Blue Zone

Lots of information here: https://www.bluezones.com/recipes/food-guidelines/

Not too different from what most think of as a Mediterranean diet, which tends to mean cooking mostly from whole or minimally processed foods, olive oil as the main fat, lots of veggies and fruit, nuts and seeds, little meat but for fish, whole grains vs refined, limited added sugar.

If your dietician recommends a diet, then they need to give you more detail than just the name.

chris_in_cal wrote: »

Hobartlemagne wrote: »

If your dietician ...

Having a dietitian isn't very common. The times I've spoken with dietitians, they say the USDA recommendations. Which is currently to look at a picture of a plate and image a larger portion is vegetable, and a smaller percent is meat.

Often someone needs a medical diagnosis like diabetes or kidney disease before insurance covers a dietitian. Which is sad. I think many people would benefit from being able to discuss their health and dietary choices with someone more knowledgeable than their GP, or a bunch of strangers on the internet.

And then when someone does actually get an appointment or set of appointments with a registered dietitian, there can be a lot of misconceptions about what is and is not healthy to unpack before someone can hear the message. And some people are at about a 5th grade reading level so the basic lessons really do need to be basic. Which makes it difficult if you only are allowed one or two 45 minute appointments.

I agree. It’s a problem.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

chris_in_cal wrote: »

Hobartlemagne wrote: »

If your dietician ...

Having a dietitian isn't very common. The times I've spoken with dietitians, they say the USDA recommendations. Which is currently to look at a picture of a plate and image a larger portion is vegetable, and a smaller percent is meat.

Yeah, that's the overview poster. But the USDA MyPlate site has a lot of information - videos, tips, tools, guides, etc. - for anyone willing to click beyond a picture. It's quite specific, actually.

When my husband was in cardiac rehab our local health system had about six weeks of group classes for the newly rehabbing heart patients. Individual exercise sessions for 45 minutes, followed by an hour of group classroom sessions that really dived pretty deeply different dietary guidelines and how diet and exercise affects people.

It was overall very good.

But even with all that effort there was one person, a diabetic who had survived a very serious heart attack, who refused to listen to any of the medical advice.

He would do the exercise. But he had been so convinced that “big pharma” was some kind of a scam that he flat refused to take metformin, statins, or insulin. He believed that his elevated A1C was ok as long as he ate enough cinnamon and turmeric.

The nurses and PAs who ran the program were trying their absolute best to get him to do something that would actually help him avoid another heart attack or stroke.

Sadly it was not successful.

We’re in a relatively affluent, well educated area. The information is available. If someone wants to go looking for it.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of charlatans and sketchy information competing for attention.

*please don’t anyone interpret this as me saying that the only valid way to eat is by strict adherence to whatever medical professionals say about diet.

chris_in_cal wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

Unfortunately there’s a lot of charlatans and sketchy information competing for attention.

This is the subtitle for MFP Community threads.

OP is long gone, but I am interested in learning more about Blue Zone.
A quick google suggested it’s fairly carb heavy? Is that wrong?

If so it probably wouldn’t work with the American diabetes association divided portion control plate system.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t work well for some people.

chris_in_cal wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

I am interested in learning more about Blue Zone.

Listen to the podcast I linked to. It's one hour. It is the guy who discovered and wrote about Blue Zones. It's a well done interview.

Men and Women in the world who tend to live the longest eat a lot of beans and legumes. And there are a bunch of other similarities. His "Blue Power nine."

https://tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/dan-buettner

I appreciate the link…. But I am a hearing aid user and I generally don’t listen to podcasts unless I know ahead of time if the sound design is something that works for my ears and brain.

The Blue Zone theory suffers from the same issue most things of its sort do, it neglects the date in places that don't fit with its premise. I has some value, but both the fact it is epidemiological and thus suffers from numerous confounders and that places like Hong Kong which has some of the longest lived people but eats a large amount of meat per capita are left out means it is more of an opinion than anything else.

I eat in a blue-zone-ish way, generally but far from totally. I do think it's a reasonable way to eat, if it suits a person . . . and I'd say that even if I were choosing quite differently for myself. (I absolutely don't always do the health-optimal things. But I'm not going to try to sell people that they should make the same choices I do, especially when I know my choices aren't health-ideal. There are various reasonable options, and choosing an approach we can actually personally carry out is IMO really important.)

That said, there are some very well-reasoned critiques of the blue zones research, IMO. I think it's a little iffy.

Interestingly, the "Power 9" seem to be mostly not about the eating style, but the overall lifestyle.

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

chris_in_cal wrote: »

MargaretYakoda wrote: »

I am interested in learning more about Blue Zone.

Listen to the podcast I linked to. It's one hour. It is the guy who discovered and wrote about Blue Zones. It's a well done interview.

Men and Women in the world who tend to live the longest eat a lot of beans and legumes. And there are a bunch of other similarities. His "Blue Power nine."

https://tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/dan-buettner

I appreciate the link…. But I am a hearing aid user and I generally don’t listen to podcasts unless I know ahead of time if the sound design is something that works for my ears and brain.

Margaret if you happen to have an iPhone, there’s a setting where you can convert podcasts into closed captioning on the fly. I keep hitting it by accent. Sweaty pockets 🤷🏻‍♀️

Some gyms offer discount access to dieticians (NOT nutritionists!). Mine does. Worth every penny when I started out.

Some health insurance plans offer free phone visits with dieticians.

I follow the "blue zones" way of eating. I absolutely love it and I feel good but apparently - I am failing at it due to lack of exercise, no friends/support groups/activities, no faith based things/community, too much stress in daily life, not enough sleep....the food and wine are up to par except B vitamins. Because I haven't been eating as much meat and doing strength training like i did the month before, I lost 2 lbs of muscle and gained 3 lbs of fat. Not sure how I can fix this. I literally cannot tolerate 130 g of protein daily anymore.

AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »

I'm most interested in the diets of the oldest people living in the areas with the shortest lifespans!

That is very clever- it removes genetics from the equation

Not super familiar with it, but watched the documentary and found it interesting enough to look into a little bit.
Overall, nothing too groundbreaking when you really think about it - more high fiber veggies and root vegg, less grains, less meat, less alcohol, and MOVE MORE in dynamic ways. Eat fresh, whole foods, not heavily processed, chemical laden stuff.
The diet is a decent common-sense guideline, but I think maybe is underplaying that big element of dynamic movement into old age.
While purely anecdotal, I think activity that is dynamic, normal, and actual work for your body is elemental to a longer life. I have mostly seen this in our animals when I was a kid. Our pets weren't fed fancy foods - shoot, for a long time our dogs got the cheapest of the cheap grocery store food - they mostly saw our farm vet, and weren't following all the 'expectations' you typically see today. However, they were EXTREMELY active on our farm, the dogs following us when we would be out riding the horses, playing, doing chores, chasing rodents, etc. I had some huskies that I did sledding and carting with. We just had physically active lives. The vast majority of our pets lived well beyond the typical age ranges for their breeds (most lived from 15-22 years old, with 16-18 being the norm for our medium to m/l dogs).
Even as an adult my dogs have typically made it to the longer end of what would be "normal" for their breeds, but again, they've stayed active - not as active as the family dogs when we lived on the farm, but active.
I know, dogs aren't humans, and it's just my personal experience, but it repeated enough that I have trouble not believing there's a serious connection between activity and longevity, which was also one of the 5 factors listed in the Blue Zones show.