From exotic juices to cans of cocktail peanuts, more and more edibles in the supermarket are being dubbed “anti-aging foods” by some marketer or media pundit. The real deal about munchies that keep you youthful? They come from the earth, not from a vacuum pack.

We’re not the only ones who are saying that. Take a look at what the longest-lived people in the world are eating (if you know us, this list will look familiar, but with a few twists). Then put their favorites on your own table.

Costa Rica: Beans for breakfast

Residents of Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula are four times more likely than most North Americans to live past age 90. One reason may be dishes like gallo pinto, a tasty mix of black beans and rice flavored with onion, red peppers, garlic, olive oil, cilantro and a salsa lizano — a condiment a little like Worcestershire sauce. The Oz part of this team learned on a trip to Nicoya that big breakfasts beginning with beans rule there. But don’t limit yourself: This dish is great at any meal.

Nova Scotia: Wild blueberry “Grunt”

Some of Nova Scotia’s picturesque villages are home to Canada’s highest percentages of centenarians — people who have lived for at least 100 years. One reason may be polyphenol-packed wild blueberries produced by the millions of tons on this island. Luckily, you can find frozen wild blueberries in your supermarket. Use ‘em to make a traditional “grunt” — lightly cooked blueberries (skip the sweetener that’s usually in the recipe; the berries are sweet enough!), served over a biscuit (but please, make it whole grain, or skip the biscuit altogether). It’s also known as a Slump, Fungy, Buckle or Bang Belly.

France: Wine

In this country, local red wine is king. And for good reason. Moderate drinking (one glass for women, up to two for men) with meals seems to explain some of the “French paradox” — low rates of heart disease despite a penchant for artery-clogging goodies like cheese. It may help explain why the French tie the Italians (another nation with a healthy love of wine!) as Western Europe’s longest-living people. Wine’s magic seems to come from a few components: Ethanol, which boosts levels of healthy HDL cholesterol; resveratrol, which new research suggests can mimic the life-extending effects of cutting calories; and polyphenols that rev up the body’s own cell-protecting antioxidants. Why not try a red wine from a vineyard near you, or head for a heart-healthy zinfandel, syrah, pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon?

Greece: Lots of veggies, little meat

On some Greek islands, one-third of the residents have already celebrated their 90th birthdays. Their longevity secret? The famed Mediterranean diet. When researchers quizzed 23,349 Greek women and men about what’s on their plates, they found that death rates were lowest for those who ate the most fruit, vegetables, beans and olive oil. The occasional glass of wine helped, too. So did fish, seafood, whole grains and dairy products. What wasn’t on their plates also mattered. Those who ate red meat just a few times a month lived longer than those who indulged more frequently.

Eating lots of vegetables accounted for 16 percent of the youth power of Mediterranean eating. Drizzle on a little olive oil, top with a scattering of walnuts, and you can more than double the effect. Not only will it taste good, the good fats pamper your heart and help your body absorb more of the carotenoids and other nutrients in cooked veggies and in salad greens.

Japan: Tofu

Tofu’s for sale in the produce department of nearly every supermarket. Good news, because on the Japanese island of Okinawa, it may be why residents age gracefully to 100 or older more often than anywhere else on Earth. Researchers credit this mild-tasting soy curd’s low fat content and high levels of good-for-you saponins and isoflavones. Chunk up some extra-firm tofu in a stir-fry instead of chicken or pork, or use soy crumbles in place of ground meat in a hearty spaghetti sauce. Marinate first to heighten flavor; we love it with ginger, garlic and low-sodium soy sauce.

So instead of falling for an anti-aging additive pitch, steer yourself toward these flavorful, health-giving goodies. You’ll see what these cultures have known for years: When it comes to the tastiest anti-aging foods, Mother Nature makes the best.

The YOU Docs, Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen, are authors of “YOU: On a Diet.”

A study from the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) found that people who consume at least 100 millilitres of olive oil a week are almost 50 per cent less likely to develop macular degeneration than those who eat less than 1 millilitre per week.

The study also found that people who eat other foods which are rich in omega-3 fatty-acids, such as fish and nuts, are 15 per cent less likely to develop macular degeneration.

The report’s author, Dr Elaine Chong said olive oil contains a number of protective elements that contribute to eye health.

“Olive oil is rich in powerful antioxidants like vitamin E. It also contains an anti-inflammatory component, similar to ibuprofen, which helps protect the blood vessels in the eye,” said Dr Chong.

“A diet rich in olive oil and other foods containing omega-3 fatty acids such as oily fish varieties like salmon and tuna, and nuts may help protect your eyes against diseases such as [macular degeneration].”

Once diagnosed, there are few treatment options for macular degenerations and researchers say a better understanding of the disease’s risk factors is crucial.

To conduct the study, researchers analysed the diet of 6,700 people aged 58 to 69 years old in the early 1990s.

Participants were then tracked for the development of macular degeneration between 2003 and 2006.

Australian Ageing Agenda

New research from Spain confirms the benefit of a Mediterranean diet to a healthy heart.

In an analysis of more than 40,000 Spanish adults followed for an average of 10 years, researchers found that sticking to a Mediterranean diet significantly reduced the risk of a first heart attack or other heart disease-related event.

Specific components of a Mediterranean diet differ from region to region but, generally, the key features include high consumption of olive oil, plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole-grain cereals, nuts and seeds. Fish is favored over other meat sources with relatively low consumption of red meat. Alcohol, especially red wine, and dairy products are used in moderation.

For years, evidence has been accumulating regarding the protective effects of a Mediterranean diet against heart disease, Genevieve Buckland and associates at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Studies of varying sizes and designs have shown that a Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of death in people who’ve had a heart attack, curb the risk of stroke, and boost survival in people living with heart disease, they note.

However, Buckland and associates were concerned that weaknesses in previous research limited the strength of conclusions. To investigate further, they used data collected between 1992 and 2004 from 41,078 healthy men and women from five Spanish centers involved in the 10-country European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, or EPIC, study.

The participants, whose average age was 49 at enrollment, provided information on what and how much they ate. The researchers also took body measurements, asked about behaviors such as smoking and physical activity, and medical history.

Each participant was given a score on an 18-point scale based on how closely their diet adhered to the Mediterranean ideal; the higher the score, the higher the adherence.

During an average follow-up of 10.4 years, 609 of the study participants suffered a heart attack or severe chest pain called unstable angina requiring intervention. Nine of them died.

When the researchers compared these heart events with Mediterranean diet scores and adjusted for confounding factors, they found that the higher the score (and adherence to the Mediterranean diet) the lower the risk of heart disease.

Specifically, high adherence, compared with low adherence, to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a 40 percent reduced risk of a first heart disease-related event, they report.

Heart disease is a top killer worldwide, accounting for roughly 30 percent of all deaths, equal to approximately 17 million deaths annually, the investigators note. Nearly half of these deaths are due to heart disease.

It’s thought that 80 percent of heart attacks and related events could be prevented by modifying behaviors — like adopting a healthy diet. And the current study suggests that drastic diet changes may not be necessary.

Each 1-unit increase in the Mediterranean diet score was associated with a 6 percent reduced risk of heart disease, Buckland and colleagues report. Even a 2-unit increase in Mediterranean score, “which required less drastic and more feasible dietary changes, has a protective effect,” they report.

The researchers say more study is needed to pinpoint key protective components of the Mediterranean diet and how these components confer their protective effects.

In the meantime, however, their results add to a growing body of evidence pointing to the heart health benefits of a diet rich in olive oil, plant-based foods, and fresh fish and low in red meats.

SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, December 15, 2009.

Apart from its various health benefits, following the Mediterranean diet can help reduce the risk of developing stomach cancer, a new study finds.

The Mediterranean diet had long been linked to a reduced risk of a number of diseases including depression, inflammation, premature death, diabetes, birth defect, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and obesity.

Rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, fish, cereals and olive oil, with a relatively low intake of red meat and dairy products, Mediterranean diet is believed to protect individuals against gastric cancer, stressing that other diets may boost the risk of the disease.

According to the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adopting the diet lowers by 33 percent the risk of gastric cancer — the second-leading cause of cancer death worldwide.

The study found the stronger the adherence to the diet, the lower the risk of developing the condition became.

“The results add to the evidence for the role of the Mediterranean diet in reducing cancer risk and add further support for the need to continue to promote the Mediterranean diet in areas where it is disappearing,” concluded lead researcher Carlos A. Gonzalez of the Catalan Institute for Oncology in Barcelona.

Scientists urged individuals to adopt a healthy diet and identify dietary recommendations effective in reducing the incidence of this cancer.

By Janis Graham / Readers Digest

If you’re diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, your doctor will almost certainly tell you that you need to lose some weight. Now research identifies the best way to do it: Eat the Mediterranean way.

In the study, 215 overweight people with diabetes followed either a classic, low-fat regimen (based on American Heart Association guidelines) or a higher-fat, Mediterranean-style diet (lots of olive oil, as well as vegetables, whole grains, and fish and poultry). After four years, both groups had lost similar amounts of weight—but only 44 percent of the Mediterranean-style eaters needed diabetes drugs, compared with 70 percent of the low-fat dieters.

The benefits come partly because a Mediterranean diet is full of healthy foods and partly because it doesn’t rely on fat-reduced foods high in refined carbs, says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Read on to find out which foods will help your blood sugar.

Eat less of these: Beef, lamb, pork

And more of these: Fish, poultry, beans

Eat less of these: Butter, margarine, butter substitue

And more of these: Extra-virgin olive oil or other vegetable oils such as soy bean and canola

Eat less of these: Low-fat crackers, chips

And more of these: Walnuts or other nuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, olives

Eat less of these: Reduced-fat cookies

And more of these: Fresh fruit

Eat less of these: Egg substitute; fat-free yogurt; reduced-fat American, Cheddar, and Swiss cheese

And more of these: Whole eggs; whole yogurt; feta, Parmesan, or goat cheese

Eat less of these: Baked potatoes, bread, rice

And more of these: Roasted or sautéed vegetables tossed with herbs and drizzled with olive oil

As quoted from the New York Times

Chickpeas: The Mediterranean’s Most Versatile Legume

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN
Published: November 2, 2009

Of all the many types of beans that I work with, chickpeas (also called garbanzos), the key ingredient in hummus, are the most versatile. They are good cold or hot, at home in a stew, soup or casserole, or without adornment in a salad or pasta. This legume has been cultivated in the Mediterranean for thousands of years, and I don’t know of a country in that region where chickpeas don’t figure in the cuisine.

Chickpeas’ nutty flavor, appealing texture and round shape make them easy to eat one by one. I lay them out in small bowls as an aperitif, along with olives, radishes and marinated broccoli stems.

Like all legumes, chickpeas are noteworthy for their high fiber content, and they’re a good source of protein, manganese and folate. Although all beans taste best if you cook them yourself, canned chickpeas are the best of all canned beans because of their inherent flavor and texture. They don’t even need aromatics when you cook them, and for many dishes you won’t need their broth. For several of this week’s recipes, you’ll have a choice between canned and dried.

Tunisian Chickpea Breakfast Stew

Americans would eat this beautiful spread of chickpeas with condiments at dinner. But in Tunisia, it’s a traditional breakfast dish: a simple bowl of chickpeas flavored with onion, garlic, harissa and olive oil, served with a number of garnishes. It would certainly get you through the day.

For the stew:

1 pound chickpeas, washed, picked over and soaked in 2 quarts water for six hours or overnight

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

4 large garlic cloves, green shoots removed, minced

1 tablespoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted and ground

2 tablespoons harissa (or if harissa is not available, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper — more to taste)

Salt to taste

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (more to taste)

For the garnishes, choice of:

Lemon wedges or preserved lemon wedges

Coarse sea salt or kosher salt

Harissa

Chopped fresh tomatoes

Diced green and red bell peppers

Chopped hard-boiled eggs

Rinsed capers

Ground lightly toasted cumin

Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Finely chopped cilantro

Croutons

Thinly sliced scallions, both white and green parts

Extra virgin olive oil

1. Drain the chickpeas, and combine with 2 quarts water in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer one hour.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oil over medium heat in a medium-size, heavy nonstick skillet. Add the onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about five minutes. Stir in the garlic and cumin, and stir together for 30 seconds to a minute, until the garlic smells fragrant. Remove from the heat, and stir into the beans.

3. After the beans have cooked for an hour, stir in the harissa and salt to taste. Cover and continue to cook for another 30 minutes to an hour, until the beans are very tender and the broth fragrant. Add lemon juice, and taste and adjust salt.

4. Serve the soup. Passing your choice of condiments on a large tray, or have them laid out on a buffet to stir into the soup.

Yield: Serves four to six.

Advance preparation: The finished soup will taste great for another three to four days. Keep in the refrigerator. You will want to refresh the condiments each time you serve. You can make a salad with the leftover beans.

Posted on Thu, Dec. 3, 2009

Greek cuisine has a champion
Michael Psilakis points out that the Mediterranean diet was born in Crete, where his father grew up, not in Italy.

By Jane Black

Washington Post
HERAKLION, Crete – Michael Psilakis needs a goat. He reserved one, but there was confusion about when the famous chef from New York would pick it up, and the village butcher sold it to someone else. Without it, Psilakis could not make the braised goat, the moussaka, the pasta with goat ragu, or the traditional Cretan wedding rice, which is cooked in goat broth. Most of the menu he has planned to show me would be ruined.

“Typical,” Psilakis says as he winds his way past fresh seafood, vegetables, local honey, and touristy T-shirts in the central market of Heraklion, Crete’s largest city. He lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. “This is so Greek.”

Psilakis, 40, is one part irritated but two parts amused. He has spent his entire professional life evangelizing about and explaining Greek food, so anything typically Greek, even a typically Greek mistake, gets a pass. His haute establishment Anthos is the only Greek restaurant in the United States to have received a Michelin star; his more rustic Kefi helped establish Manhattan’s Upper West Side, long a culinary desert, as a dining destination.

In the spring, he was invited by the White House to cook for a Greek Independence Day celebration. Now Psilakis has a new cookbook, How to Roast a Lamb (Little, Brown, 2009), that tracks his culinary development from the souvlaki and cheese pies called tiropitas that he watched his mother make when he was growing up on Long Island to the smoked octopus with fennel puree and lemon confit that is a signature dish at Anthos.

Psilakis (see-LAH-kees) is serious about wanting Americans to understand Greek cuisine. In part, it’s because he, like all good chefs, is reverent toward food, particularly its power to evoke memories and its ability to unite the family at the table.

In part, though, it’s because Psilakis has something to prove: that Greek food deserves the same respect among Americans that French and Italian cuisine receive. Greeks were making wine centuries before the first vines were planted in Burgundy. The Mediterranean diet was born in Crete, where Psilakis’ father grew up, not in Italy. Yet France had Julia Child. Italy has Marcella Hazan. “How many times has someone asked me if this is really Greek food?” he says of the sophisticated dishes at Anthos. “They don’t get it.”

How to Roast a Lamb aims to define Greek food. But the book is also a love letter to Psilakis’ family. The recipes are a tribute to his mother: her spanakopita, stuffed baby eggplant, and pastitsio, a kind of Greek lasagna scented with nutmeg. Many of the stories focus on his father, Gus, who died in September 2007. Indeed, the book’s title stems from one of Psilakis’ formative food memories: the first time he watched his father slaughter a lamb and understood where meat actually comes from.

Food was at the center of his family life. But Psilakis did not decide to cook until he began working as a waiter at T.G.I. Fridays, he said. Making people feel welcome and feeding them was what he had always done at home. It felt right. Soon, friends invited him to help open a small Italian restaurant. Later, Psilakis took over, working some days as both chef and waiter to make ends meet. In 2004, he opened Onera, Greek for “dreams,” in Manhattan. His mission to promote Greek food had begun.

The meal he has planned uses local ingredients, such as the goat and wild oregano (which has a lemony finish “that you simply cannot find in the States”), and the way Greeks employ them. Psilakis’ goat, for example, will go into several dishes. The meat will be braised with aromatic vegetables and tomatoes; some of the sauce will be reduced to dress homemade pasta called hilopites. The bones will be used for stock, which Psilakis will in turn use to cook the rice.

We start with the goat. Psilakis and Harris Sakalis, one of his former sous-chefs who now lives in Greece, make quick work of butchering the animal into recognizable cuts. Goat, Psilakis says, is lean like lamb. Rich cuts such as the tenderloin can be roasted, but much of the meat is best braised to avoid drying it out.

In his classic braise, Psilakis is cooking the leg in red wine and tomato. First, he sears the meat to a golden brown. The meat comes out of the pan and in go carrots, onions and celery – a classic mirepoix – plus garlic, because he likes it. He deglazes the pan with red wine, returns the meat, and covers it with water. At the restaurant, Psilakis would cook with stock to intensify the flavor. Water is what his mother and many home cooks use. “The beauty of this dish is it requires only one pan,” he said.

Psilakis’ recipe calls for dried oregano, thyme, and rosemary, but he encourages home cooks to use whatever herbs and spices they like. For his part, he puts cinnamon sticks and bay leaves in almost everything. Cooks who don’t want to use goat can easily substitute another lean meat, such as chicken, pheasant, or rabbit.

With the goat simmering on the stove, we move on to the octopus and chickpea salad.

The mistake cooks make with octopus, Psilakis says, is that they think of it as seafood, most of which is best lightly sauteed or grilled. But octopus, like goat, is a braising meat: brisket of the sea, if you will.

Preparing octopus right turns out to be easier than I expected. We heat a skillet and sear the meat, being careful not to crowd the pan. When the octopus turns a brilliant violet, we add a whole garlic clove and bay leaves. (The recipe calls for crushed pepper flakes, but we don’t have any.) Then, we cover the pan and put it in the oven. The heat pulls water from the octopus to create the braising liquid.

While the octopus cooks, we prepare the salad. The chickpea confit calls for dried beans to be cooked, then cooled and drained and cooked again in fruity olive oil and spices. But Psilakis says it’s fine to use canned chickpeas to save time. He does recommend the extra confit step, which adds richness and a layer of flavor from the aromatics.

Dinner is served under an arbor crawling with vines and shiny white grapes. We start with the octopus and chickpea salad, flecked with plump sun-dried tomatoes and fresh herbs. Alongside the braised goat is the rice, cooked in the goat stock and finished with a pat of goat butter, and quick-pickled beets served with Greek yogurt and a generous glug of the winery’s olive oil. “There’s a beauty in rustic food that you can never capture in haute cuisine. It takes you on a journey,” Psilakis said. “I know you’ve had a meal, probably in Italy, that takes you somewhere.”

Psilakis doesn’t believe food should be treasured only when it is exotic. His dearest food memories are these: making his parents poached eggs and blueberry muffins and serving them in bed, pitting cherries for preserves with his mother, growing tomatoes and hunting rabbits with his father. Food marks special occasions, Psilakis said. “But the point is, you don’t have to go on a vacation to have a moment like that. You can have it at home.”

Correspondent Lynn Sherr and producer Megan Thompson examine how the modern lifestyle of long work hours and abundant fast food have eroded traditional Greek eating habits — and how some Greeks now are fighting back to reclaim their “slow food” heritage.

Get recipes and see Nikos and Lola Frantzeskakis cook up some healthy — and delicious — dishes in Vamos, Crete.

Read the article and watch the video here.

The report, to be issued Tuesday, projects that if current trends continue 103 million American adults will be considered obese by 2018. That would be 43 percent of adults, compared to 31 percent in 2008, according to the research by Kenneth E. Thorpe of Emory University, an authority on the cost of treating chronic disease.

Mr. Thorpe concluded that the prevalence of obesity is growing faster than that of any other public health condition in the country’s history. Health care costs related to obesity — which is associated with conditions like hypertension and diabetes — would total $344 billion in 2018, or more than one in five dollars spent on health care, if the trends continue. If the obesity rate were held to its current level, the country would save nearly $200 billion a year by 2018, according to the study.

Mr. Thorpe said in an interview that the health care bills in Congress limit their attack on obesity to a few community-centered pilot programs with insufficient funding. Congress has steered clear of measures that might have a more direct impact, like taxing sugary sodas and fat-laden snacks.

“If we’re interested in bending the cost curve we’ve got to go back to the source of what’s driving spending,” he said. “And if you go back 5 or 10 years it’s not technology at all. It’s the explosion of chronic disease.”

The study is the first to project obesity levels for individual states, according to Mr. Thorpe. He found that by 2018, Colorado would be the only state where less than 30 percent of adults would be obese. In six states — Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota — more than 50 percent of adults would be obese.

The research was conducted for the United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and the Partnership for Prevention.

COMMENTS: It’s odd that there is a spike in obesity when there is so much emphasis on healthy eating and exercise. But I suppose jogging, cycling and the Mediterranean diet are mostly middle-class yuppie activities. Half a century or more ago we ate and drank anything we wanted (and could afford) and never walked if we could ride. The only people who ran were on the track team. I’ve long given up cheeseburgers and Cokes and I still weigh about 130 as I did in high school.

You can read the article in its entirety here.

Who hasn’t heard of the Atkins Diet?
It’s everywhere you look – executives, businesspersons are doing it, homemakers are working on it, celebrities are doing and even you can find people talking about it anywhere on public places. “Just what is this Atkins diet?” You are thinking and, why it works so exclusively that it has been another name of weight-loss.

Let me tell you, what is Atkins Diet? The Atkins Diet is a system that enables our body to lose weight in a natural way by motivating a change in our eating habits and metabolism. The Atkins diet promises that not only will you lose weight without being hungry, but you’ll also be on the way to countless health benefits as better heart health and memory function.

Although, the foremost reason why people turn to Atkins Diet is fast weight loss and many to overcome high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Reports have proved that people feel more energetic after one week of being on the Atkins Diet.

According to Dr. Atkins, overweight people eat too many carbohydrates. Our bodies burn carbohydrates first for energy than fat. Therefore, by reducing carbs and placing more protein and fat in diet, body naturally loses weight without skipping essential fats. This the basic principle of Atkins Diet.

Read the entire article here.