Centenarian Dietary Secrets

with Gina Baker

What should we eat to live a long, healthy life? Gina Baker, a writer, farmer, and researcher, who has lived in Costa Rica for over 20 years, went to the Nicoya Peninsula to learn about the traditional diets of centenarians. Her visits and conversations with the centenarians revealed that their traditional diet featured fried pork, pork brains, and lots and lots of lard. Does this surprise you? It definitely runs contrary to what was written up about the Nicoya people in “The Blue Zones.” In that book, their diet was characterized as primarily vegetarian. On today’s podcast, Gina does some serious myth-busting about what has kept the centenarians so well, for so long. She also shares secrets that she learned along the way about the key to the longevity, vitality, and strength of the centenarians of the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica.

Notes:

Highlights from the conversation include:

how conversations in Costa Rica piqued Gina’s curiosity about the centenarians of Nicoya
why she believes the book “The Blue Zones” got it wrong
what Gina found when she traveled there and spoke to centenarians herself
that traditional Costa Rican food from the Nicoya Peninsula is very fatty, consisting of lots of pork lard, “bone soup,” lots of organ meats, fresh milk straight from the cow, eggs, chicken skin, salted fish, shellfish and some fresh corn tortillas, undoubtedly cooked in lard
that average age of centenarians on the Nicoya Peninsula is 107 years old
how many centenarians still have energy to work in the field and raise pigs
how the Nicoya Peninsula used to be very isolated where trade and barter was still the main source of economic drive
the climate in the peninsula
one centenarian’s story of how one pig was slaughtered per month and why
the attitude of eating just about any animal that could be caught, including wild boar, fish and shellfish and even iguana
how children used to fight over the liver of the animals
the drastic comparison of health in the older population and the newer
how lard has been demonized and been replaced with vegetable shortening
what the younger generation is drinking instead of sour milk and whey
why many have renounced their traditional ways of eating
three popular traditional dishes and what they reveal about the popularity of organ meats and the presence of animal foods in the centenarians’ diets