332: The Blue Zones Lifestyle: Plant Slant and Nutrition - Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  00:00

You know, when they were looking at the characteristics of all of these different societies, they found that they were plant slanted, or predominantly plant based some more than others. Some were 98 99%. And even some people within those communities weren't 100% just by the nature of the way they live their lives.

Maya Acosta  00:19

This is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast, and I'm your host, Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me. Together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life, and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started. And welcome back to another episode of the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast. I'm your host, Maya Acosta and Dr. Risks. Today is Monday. Do you know what that means?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  00:48

It's time for another episode of

Maya Acosta  00:51

Doctor in the house with our guest expert, Dr. Rizwan Bukhari, and we hope that you've been enjoying these last two episodes that we've done on Blue Zone living today is episode three. And we're also inviting you to challenge yourself in the next 30 days on implementing these ways of living. Before we get started, let's do an icebreaker. Are you ready?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  01:17

Oh, I hope so.

Maya Acosta  01:18

Okay, this is another question that I came up with, about Blue Zone Living doctor is, if you could create your own Blue Zone community event, what would it be a group hike a cooking workshop or something entirely unique.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  01:35

I think that's pretty easy. For me. I enjoy the outdoors so much. And I love hiking. So it would be a group hike.

Maya Acosta  01:42

I love the idea of a group hike. We did have that experience with our friends when we all went in the van. And I prepared food for three days for four people. And we also hiked with foods. So that was an entire experience of like, quality time with people. Healthy eating, exercise and relaxation

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:03

and getting out in nature. Yeah, exactly.

Maya Acosta  02:06

Okay, your turn to ask me a question. Oh, boy.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:09

Okay. Okay, here's your question. Which BlueZone do you think has the best secrets to longevity? Are you Team Okinawa, team? Sardinia? Or another one?

Maya Acosta  02:20

Oh, my gosh, oh, and

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:22

maybe I get to give my opinion.

Maya Acosta  02:23

Okay. All right. As soon as you said that, I immediately thought of Okinawa, or Costa Rica. Now, I'm going to lean more towards Okinawa. So I've been watching these videos of this, they are ASMR videos where you see entire footage without anyone speaking, but you're just hearing the sounds of the environment. And I've been watching this one individual, he doesn't show his face, but he writes trains, and records the entire experience. And some of my favorite train rides are in Japan. And I just and they're majestic. They're designed to show you the beauty and the nature of the location, I want to say that there's even one that goes to Okinawa or something like that. So I thought not only just all the things we already know, oh, and that not only do we know about the quality of life, but the studies that were done in terms of nature of forest bathing came from Japan, the entire region is heavily forested forest bathing is actually part of the culture, because they have so much access to forests and trails. They're the tea ceremonies, there's just the the lifestyle in many ways, even though in Japan, they have a culture of working really, really hard also. But then there are so many things that complement the lifestyle that you and I are looking for.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  03:55

Okay, good answer. So I'm Team everything. But if I have to choose one, I'm going to be team Loma Linda. Why? Because I'm very impressed that they are a Blue Zone, within the confines of the United States. And considering our culture here, fast paced lifestyles, work, work, work, fast food, not paying attention to yourself and your health and all that other stuff. Yet despite that, within our framework, they are a blue zone. So they've figured out something. In other words, maybe something we can learn from them about how to apply those concepts to our everyday lives. And you know, so not taking away from the other societies and other cultures that are also Blue Zones, but here's one within our own culture. And so I think we can learn a lot from the

Maya Acosta  04:51

absolutely, and we should add also that the blue zone in Loma Linda it consists of Seventh Day Adventists so there's that whole spiritual part practice as well. They vary in diet, but the healthiest ones are the vegetarian vegan ones.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  05:05

Yes, absolutely. So yeah, I think because of the religious influence there, there's a tremendous plant slant to their eating habits. And then so and then you do tend to see a variety of different ones within that community. Yeah, extending from plant slant to all the way vegetarian and completely a whole food plant based.

Maya Acosta  05:27

Yes. So speaking of plant slant, today's topic is about nutrition. So welcome to the third episode of The Blue Zones lifestyle series, where we delve into the secrets of longevity and well being observed in the Blue Zones. In this installment, we explore the crucial role of nutrition, specifically the plant slant, and eating in moderation in promoting healthier and more fulfilling a life. So we're going to talk about the components that are found in that power nine principles. So the blue zones, and also the category of a plant forward diet found in lifestyle medicine, because we've talked about the six pillars of lifestyle medicine. So leave us comments below, telling us how you've been doing with building community and moving naturally in your environment. And like I said, today, we talk about food. And we probably won't spend as much time talking on this topic because we promoted heavily on the podcast. But if you if you are new to listening to this podcast in general, we first want to tell you what Blue Zones are since we've been talking about them. National Geographic fellow, Dan Buettner, a few years ago traveled the country in search of the longest lived people, people that live long, healthy lives without having advanced chronic disease. And he found five regions throughout the world. And we've listed them one is found in Japan, there's one in Costa Rica, one in California, Greece, and Italy. And Italy. Sardinia, which is a an island in itself isn't a Sardinia. And so those are the blue zones. And on this podcast, we talk about lifestyle medicine, which includes moving, being physically active, having a plan forward diet, managing your stress, building healthy relationships, and so much more. And so that's how we're combining the topic of Blue Zone living with lifestyle medicine. So one of the key principles that emerged from studying the blue zones is the emphasis on a plant based diet. And Dr is people in these regions are not vegan. We're not talking about people that have 100% eliminated animal products and byproducts from their diet. We're talking about people who predominantly eat plant based diets, and then on occasion, have meat, dairy and other similar products.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  07:57

Yeah, I think that, you know, when they were looking at the characteristics of all of these different societies, they found that they were plant slanted, or predominantly plant based, some more than others. Some were 98 99%. And even some people within those communities were 100%, just by the nature of the way they live their lives. But what I think what they found was that all of them were 90 to 95%. plant based, yes. And so and that means that they consumed a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and nuts, and minimally processed foods, a minimal amount of meat.

Maya Acosta  08:36

Yes, I love that. And I was so happy when I heard about the blue zones because by the time we learned about the Blue Zones, we were already a fully plant based living that lifestyle. plant based diets have been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. They are also associated with maintaining healthy weight and supporting optimal gut health. By adopting a plant forward diet. We nourish our bodies with essential nutrients while enjoying a wide array of delicious and satisfying foods. The way that I look at the standard American diet is the most convenient foods that are available to accommodate our very busy lifestyle. How do you look at it?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  09:21

Yeah, I think that's there's a variety of ways to look at the standard American diet. It is a diet that's evolved over the course of decades, it convenience is very much at the root of it, and then you know, quickness and ease of getting the food so they make these foods tastier and tastier because they want to be able to sell the food to us. Now the problem with that is that making a food more tasty, adding more salt, more oil, more sugar, and more fat. Doesn't doesn't make it more healthy. And so there's the the conundrum there is that it's easier, and it's tastier. But that doesn't make it more healthy for us. And in fact, it's not even, not even not less healthy. But it's actually injurious to us. Yeah, causing disease and cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, we have an obesity epidemic in our country, we have a diabetes epidemic in our country. And, and this is all a result of the poor food choices that we've made for many decades now. Right.

Maya Acosta  10:21

Also, when it comes to like, for example, processed foods, the best way that I like to look at that as well is processed food is where all the good stuff has been removed. So the nutrients especially if you deep fry in and heavily processed food, you're taking out all the good stuff, and you're putting in all the stuff that you probably don't want in your body like purse additives, and preservatives and other things that make again, like you said, foods more addicting. So the standard American diet really consists of the majority being processed, quick, easy foods like hamburgers, hot dogs, and I'm really explaining that for listeners that may not even be local and might not know what that looks like. So pizzas, spaghetti is just foods that are just so convenient. All you have to do is go online and order it or take it out of your freezer, if it comes in a box or a package. And so or

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  11:16

even, you know, the 10 or 15 or 20, fast food restaurants that are within a square mile, right? That's

Maya Acosta  11:22

right your place. Yes, bringing it back to the Blue Zones is that people in those regions still prepare their foods and looks like on a regular basis, many of them depending on location tend to enjoy like purple, sweet potato. They like corn tortillas that are made by hand. For example, I one point growing up in my home, we cooked everything, our dad would make a pizza from scratch. So we were used to that. And then life has had a so busy that we just gravitate towards convenient foods. And whoever runs the household. Many, many years ago, a lot of this processed food was was basically pushed towards whoever ran the household to say, hey, it's more convenient for you to buy this in a can or in a box rather than cooking it from scratch. And it's become less frequent for one person to stay at home and do all the cooking and all the cleaning because almost everybody in the household works now.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  12:15

Yeah. And that's very interesting that you put say that because cooking has become a lost art. Right? There's not a whole lot of people who have you know, you don't you don't grow up today with basic cooking skills. Yeah, and and or know how to cook food.

Maya Acosta  12:29

Yes. And so we're part of the organization plan peer communities where pod leaders, that's what they call us. And basically, there are any, you know, you can become a pod leader in your area. It's really a grassroots movement of wanting to support people in our community on how to get started towards eating more whole plant based foods, which means that you're, yes, you're going to be cooking more from scratch. But there are ways to batch Cook, and to meal prep to facilitate all of that. So it doesn't have to be difficult, but you will be learning for the first time how to do a lot of this stuff. Absolutely. The other thing that we see in the blue zone selector is is what many people call the 80% rule, which means Blue Zone communities practice mindful eating, and they follow an 80% rule. In other words, they stop eating when they feel 80% for avoiding over eating and promoting calorie control. In Japan, they call this hottie Hachi Bou, which means it's like you you're eating and then we you reach that point you say Hara Hachi Bu, and you're done. You're like satisfied you no longer hungry, but you're not eating in excess until you feel uncomfortable.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  13:43

Yeah, I like I think the concept behind that is if you stop when you're about 80% Full in a few minutes, you're gonna feel comfortable, you no longer have those hunger pains. Because what happens kind of a form of physiologic standpoint is as the food begins to come from your stomach and hit your intestines, it starts to release actually, certain hormones like give you satiety. So you don't have to eat till your stomach is completely full, up to about 80%. And you're gonna start feeling that satiety in a few minutes.

Maya Acosta  14:08

That's right. And also the mindful eating, which there are tons and tons of book books now associated with mindfulness and mindful eating, it really means that you're eating at a slower pace, you're paying attention to how your body's feeling when you're eating, you're really savoring every bite and enjoying it. And one of the better ways to enjoy your food is in company, what does longevity say about food and why we should eat less than rather than more?

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  14:35

Well, it's very interesting. And so I mean, that's a whole nother podcast or two or three in and of itself, but in a nutshell. There are studies that now show that by consuming less calories, we live longer. And the kind of at the base or root of that is that we need a little bit of adversity in our lives. Not a lot. We're not talking About being, you know, the stress that we have on a daily basis from our work or, and, or the stress of war or something like that, but we need some stress in our lives and different stressors in you know, in a reasonable amount, cause our body to start doing repair processes, and repairing our aging cells, and repairing our DNA and repairing our proteins. And so a caloric restriction that's a, you know, a hard word or a tough word, but you know, we're taking in less calories, also starts those repair processes. So, if we limit the number of calories we take, if, if we don't eat calories in excess, then we start to initiate pathways that repair ourselves, our bodies, and cause us to live longer,

Maya Acosta  15:49

right? I think that in the future, you're going to do a full episode arm, for example, what is intermittent fasting, but if you can tell us so one is just eating this calories, and I appreciate what you just said was that it is a hard word to use so or term. So we're not encouraging dieting, or restricting all we're just telling you about the science at once you've achieved the your ideal goal of eating whole food plant based and you're comfortable with that. And you're you have a healthy relationship with food and everything's going well, you can take your health to the next level by eating a little bit less rather than eating more.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  16:28

So I think you make an important point. And more important than anything, in anything I teach in life as the broad strokes, what's gonna get you the low hanging fruit or the biggest bang for your buck. And so more than anything, what's important is starting a plant, slam, plant forward, livestock, okay, that's going to really propel your health to the next level. Okay. And so and that's, that's really what's most important, then, you know, what I say? And that's why I'm kind of getting into it now is I've been doing this for six years. So living a plant based lifestyle, whole food, whole food, plant based lifestyle is very second nature to me. And so it's not, I'm done with that learning curve. So now I'm kind of looking at, well, how can you tweak it? That's what what can you do to make it make it better? What can you do to be healthier? And that's when you start looking into, you know, kind of limiting your calories or fasting or intermittent fasting? And what does all that mean? And so, yeah, I think that there's a lot of benefit to those things, but you know, you're gonna get more benefit. Doing those things. And living a bad lifestyle isn't going to really help a lot. These are kind of tweaks that you can do on top of so I think that there is benefit in limiting your calories over the course of your lifetime, as, and there's also benefit in kind of traditional fasting, intermittent fasting and maybe even some longer fasting on on an occasional basis, right?

Maya Acosta  18:01

Well, maybe in the future, you can do a just an entire episode on what that means for people that want to tweak their lifestyle. So that's

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  18:08

absolutely, in fact, stay tuned, folks, because, you know, I really do have a strong interest in this longevity and aging field. And so there's going to be as I learn more, I want to share with you guys in on on podcasts.

Maya Acosta  18:25

Absolutely. And so this is what we're talking about. For the Blue Zones, what we learned from the Blue Zones is having a predominantly plant based lifestyle, and then eating, you know, till you're about 80%. And following, I don't even use the word full, it's following the 80% rule, which means that you eat until you're 80%. There, in terms of your nutrition, I want to show you two books that I would recommend if you're just getting started. I've had the guests of both of these books on the show. And so many times people say, Well, when I get started on this way of living, you know, eating more plants is expensive. And I really what people are referring to is the fact that if you go to a vegan plant based restaurant, you're gonna pay for the costs of someone else, preparing the meal for you someone else doing the groceries for you and someone else creating the environment, and the overhead costs of running a restaurant. That's why these restaurants are are expensive. If you cook at home, it's less expensive. And Tony Okamoto was on our podcast, it's called plant maize on a budget quick and easy. She was on the show this year promoting this book and she really goes into detail about how she calculated how much it would cost per meal. There was a time when she herself had a lot of financial restrictions. And so she learned to eat plant based on a budget and that's how her website came about. And she actually runs a blog. So I highly recommend you See all the tabs I have here the marks the pages that I've saved because of the recipes that I really enjoy. And the other one is by the ladies. Jane and Anne Esselstyn, they have the book called be a plant base Woman Warrior. And look at how much information is in here lots and lots of recipes. They are known for making bowls I call them Buddha bowls, but there are breakfast bowls, lunch bowls, dinner bowls, basically having a layering your food in a way where you're not so much relying on a recipe. And in getting all the ingredients that are recommended, say from How Not to Die, Dr. Michael Greger is daily doesn't that's another app that I recommend the daily Dawson and often throughout the podcast, I do cover the field of plant based nutrition. But for this episode, since it does align nicely the teachings of the blue zones with lifestyle medicine, then I thought, you know, let's give you additional resources in case you haven't tuned in.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  21:04

Sounds good. I love that cookbook by Tonio model.

Maya Acosta  21:08

Absolutely. So here's some practical tips for a plant slant diet. Number one, fill your plate with color. So when even when you're doing groceries, think of all the foods that you're not used to eating because in many ways we're used to eating the burger or the pizza or the steak. There are more vegetables and fruits have so many more colors. So aim to have a variety of colors on the plate. As different colors indicate a range of nutrients.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  21:35

I encourage people not to get only a variety of colors within a food group. But then there's this fun game about, you know, how many different colors can you eat put on your plate, because it's not only just visually satisfying, but it's very, very healthy for you. And I also play this game where I can sit how many different types of plants? Can I eat in a day, or can I eat in a week. And that variety really lends itself to getting you all a tremendous spectrum of minerals, vitamins phytonutrients. And so it's really, really healthy for you. Yes, stuff you can't get in processed foods. And in animal based, right.

Maya Acosta  22:11

We also encourage you to get things that are seasonal. So for example right now, I think you were saying that the blueberries are the blackberries are probably towards the end of the season. But in the last couple of months, we have enjoyed blackberries like you wouldn't believe it and we go to target which is right next door and we get the organic ones. If you look at the list of the Dirty Dozen, these are the vegetables and fruits that are the most heavily sprayed with pesticides. So if it's so when possible, we try to get organic berries that strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, frozen are less expensive, and they're frozen right after they're picked. If you cannot afford organic Dr. Greger says to wash, rinse your produce nicely so that you can get some of that stuff that gets exposed to pesticides, tomatoes also are part of the Dirty Dozen. And then. So that's another tip. The other one is look into meal prepping and batch cooking. These are simple ways of learning how to have staples in the house and making it easier so that you're not relying on eating out all the time. And that even happens to us because I get really busy with work. And then sometimes I don't have time to cook. So you, you have to plan ahead of time.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  23:32

Yeah, I mean, these are the same techniques that people use even when they're not plant based. So you can just kind of bring these meal prepping and batch cooking to the plant based world and it helps make your life easier. Yeah.

Maya Acosta  23:46

Also, I want to add that we there are certain things that we really enjoy that we a lot of people don't eat, for example, pomegranate seeds, when pomegranates the large, bright orange, they look like oranges, but they're bright red, when they're just ready. And you find them in the produce section and you cut them, you slice them nicely. There are videos on how to do that. And you just eat the seeds. We both enjoy those rich in antioxidants. And people have asked me in the past, like how do you eat them? And it's like, well, we take the Cardinals and we just snack on them.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  24:23

Yeah, I mean, I think that eating this way opens your world up to a whole new, I guess world of foods. It's It's fascinating, kind of how many different there's 1000s and 1000s of plants out there that you can eat. And so there's just so much to explore and learn and find, you know, you'll you'll find the things that you really like, right, and then you know, the seasonality exploit, you know kind of lends itself to exploring new things as well.

Maya Acosta  24:53

Yes, and you can try different supermarkets so like I go to Target for berries, but then I go to Trader Joe's. And I love the small little cucumbers like the English cucumbers are so delicious as opposed to the standard cucumber that we have always known here in the States, you can go to sprouts and try, actually they have sprouts, the real sprouts that you can put in sandwiches or a salad. So every grocery store has its own specialty. So if you can have access to that, that'd be great. Yeah,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  25:24

and you know, I'll throw in there that ethnic markets really do lend themselves well to plant based. So you know, kind of the, you know, you might go to the Indian Bazaar, or the Korean foods store, all of these give you the opportunity to explore different types of plant foods.

Maya Acosta  25:44

Exactly. And the prices are so affordable, especially with spices because eating this way, we have discovered that we use a lot of spices, depending on the flavors that we want. So if we're having, you know, we might eat two or three different types of rice, you know, the whole grain rice, the long not the whole grain, but the long grain rice, jasmine rice, basmati rice, which I think is long grain, brown rice, black rice, same thing with like goons,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  26:12

and you mentioned spices, and that's a really another, I think another important part of a kind of us plant slant diet is in, we encourage you to explore the different spices that exist out there. And it helps you replace kind of the standard American just salt and pepper approach to the life and because salt is actually very, very bad for you. All the sodium leads to a significant amount of hypertension in our society. But so you can have others other spices out there. There's turmeric, there's cumin, there's coriander, there's cayenne pepper, there's there's just so many spices out there to explore and look at and use that add flavor and variety to your dishes.

Maya Acosta  26:53

Absolutely. There's so much more that we can talk about when it comes to nutrition. But stay tuned, follow the podcast how healthy lifestyle solutions so that you can hear what some of the health experts aren't saying about why you want to incorporate more of a plan forward dieting into your life. As you know, we bring in doctors, physicians, dietitians, to talk about these topics. And I often give tips along the way, especially at the beginning of the year, I gave a lot of tips on how to travel and stay healthy. How to do groceries, you know basically how to navigate the grocery store. So we offer those sorts of sorts of tips.

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  27:30

Yeah, I mean, we could go so deep into the science of nutrition, there's so much out there. And there's just so much about nutrition as to the science of nutrition, and then the actual practical application of it, and so much to explore and learn.

Maya Acosta  27:42

That's right. So by adopting a plant forward diet and following the 80% rule, we can experience the health benefits and nourishment that the blue zone communities enjoy. incorporating more plant based foods and mindful eating practices into our daily lives, helps us achieve optimal nutrition, maintain a healthy weight and reduce the risk of chronic diseases. Stay tuned for the next episode of The Blue Zones lifestyle series, where we delve into the significance of downshifting in promoting longevity and overall well being. Till next time friends. Enjoy BlueZone living. You've been listening to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at rate this podcast.com forward slash H L S. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener