The 8 Best Blue Zones Recipes | 8 Easy Plant-Based Recipes for weeknight dinners - What's in the fridge? (2024)

FAQs

The 8 Best Blue Zones Recipes | 8 Easy Plant-Based Recipes for weeknight dinners - What's in the fridge? ›

Eggs are consumed in all five Blue Zones diets, where people eat them an average of two to four times per week. Cut down your consumption of cow's milk and dairy products such as cheese, cream, and butter. Try unsweetened soy, coconut, or almond milk as a dairy alternative.

Eggs are consumed in all five Blue Zones diets, where people eat them an average of two to four times per week. Cut down your consumption of cow's milk and dairy products such as cheese, cream, and butter. Try unsweetened soy, coconut, or almond milk as a dairy alternative.

In blue zones regions, the routine is similar. Ideally, breakfast or the first meal of the day consists of protein, complex carbohydrates (beans or veggies) and plant-based fats (nuts, seeds, oils) and a majority of the day's calories are consumed before noon.

In addition to a daily cup of coffee, blue zones centenarians drink water, tea and wine. While coffee is often a hotly-debated health topic, it's shown to carry many health benefits. Most centenarians in blue zones regions drink up to two or three cups of black coffee per day!

The best-of-the-best longevity foods are leafy greens such as spinach, kale, beet and turnip tops, chard, and collards. Combined with seasonal fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and beans dominate blue zones meals all year long. Many oils derive from plants, and they are all preferable to animal-based fats.

Avoid dairy when possible. If cheese is a must, try ice-cube size portions of sheep (pecorino) or goat (feta) cheese to flavor foods. If you eat eggs, limit intake to three times a week.

Their diets do not include processed meats like hot dogs, bacon, and sausages. Instead, they favor free-range chicken and family-farmed pork or lamb.

People in Blue Zones areas eat whole foods. Whole foods are not processed in factories—they're made with ingredients that are recognizable as coming from the earth, like rice, corn, soy, fruits, and vegetables, or prepared food like tofu or manna bread.

For Whole Grains: You can include 100% whole grain pasta and bread in this category, but the whole grains (like the ones listed above) are preferable. For Beans: We include all pulses and legumes in this category, including chickpeas, lentils, broad beans, and green beans.

Minimize your consumption of cow's milk and dairy products such as cheese, cream, and butter. Cow's milk does not figure significantly in any Blue Zones diet except that of the Adventists, some of whom eat eggs and dairy products.

Do Blue Zone people eat bread? ›

The Blue Zones diet also incorporates plenty of bread—and yes, it is considered a healthy staple. “It's unfortunate that carbohydrates have become so demonized in our society,” says Jones. Remember: Many plant foods contain carbohydrates, which is the primary source of energy for most human beings on earth.

Centenarians from the blue zones regions of the world often drink up to two glasses of wine every day as a way to “downshift” from the stressors of daily life. Sardinians, in particular, drink the garnet-red Cannonau wine.

According to Buettner's research, breakfast (or the first meal of the day) in the Blue Zones usually consists of protein, complex carbohydrates (like beans or veggies), and plant-based fats (like nuts, seeds, and oils).

It is argued that the single, most complete food a human needs to survive is human breast milk. Other foods may be nutritious but inevitably lack certain vitamins, minerals, etc.

A healthy breakfast on the longevity diet might contain whole grains, nuts, and fruit. Longo himself likes to have friselle, a whole-grain bread from Italy, with a nut spread containing almond and cocoa, as well as an apple.

Consumption of eggs is permissible in all Abrahamic faiths. Jains abstain from eating eggs. Many Hindu and Orthodox Sikh vegetarians also refrain from eating eggs.

Consume meat no more than twice a week.

In most Blue Zones diets people ate small amounts of pork, chicken, or lamb. (Adventists, the one exception, ate no meat at all.)

The diet is mostly plant-based. The daily food intake of people living in Blue Zones is about 95% vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. They do not eat much meat, dairy, sugary foods or drinks, and processed food. Food is not the only reason that people in Blue Zones live long, healthy lives.

Plant-based diets are common in Blue Zones, regions where people regularly live to 100. For protein, many Blue Zone cuisines rely on carb-rich staples like legumes and whole grains. Nuts, with some fish, dairy, and eggs, round out the moderate protein intake in Blue Zones diets.