Blue Zones Solution, The: Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People (The Blue Zones)

Lots of good information. The cliff notes version is they located places around the world where people live the longest. They called these the blue zones. Then they went to these places and studied the people, their diets, their habits and interviewed people about why they thought people lived longer in their region. They came up with 9 things to longer life. 1. move naturally 2. have a purpose in life 3. downshift -meditate-relax 4. 80% rule - eat 80% of your food, leave 20% on your plate 5. plant slant - more veggies, less meat 6. wine at 5 - one glass a day 7. right tribe - have long time friends who have healthy habits 8. community - be involved in your community in someway 9. family first - keep them close and enjoy the relationships. I have a neighbor who is 91 and he lives alone, drives himself, does his own yard work and he takes zero medications. He amazes me. I was talking to him about things the book said and he offered his advice; He smoked until he was 40 but he quit and said everybody should quit, he quit sugar in 1993, he eats beans, usually navy beans everyday. He eats a lot of broccoli and whole grain bread. He is outside doing something in his yard everyday when its not raining. He goes to bed at around 7pm and gets up at 4-5 am. He has friends that he goes out with each week and he goes to church every week. He also has 1 can of beer a day. He says its for his kidneys. He has two big fluffy dogs and he takes good care of them. He's broke his hip, he's had lots of skin cancers removed and treated with radiation but never any continuing condition like high blood pressure or heart disease. So he agreed that the advice in the book is spot on as far as he's concerned. Very well done book with interesting and entertaining interviews and advice. It also has a lot of recipes for foods the people in the blue zones are eating. There is also advice for turning your home into a blue zone. I recommend this book.

I saw Dan Buettner on the Oprah Winfrey Show years ago discussing his book Blue Zones and was intrigued with the idea of regions of the world where people live longer and where there is a higher concentration of centenarians. This summer I happened on a copy of The Blue Zones at a used book sale, bought it and enjoyed reading a more in-depth report of his findings. Recently, I noticed a new book in my local library that he had published on the subject, The Blue Zones Solution. I loved the book and, before I was halfway through it, I bought my own copy. This book not only reiterated his findings, but provided the reader with a concise overview of the elements of family, purpose, diet, activity and community present in these regions' longevity statistics. He also provides a model for creating Blue Zones on a local level with examples of pilot Blie Zone programs he set up in selected cities and worked with successfully. One of the best parts of the book is the Blue Zone recipes. I have used many of the recipes in my quest for cleaner eating and they are easy to make, use only a few simple ingredients, and are nutritious and delicious. Dan has written a book that is interesting, informative, well researched and beneficial in helping us to return to a simpler, more balaned way of living and eating. I highly recommend this book as one tool for living a healthier life.

I found the book's contents to be interesting, although I am already familiar with several of the author's ideas and suggestions regarding practices or habits of a healthier and better quality lifestyle. The book's author uses, as his premise basis, five places that contain a high number of people that live to 90 to 100 years in age. But these places are areas that use paper birth certificates and death certificates to confirm the ages of their citizens. However, areas of the world that do not orient on papers to support ages are not considered for inclusion in his life-span evaluations. Yet, he says in his book that none of the 253 spry centenarians he met ever dieted, went to gym, or took health supplements; instead, he says, long-life just "ensued" to them. There is a difference between having long life and having vitality of life. The aim of this particular book is to help the reader aim for vitality of life, and hopefully thereby raise the reader's chances of having a better and longer life. The author shares his personal experiences and perspectives regarding his travels and visits with long-lived people in those specific five locations in the world, then he talks about Blue Zone city makeovers - pursuits of individualized city changes (makeovers) that hopefully help increase quality of life and lifespans through those makeovers. Finally, the author gives advice and ideas to encourage or assist the reader to create the reader's own Blue Zone so that his or her life can hopefully be healthier and happier than the reader had thought possible. The book includes recipes modified to fit the "American kitchen", such as Tropical Lentil Stew (made with sweet potatoes and lentils), Nixtamal Corn Tortillas (easily made with a tortilla press, but can be made by hand with practice), and Marinated Antipasto (a recipe large enough for crowds and made for Seventh-Day Adventist socials). I understand that the recipes are aimed at illustrating diets from each of the five model Blue Zones, but for myself I would likely modify a few of the recipes by throwing out the black pepper and also substituting something else for the pork and other meats. The five places that the author uses as role model criteria throughout his book are the following: Ikaria in Greece, Okinawa in Japan, Ogliastra region in Sardinia, Loma Linda in California, and Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. (In my opinion, the easiest one of these for most Americans to visit, to do their own review or consideration over the centenarians there, would likely be Loma Linda in California.) I appreciate the fact that the author explained his and his colleagues' goals and follow-through methodology (on pages 295 to 296 of his paperback edition), although the words on those pages have the aspects of a summary rather than an involved explanation. I also appreciated the section that provided bibliography resource data (pages 301 to 308 in the paperback version) that cited research and published work regarding the five Blue Zones used as Role Models.

Interesting book, love it.

I found this book very interesting and highly recommend it to anyone trying to live a more healthy lifestyle. I haven’t tried the recipes at the end of the book yet but they sound good and I like how it tells you where the recipe came from and a little blip about why it’s a good recipe.