14 Heart-Healthy Valentine’s Day Recipes We Love - Blue Zones (2024)

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14 Heart-Healthy Valentine’s Day Recipes We Love - Blue Zones? ›

You can use any type of pasta shape, but to make it totally blue zones, be sure to use pasta made of 100 percent whole wheat. If you are sticking to a gluten-free diet, you can also find pasta made from brown rice or quinoa. You can adjust recipe serving sizes for leftovers (and company!) in your menu.

You can use any type of pasta shape, but to make it totally blue zones, be sure to use pasta made of 100 percent whole wheat. If you are sticking to a gluten-free diet, you can also find pasta made from brown rice or quinoa. You can adjust recipe serving sizes for leftovers (and company!) in your menu.

People in the blue zones eat an impressive variety of garden vegetables when they are in season, and then they pickle or dry the surplus to enjoy during the off-season. The best-of-the-best longevity foods are leafy greens such as spinach, kale, beet and turnip tops, chard, and collards.

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.

Beans are the cornerstone of every Blue Zones diet in the world: black beans in Nicoya; lentils, garbanzo, and white beans in the Mediterranean; and soybeans in Okinawa. The long-lived populations in these blue zones eat at least four times as many beans as we do, on average.

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.

People in Blue Zones areas eat meat about once a week and typically their servings are no larger than a deck of cards. 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 very little bread, but when they do, they predominantly eat sourdough. Unlike other breads made from white flour, sourdough bread doesn't cause spikes in blood sugar. Substitute sourdough or 100% whole-grain bread for white bread, and be mindful of your serving size.

In the Loma Linda Blue Zone, people live on average 10 years longer than the rest of the US. They eat oats as part of their high-fiber, high-carbohydrate diets.

Corn—and popcorn too—has long been a staple ingredient in Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula, a blue zones hotspot.

What do people in the Blue Zone eat for breakfast? ›

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.

Grains including oats, barley, brown rice, and ground corn (not so much wheat) play a key role in the world's blue zone diets.

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.

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!

Follow a mostly plant-based diet – Blue Zone centenarians follow a predominantly plant-based diet, eating 95-100% plant-based. They primarily eat a variety of in-season fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains and beans.

More generally, the Mediterranean diet, but pasta in particular, is a sustainable and planet-friendly food thanks to a minimal environmental impact. It is good and it is good for you, but that's not all. Pasta is also a sustainable food for the planet.

Buettner says in the Blue Zones, people eat whole grains, corn, wheat, and white rice. Yes, white. He says white rice is prevalent in the Blue Zones of Costa Rica and Okinawa and in regions where people live much longer than we do, such as Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan.

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.

Like his own meal plans, they were all fairly high in carbohydrates, but these Blue Zone diets centered on carbs of a different kind. "The four pillars of every longevity diet in the world are whole grains, greens, nuts, and beans," Buettner told Insider.