Fountain Of Youth in the Food Store: Five Foods You Should Be Eating To Live Longer

Fountain Of Youth in the Food Store: Five Foods You Should Be Eating To Live Longer

By Kurtis Bright

Choosing the Right Foods for Longer Life

We humans have had a fascination with death since we’ve been human. There is evidence of funerary practices occurring at some of the oldest human habitations, so we know that we have been pondering death for a very long time.

The flip side of considering death and what it is and what meaning it has is of course focusing on life, and how to stay alive for as long as possible. Even before Ponce de Leon’s search for the Fountain of Youth in the Florida Everglades, and right up to Howard Hughes’ mad regimen of germophobia designed to allow him to live forever, our obsession with long life continues.

Well good news, everyone: there actually is a fountain of youth--uh, sort of. But you don’t have to hack your way into the wilds of central Florida to find it. These five foods will help you live a longer, healthier life.

• Nuts - Bodybuilders along with casual dieters have long relied on nuts, knowing that they provide a protein punch at just a tiny caloric cost. A handful of almonds will keep you going for a long time. Even better, they can help you keep up your daily energy, but even your life itself. A study performed at the Harvard School of Public Health showed that the more often people ate nuts, the lower their risk of dying was.
• Whole grains - It is well known nowadays that white bread is virtually devoid of nutrients and sets off a glycemic roller coaster reaction in your body. Luckily it turns out that whole grain breads, pastas and other bakery items not only don’t trigger as severe a glycemic reaction, they can also help you live longer. A Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine study found that for each additional one ounce serving of whole grains a person ate, they had a 5 percent lower overall mortality risk, and a 9 percent lower risk of death from heart problems.
• Spice it up - A study in China that followed over 450,000 men and women demonstrated that those who ate spicy foods six or seven days a week had a 14 percent lower mortality risk than those who ate them once each week. Pass the hot sauce!
• Seaweed - There have been over a thousand studies on seaweed and counting, demonstrating all kinds of benefits: lowered risk of inflammation, immune system boosting capabilities, and retarding the growth of cancer just to name a few. And a recent meta-study looked at all of these, seeking to quantify the copious use of seaweed in Japanese cuisine to help explain the longevity rate in that country, which is one of the highest in the world.
• Something Fishy - We’ve known for a long time that fish contain carotenoids, compounds that protect against neurological diseases, as well as omega-3s. These fatty fish help reduce inflammation, which has been linked to allergies, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. Make sure you buy only organic, sustainable fish that isn’t loaded with heavy metals or toxins--go to seafoodwatch for more.

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