drinks, and added sugar, and incorporate red meat and animal fats like butter sparingly, if at all.

Their diets do not include processed meats like hot dogs, bacon, and sausages. Instead, they favor free-range chicken and family-farmed pork or lamb.

Rice. Several varieties of rice—from white and brown to red or black rice—are staples in all five Blue Zones, but especially Nicoya, Okinawa, and Loma Linda.

People in Okinawa say “Hara Hachi Bu” before meals to remind them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. This strategy helps them eat mindfully, and it is one of the Power 9® traits of people who live in Blue Zones®.

Consume both vegetable-based proteins from legumes and nuts, and animal protein from fish (2-3 times a week, yet avoiding fish high in mercury), while eating less frequently red meat, white meat and eggs (1 serving a week for each of these foods, and ideally organic).

Is the Blue Zone diet the same as the Mediterranean diet? Not exactly. “It's very similar to the Mediterranean diet, but there are differences,” Cording says. A big one is that the Mediterranean diet just focuses on the Mediterranean region of the world, she says—this diet focuses on the five different Blue Zones.