ONE MEAL PROLONGS LIFE

Forget about transhumanism: to live longer you just need to eat healthy

july 2024 - TASTE

Courtesy The Longevity Kitchen

Walking through the streets of any major city, tempting scents and aromas seduce us at every turn. Street food, traditional, ethnic, fusion and all-you-can-eat restaurants.

And then bistros, cafes and pastry shops that invite us to enter and satisfy our every culinary desire, without brakes, inhibitions and guilt.

We have become so accustomed to abundance and the philosophy of “everything now” that we no longer recognize the best choices for our long-term health. And not to understand that we are really what we eat.

In Milan, on the other hand, someone has understood this, to the point of making it their main asset.

Among the endless proposals in the food sector, in fact, the city excels in the number of plant-based and vegan-friendly restaurants, some of which focus specifically on the relationship between cuisine and longevity.

They care about the health of the customer, indeed they pamper it, with healthy dishes that do not give up taste, and Instagram-friendly looks that seduce the eye and the palate.

We have become so accustomed to abundance and the philosophy of "everything and now" that we no longer recognize the best choices for our health
We have become so accustomed to abundance and the philosophy of "everything and now" that we no longer recognize the best choices for our health

Here, then, are The Longevity Kitchen and Blue Taste, which are inspired by the diet of the “Blue Zones”, the five areas of the globe where the highest concentration of centenarians on earth lives (Sardinia in Italy, Loma Linda in California, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Ikaria in Greece and Okinawa in Japan).

And then Mediterranea, which, in its two Milanese locations, offers a proposal focused on the diet of the same name, an Italian cultural heritage. But on the real one, not the one distorted by false myths and beliefs (just look at the website of the Ministry of Health to find, on the web page dedicated to this diet, the photograph of three cheerful girls eating… a stringy pizza. Googling is believing).

Leaving Milan for the rolling hills of Bologna, here is Palazzo di Varignana resort, where the Ginkgo Longevity Restaurant offers a menu of plant-based dishes with strategic combinations of nutrients with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and potentiative functions.

Courtesy Ginkgo Longevity Restaurant
Courtesy Ginkgo Longevity Restaurant
Courtesy Ginkgo Longevity Restaurant

For lunch or dinner, or as part of long-lasting personalized wellness programs designed by Dr. Annamaria Acquaviva, who has been conducting studies related to longevity and cooking for years. His method structured in five pillars (nutrition, rest, exercise, inner harmony, and food and cosmetic supplementation) is a hymn to longevity tout court, the keystone to have a life that is not only long, but healthy and fulfilling. 

Being inspired by the proposal of these restaurants can be a starting point for practicing what has been called the “Longevity Diet”. The best known in Italy is that of Valter Longo, who for years has been dedicated to the study of the relationship between nutrition and life expectancy. In the book that tells the story, the specialist goes back to the roots of this diet, which finds its basis in the Mediterranean diet: complex carbohydrates, legumes, vegetables, fruit (but not too much), unsaturated fats (such as extra virgin olive oil and dried fruit) and fish (two or three times a week). Years of studies on genetics, nutrition, stem cells and longevity have served Dr. Longo to structure a diet that is both preventive and curative. And that it can help regenerate and rejuvenate our body, reducing the risk of cancer, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Courtesy The Longevity Kitchen

No extremism: there is no need to say goodbye to comfort food forever. But it is worth understanding how the consumption of certain foods – including refined flours, sugars and saturated fats that abound on our tables – can, day after day, harm us.

In addition to longevity restaurants, there are many resources available to inform yourself on the subject, which is arousing more and more interest all over the world. Seeing is believing the best-seller “How not to die. Discover the foods scientifically proven to prevent and reverse desease” by Michael Greger (founding doctor of NutritionFacts.org) which helps us understand how our every choice in the kitchen can be a powerful means of prevention and a daily tool to go far. Healthier and, maybe who knows, happier. 

by Elena Caslini