Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 79: Lessons From the Blue Zones With Dan Buettner, Jr.

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Ep. 79: Lessons From the Blue Zones With Dan Buettner, Jr. · Age Like a Badass Mother

0:00
We've all heard of the blue zones, the places where people live longer, better and with more joy.
0:05
But how do we take those daily habits and actually weave them into our daily lives?
0:11
Today I'm talking to Dan Buettner Jr, and we're breaking down exactly what we can do to increase our health span and make life more enjoyable right now, not someday.
0:22
I also asked him the question so many of us are wondering, can you biohacker your way from poor health to good health?
0:31
His answer might surprise you.
0:33
One simple way we can agree that you can boost your health is by adding more plant based meals into your routine.
0:40
After the show, head over to, well, elephant.com to download my free cookbook Made With Love just for you.
0:48
Inside you'll find favorites like queso, spring rolls and peanut sauce and lasagna.
0:54
And if you're ready to really take charge of your health and even reverse disease like I did, check out my ace plant based eating course while you're there.
1:04
Thank you for listening.
1:05
I hope you know how much I appreciate you.
1:09
Now let's get to the show.
1:12
Hi friend, are you looking to age healthfully, confidently and vibrantly?
1:16
Then this podcast is for you.
1:18
Smart, slightly salty, irreverent, and thought provoking.
1:23
I'm Lauren Bernick and this is age.
1:25
Like a badass mother.
1:29
Danny Buettner, son of Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner is the executive vice president and chief development officer for Blue Zones, LLC.
1:38
Building on the longevity work of his father and his own trips to the blue zones around the world.
1:43
Danny leads a company that focuses on bringing home the best practices from our species in terms of well-being and longevity, and putting them to work for Americans.
1:53
To empower everyone, everywhere to live better, longer.
1:58
Please welcome Danny Buettner. Hi.
2:01
Hi, Lawrence. Great to be here.
2:03
Thanks for having to.
2:05
To use your megaphone.
2:07
Thank you. I'm so glad to to know you.
2:10
And, you look a little younger than my typical guest.
2:15
Can I ask how old you are?
2:17
Yeah. I'm, I'm 39 years old.
2:21
You are younger.
2:22
I that's. Yeah, I think, or 30.
2:25
I could also be 79 years old and just been living the blue zones life for so long that I'm not just anti-aging, I reverse aged.
2:34
I mean, as a guess.
2:37
That would be spectacular.
2:39
Especially since I think your dad's in his 60s, so that'd be, Pretty remarkable if you were to study.
2:46
You guys are amazing.
2:47
So let me start by asking you, how old were you when your dad's work became really well known?
2:57
And how did that or did that affect your household?
3:02
Yeah.
3:02
So, Dan, senior always, took a left when everybody else took a right.
3:08
And growing up, he was, always an investigative journalist at heart.
3:13
So it's curious.
3:16
There's a question.
3:17
The question requires going out into the field and meeting people and spending time there.
3:23
And so a journey that led him from investigative journalism to National Geographic to biking long distance, three Guinness World Records, long distance biking, Alaska to Argentina, all downhill, as he puts it around the world, through the Soviet Union and across Africa.
3:46
And then in 1999, was in the market for a new mystery.
3:51
And that mystery was one of longevity, and that has kicked off a 25 year, quarter century, adventure mission, that we call the Blue zones and the blue zones America story.
4:08
So for me, it was always kind of a backdrop, of who he is.
4:13
My background has always been really clearly in the world of service.
4:18
Ten years as a firefighter, city wildland, an attorney, a consultant for, for small businesses.
4:28
And I always knew that, that there'd be an opportunity to to come and combine my service with the the promise in the science of longevity and well-being, which, blue zones is at the forefront.
4:44
So it's been, a great opportunity growing up.
4:48
With Dan as the founder.
4:50
I, I can imagine, did did he incorporate things from the blue zones into your household, like health wise?
4:59
What did he incorporate?
5:02
Dean's.
5:04
He's a big he's a big fanatic. On on beans.
5:07
Penny for penny, pound for pound.
5:09
More protein than a steak. It's cheap.
5:12
It's delicious.
5:13
There's a million ways to to cook it and prepare it.
5:16
So we're big believers that beans are due for a big comeback, in, in America.
5:23
And he is the definition of a extrovert.
5:29
So there's always friends, family gathering, physical activity, throughout the importance of punctuating the day with a family dinner, punctuating the year with family holidays, and togetherness, those things we all kind of know instinctively.
5:53
It's very human, but it's overwhelmingly supported by what his 25 years of anthropological studying in the blue zones has proven.
6:04
You know, it's it's pervasive in the longest lived cultures on Earth.
6:08
Yeah.
6:10
So are the blue zones.
6:12
I mean, I've seen all the information and I've read about it, but I think I've forgotten.
6:17
Or is it the longest the places with the long, with the most centenarians, or are they the healthiest centenarians?
6:24
Or I guess by default, you're pretty healthy if you make it to 100.
6:28
Yeah, there are remarkable places that are demographically confirmed, geographically defined communities where people reach healthy age 80, 90, sometimes 100 at per capita rates, that are ten times what we get in the United States.
6:50
And there's two big kickers in my book.
6:53
Kicker number one is three out of five of these places are at or below the poverty line.
6:59
So they don't have a Whole Foods market or a pharmacy or, billion dollar health system down, down the corner.
7:08
They don't have any of those things.
7:09
They have something else going on.
7:11
The second kicker is of the 350 and counting, 80, 90, 100 year olds that that we've been studying.
7:20
Not a single one pursued health.
7:25
Not a single one pursued longevity or pursued love or purpose or resiliency.
7:33
By and large, it ensued as a byproduct of who and where, who's their squad, who's that tribe?
7:42
Who's who is is is their social connection and where do they live?
7:49
What's that environment like?
7:51
Whether it's the home environment, the work environment, the broader community environment, those things shaped these blue zones over centuries to create anomalies when it comes to longevity profile.
8:06
Yeah.
8:06
So that's that's such a good point because it's kind of just like baked in right where they are.
8:14
What's going on with their life, who they are.
8:16
It's baked in.
8:17
And that's like I think the key and I think that maybe is where we as Americans are screwing up.
8:24
But you mentioned your book, America's Story.
8:29
So can you talk a little bit about that?
8:32
Is that.
8:33
Yeah, just talk a little.
8:34
It's it's, it's not a book, but it's an amazing story.
8:38
It's a living story.
8:40
So everybody's familiar with the original Blue Zones.
8:44
You can see it on Netflix.
8:45
There's books like the one Pop Meal that just came out.
8:48
And yep, I have it right here.
8:49
If you're watching here it is.
8:51
One part meals. One part meals.
8:53
If you, are watching on YouTube, I'll show you some pictures in a bit.
8:58
There's booze on kitchen meals in grocery stores.
9:01
There's the original story of the blue zones, National Geographic, bless their yellow rectangular heart, continues to to tell that amazing global story.
9:10
But the even more poignant story, is the Blue Zones America story, which is American communities, American employers, American leaders, American health care, American individuals that are taking inventory of why is it so hard to be healthy in America, where the richest, most abundant, most health care advanced nation to ever exist?
9:38
And yet we have the highest chronic disease rates ever?
9:43
We've got our kids are hitting midlife crisis before they get out of high school, got our seniors and middle age going through devastating isolation and loneliness.
9:57
Mental health.
9:58
So, like, how is it possible that we have all these macro headwinds to our health?
10:05
And, oh, by the way, we spend 20% of our GDP on on sick care.
10:11
So where's the self-care?
10:14
And that's, the blue Zones America story is Americans in America, communities that are taking inventory of the things that are working against us, taking lessons from the blue zones, partnering with us and each other to reverse engineer blue zones right here into their homes, into their communities, into this country, which is basically, let's make the healthy choice the easy choice for folks.
10:38
If we can just do that a little bit more throughout the day, people will go much farther than if we just tell them, get on the diet and exercise train.
10:51
Because as you know, it only gets you so far, if you're only relying on individual discipline.
10:59
Okay, so I made a mistake, so I thought America's story was a book.
11:02
So this is more of a project.
11:04
This is what you're working on.
11:06
It's bringing the blue zones to communities.
11:09
Correct?
11:10
That's right.
11:11
Over 90 communities, 8 million Americans and counting.
11:15
Are are part of the Blue Zones America story.
11:19
Okay, so again, I mean, it's funny because you said the real the not engineered blue zones are like some of the poorest places are not poorest, but poverty level.
11:34
And here in America, we're like, you know, like you said, a wealthy country.
11:38
And I guess, again, it's baked in.
11:40
It's baked into how we live.
11:42
So can you go through, like, some of what you do to make the communities blue zone friendly?
11:53
Yeah.
11:53
And where are some of the places?
11:55
Yeah, we've got special long standing partnerships.
12:01
In small town suburban big cities.
12:04
First one was in rural Minnesota.
12:07
Albert Lea, Minnesota community, about 20,000 people.
12:10
Since then, we've done communities as large as Fort Worth, Texas, over a million people.
12:15
We've got amazing, amazing partners and demonstration projects right now in Jacksonville, Florida and Riverside County, California and Tacoma, Washington and, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
12:31
So it's it's it's a special work.
12:34
It's a movement work.
12:36
And the name of the game is this chronic disease is exploding.
12:42
Well-Being is sliding for Americans, especially after Covid, especially with social media.
12:48
We're spending all this money on sick care, which is inherently reactive, you know, wait for people to get sick, for treating them.
12:57
And we know that individual disciplines of math are muscle.
13:00
You're a single mom, you're a school teacher or a nurse or a firefighter or a dockworker, a UPS driver.
13:08
Those days are long.
13:09
It's hard. You get worn out.
13:11
It's not easy to always go out of your way to, go for a walk, to call a friend, to eat the right thing that day.
13:22
Discipline is a muscle and all muscles fatigue.
13:25
And so what we do is we partner with remarkable mayors and employers and health care systems to look at three things people, places, and policy.
13:37
Seeing if you can get 15 to 20% of a community excited about joining a local movement, they get to identify with it.
13:45
It's their story, not another blue zone story.
13:48
But there's some aspect of good old fashioned American, experiment going on self-determination.
13:56
This is who we are today, and this is who we want to become.
13:59
And I know you talk to a lot of people at the individual level.
14:03
It's true that it's self-fulfilling prophecy.
14:06
Turns out the same is true for groups of people or even populations.
14:11
So peoples want places.
14:13
What are your food options when you have a lunch break?
14:16
What what's your ecosystem of restaurants, of bars and cafes and of grocery stores?
14:23
And are they healthy choices, prominent and affordable and promoted?
14:29
Or are you going through the checkout lane at the grocery store and the gas station?
14:34
And it's like a sweet, salty gantlet of of unhealthy food or the schools.
14:39
What are the schools doing to start getting kids some good habits while they're still young, before they start getting some risk factors for disease?
14:48
And what about faith based, you know, the the churches, the synagogues must places where people can gather and share healthy habits with each other and employers.
14:59
And then the third piece is policy that invisible hand that, you know, you go to a community and you feel like you got 30% more steps in just because you went to that community.
15:13
People talk about Europe all the time. There's places like that.
15:16
And then there's other places where, God, I've been living here, I haven't.
15:19
I've been in my car nonstop.
15:21
And so policy can go a long way in affecting tobacco and alcohol access, built environment and food system.
15:30
And if you can get not a silver bullet, but a silver buckshot of nudges.
15:38
Think of the architecture of people's choices that they have.
15:41
You can start augmenting individual discipline, augmenting that individual muscle so that people can make better choices because it's part of the the scaffolding in their life, and they're doing it with other people.
15:56
They're not doing it alone.
15:58
And, and then the final piece is, publicity getting people to celebrate those good behaviors.
16:08
Because, of course, if if you're getting celebrated, you're reinforcing those good behaviors.
16:14
And it's just so funny to me how a community is a lot like, a lot like us, a lot like individuals.
16:23
Yeah.
16:23
You know, it's it's.
16:26
I just got back from New York.
16:28
I live in Austin, Texas, and you, you drive everywhere.
16:32
And I was just saying to my husband, like, it's so annoying because I'm getting, like, naturally, 15,000 steps a day in New York and in Austin.
16:41
If I didn't go out of my way, I'd get like 500 steps and that'd be just walk into my car and it's so it just drives me crazy that I have to go out of my way and walk myself like a dog.
16:53
So is that something you know, that you build into the community is walkability?
17:00
Yeah, absolutely.
17:01
Absolutely.
17:02
And you would, you would you would love some of the things that these policy experts come up with that these communities are incorporating their master plan.
17:11
For example, I've seen small town USA make one policy change.
17:18
That was they had a main street which like a lot of American main streets, is dying. Right.
17:23
And the speed limit was 25 miles an hour and they were going to increase it to 40, help people get where they need to go.
17:30
And we came in and we said timeout, let's lower the speed limit from 25 to 10.
17:40
And they did it as part of a commitment, to blue zones.
17:44
And you know what happened?
17:47
Noise pollution went down.
17:48
Air pollution went down.
17:50
It became safer to walk with the cars not going as fast and as loud and as, as, as, polluting and pedestrian foot traffic came back to Main Street and then the retail businesses came back because the pedestrian traffic came back.
18:09
Then the commercial real estate values went up and then the surrounding residential property values started to climb.
18:17
And, they underwrote more infrastructure connecting the neighborhood sidewalks to Main Street.
18:24
And so you created this amazing economic development and physical activity, ripple effect and all.
18:33
You did was change one sign's speed limit.
18:37
That's incredible.
18:39
That's really, you know, and do you do other things in the community, like you mentioned, grocery stores?
18:45
I mean, there's some places that don't have healthy grocery stores where they sell the beans that they need to eat or the veggies.
18:51
And I love your shirt, by the way. Veggies and vino.
18:54
That's such a great blue zone.
18:54
Live longer. Better.
18:57
That's awesome.
18:57
That's such a great shirt.
18:59
That's that's my diet, I love that.
19:02
But I mean, do you do things like that, like set up a little happy hour?
19:06
Do you buddy people together?
19:08
Do you, you know, make make things like in the community where people come together or, you know, encourage grocery stores, like you said, what other things do you do?
19:20
Oh my God, there's so many evidence based things.
19:22
So, for example, a restaurant favorite restaurant in town wants to join the local, Austin Blue Zones movement and be a part of the 15, 20, 25% of restaurants that are going to become blue zones approved.
19:36
And we're going to say, here's a menu of 40 things.
19:40
You only get to pick like 15 of them that you're going to do to make the healthy choice the easier choice for your patrons.
19:46
They're cost neutral tweaks.
19:48
You know, these are these are people running a business, after all.
19:51
But you're going to be celebrated, and we're going to bring people in who want to be healthy.
19:54
And one of the things might be, besides, you get your favorite club sandwich, go ahead and have your club sandwich.
20:02
We're not we're not vegans.
20:03
We're not.
20:03
We're not trying to take choice away.
20:06
But you might be surprised that since your favorite deli became Blue Zones approved, this default side was fresh fruit instead of chips.
20:17
And, you know, in this country, in America, in Texas, if I want my fries and my chips, I want my mom, get my fries, my chips, well, you can still have them.
20:27
You just have to ask for them.
20:28
Say, no, I wanted fries, chips.
20:28
You can still have it.
20:31
But in a blue zone restaurant, the default was the fresh fruit.
20:35
And guess what happens?
20:36
Nine times out of ten people eat the damn fruit.
20:40
Really?
20:41
So you're not messing with the business model.
20:43
You're not taking away people's choices.
20:46
You're just changing what some of the defaults are.
20:48
And, sales go up.
20:50
Healthy food sales go up when it comes to people.
20:54
We have a bunch of things.
20:55
We have this special thing called the moai, and you'll love this.
20:59
A moai is a Okinawan cultural institution where when you're a 4 or 5 year old boy or a 4 or 5 year old girl, Mom and dad bring you down to Town Square, and you're put into a group of 4 or 5 boys, 4 or 5 girls, and you travel through life together, and that is your moai at your squad.
21:22
And you have two jobs.
21:24
Take care of each other and be stewards for your community, for your heritage, for your roots.
21:32
And these moai eyes, they last 60, 70, 80, 90 years.
21:38
And we have these amazing women who've been in movies for 90 plus years.
21:43
They still get together every day, drink a little Saki, gossip about the neighborhood, gossip about their grandkids, argue about who that hot guy liked more in 1947.
21:53
Yeah, but the power is that you're not expecting people to go it alone.
22:00
If you want to go fast, go alone.
22:02
If you want to go far, go with the others.
22:03
So, blue zones, we do more ice.
22:06
We have thousands and thousands of more eyes in each of these communities that have different thing.
22:12
A pickleball, moai, mahjong moai, walking moai, purpose workshop, moai, and you're getting back to getting people out of the house, off off the screen and, and practicing some things together.
22:30
That's that is really beautiful.
22:32
I mean, I guess I'm, you know, I'm a lucky person.
22:35
I have my own moai.
22:36
Just naturally, you know, my my best friends, a lot of them are, you know, since I'm ten years old, when I moved to Texas from New York.
22:45
Yeah.
22:45
And I had, like, a big slumber party for my birthday party for my birthday and my, you know, had my six best friends.
22:53
My, my new friend was from when I was 18.
22:56
And so it's, it's I know they mean everything to me.
23:00
They're crazy. They are we.
23:02
It was a literal shit show.
23:04
When they came over and spent the night.
23:04
It was nuts. We were.
23:06
We were in my pool til four in the morning, but we were laughing our asses off.
23:09
And, I mean, it was so much fun.
23:12
But, you know, if you are not lucky enough to have that, then I.
23:17
I mean, that's so important.
23:19
I love it or so are you matching?
23:21
You're obviously not matching up little kids, are you?
23:23
This is just you're not matching people up.
23:26
Maybe.
23:26
Or are you just making activities so that they'll naturally gravitate to their own thing?
23:31
We're we're, setting up those opportunities that they can find each other.
23:37
Okay. And now you had you were blessed.
23:40
Maybe because of who you are or luck or something, that you had those girlfriends at such a young age and those.
23:46
Strong and guy friends.
23:47
There's two guys in there, too.
23:48
Yeah. Yeah, that that is, easily adding a decade to your life span.
23:58
Yes. Is having those those relationships I think of the old George Carlin quote, Mario comedian.
24:05
Oh, yeah.
24:05
It's not just about adding more years to your life, but adding more life to your years.
24:10
Yeah, of course, that's relationships and friends and and beyond that, the right kind of friends goes a long ways too.
24:18
So we know from the CDC that your three best friends, Lauren, have a 156% contagion factor on your habits, on your behaviors.
24:32
So if your three best friends idea of a good time is going to the bar and, drinking beer and eating nachos every single day, you know, we don't recommend dumping friends, but augmenting with a few friends, they want to go jump in the pool at 4 a.m.
24:51
and have fun and be active.
24:52
And so, it's so critical in anything that we do that we're helping people find each other, and putting them in, in, in a situation where they can take that journey together.
25:10
Yeah.
25:11
That's I like that you mention that because I would not say these are my healthiest friends.
25:17
Luckily most of them live in Houston where I grew up.
25:20
And so I don't see them all the time because some of them are healthy.
25:24
But yeah.
25:25
How badass mothers.
25:27
They are badass mothers.
25:29
I'm telling you, these people are cuckoo.
25:32
But we laugh so much.
25:34
But yes, I do in real life on more of a daily basis.
25:38
Surround myself with people who are more like I am, you know, more interested in health and that kind of thing.
25:47
So I get that.
25:48
Do you, you know, speaking of health, like, I don't see all these biohackers and all these podcasts with these people, what are these people getting wrong?
26:01
And like, you know, can you can you bio hack your way out of bad health into good health?
26:08
What do you think of all that?
26:11
I've read a little bit on epigenetics and expanding the telomeres, and I believe you can bio hack with lifestyle and behavior that you literally add length to your telomeres, and you activate the healthy expressions in your epigenetics by having good, good lifestyle, low stress, love and purpose and move naturally, which isn't necessarily being sedentary and hitting the gym for an hour.
26:44
But but you're moving naturally outside.
26:46
Whether it's getting from one place to the next, or forest bathing and eating the right food and, you know, worshiping or downshifting or meditating, that those things are best practice from our species for anti-aging, for reversing, certain disease and risk factors for disease and even, yes, biohacking.
27:10
And I'm not a biohacking expert.
27:13
But this is the longevity science that that I'm basing this off of.
27:17
Yeah.
27:18
I mean, I think I'm more thinking about supplements and all kinds of, I don't know, crazy things like that, but you're just talking about doing it the old fashioned way with, with lifestyle and diet.
27:31
I am I think.
27:36
For example, GLP ones.
27:39
Yeah.
27:39
You're talking about that.
27:40
GLP ones I think give people a head start if they need a head start, give them that head start.
27:47
You know, I'm not a doctor.
27:48
So I don't know what the long term effects are, but GLP ones without behavior change and lifestyle change as a sidecar to it is a economically unsustainable for whoever's subsidizing that GLP one for you, whether it's the government or your employer.
28:09
But be more poignantly, you're never going to get off of it.
28:16
And who knows what you're exposing your life to.
28:19
Whereas if you can use it as an onramp to get on to healthy behaviors, give yourself some momentum.
28:25
Momentum kills the monster.
28:27
But then off ramp the actual medication.
28:32
I think that that sounds like a good recipe at this point.
28:35
Yeah, I think that's good.
28:37
I think that's, a fair compromise on things.
28:42
What, so you're 39, you've seen all this research.
28:46
What are your non-negotiables so that you can age?
28:52
Well, what do you what are you doing now so that when you're 65, 70, you're going to be healthy?
29:02
Could question purpose.
29:06
People that have purpose live 5 to 7 years longer than people who don't.
29:11
And when I say purpose, it's not a paycheck.
29:14
It's not a career.
29:16
It's really thinking about what gets me out of bed in the morning, gets me excited, makes me feel like I'm expressing myself in America, one of the most dangerous years for mortality for Americans.
29:32
I'll tell you the two most dangerous.
29:33
The first is the year you're born because you're vulnerable as an infant.
29:38
The second you want to guess.
29:41
I'm going to say 74.
29:44
The year you retire.
29:46
Oh, huge uptick in Americans who die within six months of retirement.
29:53
Why do you suppose that is?
29:55
I mean, they don't have anything to do.
29:58
So I was a fool for ten years.
29:59
And I watch senior firefighters count down the days until their pension vest.
30:04
And a lot of them the day that pension vest, they found the La-Z-Boy.
30:08
And atrophy of the body leads to atrophy of the mind, which atrophy of the spirit in places like Okinawa and Costa Rica.
30:19
You know what the word for retirement is?
30:22
I don't think they have one, do they?
30:22
Right.
30:24
It's a trick question.
30:26
It's a Western construct.
30:28
It doesn't exist.
30:29
Instead, they have a vocabulary for purpose.
30:31
So for me, my non-negotiables are I, I don't ever want to, quote unquote, retire.
30:36
I want to have purpose.
30:37
Even if I take my foot off the gas a little bit, I always have something to wake up to, something to look forward to, some way to give back.
30:46
And then the other non-negotiable is we've heard of food is medicine.
30:50
I recently have subscribed to the idea that motion is medicine.
30:57
That keeping yourself going.
30:59
Always stacking the wins.
31:02
Leveling up, learning, being a student, having.
31:07
Having control of your hubris and.
31:14
Momentum.
31:16
Momentum kills the monster.
31:18
So I think keeping moving and having purpose, if I can, if I can, white knuckle those two things, for the next five or so decades, I think, it will serve me well.
31:34
I think that's good advice.
31:35
So you mentioned that you were a fire fighter.
31:40
What?
31:40
So you got to go into homes of real Americans on not good days.
31:47
And I'm not talking about fires, but like when you were called for emergencies, what kind of things were you seeing?
31:55
Well, I was in a community that, a city that had four major highways.
32:00
Where was it?
32:01
First ring suburb, Saint Louis Park, Minnesota.
32:04
So suburb, about 60,000 Americans.
32:09
And we saw a lot of car accidents.
32:12
We also had a large, senior living, Campuses and housing.
32:25
And so we, we had a lot of what we call lift assists, which is, elderly people who are often living alone, who simply fall down, and they need somebody to come pick them up.
32:37
And you see that on a day to day basis, to your point, whether it's a tragedy, a tragedy, it's the worst day of their life or it's simply somebody whose way of life.
32:50
Is in isolation, requires, institutions to step in, to, to, get get them through, but you also see the very best in people, you know, I'm a big, big believer in first responders and the heroics and the sacrifice that that they make and that their families make.
33:17
And you see amazing neighbors and amazing people who are in tough circumstances, tougher circumstances than the many of us are in.
33:27
And they're still able to put a smile on their face and keep going every single day.
33:34
So for me that I'm cheesy, that's the kind of stuff that that makes me a really proud American, really proud neighbor and, keeps my gas, my gas tank full.
33:48
Yeah, I agree with that.
33:50
And, you know, I remember that my mom's husband had we had to get a lift assist for him, like, I think he I mean, he's gone, so I can say this, I embarrass him, but, you know, he he couldn't get up off the toilet, like, one day he just sat down and then he couldn't get up.
34:09
And it was so sad that, you know, my mom's, like, calling her friends, and they're like, we can't get any place like, 250 pounds.
34:18
We can't get this guy off the toilet.
34:20
We're all too like, we, you got a call.
34:22
And so, you know, the the fire department came and helped him.
34:28
And, you know, it wasn't long after that they moved into, an independent living place.
34:34
And then assisted living and, you know, all that comes with it.
34:38
And it is really sad that we, I think, can't care for our elders in this country like the way that it's done in other countries.
34:48
We're not set up for it.
34:49
One, I feel like people are are sicker here than in other places like the Blue zones.
34:57
And so you would have to devote your life to caregiving for this person and diapering them and things.
35:04
And they don't tell me if I'm wrong.
35:06
Do they have like, are their elderly population that sick and require that much care in other places?
35:13
No, I mean, no.
35:14
I know there's there's in some of the places they're certainly government subsidized.
35:18
At home health people.
35:21
They go and visit them to check in on them, to walk them to church, or to, you know, make sure they have what they're new or even just to spend time with them.
35:30
But but you're right.
35:32
They, they there's still this community fabric that takes care of everybody.
35:39
Throughout the spectrum of the community age and life, whether the youth all the way to to the very elder.
35:47
But to your point, one of the things is just their level of infirmity and morbidity, which is a huge, isolating factor.
35:56
There's these badass mothers in Okinawa, 9095 year old women who are getting off and up and off the ground, of their living room hosting and living rooms off the ground 30 times a day.
36:10
I mean, that's why they're squats every day.
36:14
They're they're gardeners.
36:15
So there's another 30, er, squats of taking care of their gardens.
36:20
I mean, you and I probably both know Americans who are 50.
36:24
Can't do 60 er, squats in a day.
36:27
And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's going to require courage.
36:39
It's not enough for us as an American society to have the wisdom to know that we need to make the healthy choice, the easy choice.
36:47
It requires the courage, whether you're the head of your household or whether you're the one looking in the mirror, or whether you're a mayor or a CEO, or a or a primary care doctor, it requires courage to to make the healthy choice, the unavoidable choice.
37:07
Yeah.
37:08
And what should we all be doing now?
37:12
No matter what age we are?
37:14
What should we eating? Beans, hanging out with friends, getting natural movement.
37:20
What else? Blue zones.com.
37:23
And sign up on the newsletter which has daily.
37:26
Weekly.
37:27
Tips from the longest lived people on earth.
37:30
And those best practices.
37:36
Find that right tribe is is is a really big one.
37:42
Take inventory of your life and what are the things that are permanent, semi-permanent things in your life that nudge you to healthy choices or that nudge you to unhealthy choices?
37:56
And until you rearrange some of those things, in your architecture, in your personal architecture, it's you're going to be fighting uphill, because in America, it's not the healthy choice.
38:12
That's the that's the prominent choice.
38:14
It's the unhealthy choice.
38:16
That's the prominent choice.
38:18
So a little bit of, a little bit of elbow grease up front to set yourself up for success.
38:25
So you can kind of almost set it and forget it.
38:28
Not quite.
38:29
So you have to have some willpower and discipline.
38:32
But but I think, I think that idea of taking inventory is, is what I'd recommend.
38:39
Right? Yeah.
38:40
I mean, it just keeps this just keeps coming up.
38:43
Like having it baked in, having it in the scaffolding.
38:46
So, you know, maybe having your pantry and your fridge stocked with healthy foods like, you know, beans and lentils and fruits and vegetables and whole grains, nuts like that.
38:59
So that nuts.
39:02
Yeah. Yeah. You're right.
39:04
You know, people, you think about what's on your countertop and clear the counter space in the kitchen and have a bowl, nuts or fruit, there.
39:13
So when you're walking by, that's what you're snacking on versus, you know, the chips or the M&Ms.
39:18
And if you have to have them in the house, which we all do, put them way up high, way down low, out of sight, out of mind is as much as possible.
39:27
But but you're right.
39:28
And actually, Dan Senior wrote a book called The Blue Zones Challenge, and the Blue Zones Challenge is literally a how to guide.
39:37
I think it's like $11 paperback to help people take inventory of their closet, their bedroom, their kitchen, their fridge, their friend group, their purpose to make those little tweaks that you can make in your personal life radius.
39:55
Oh, that's good. Okay.
39:58
Where to go Dan Senior.
40:00
And so speaking of, I just wanted to show, in case anybody's watching on YouTube, the blue zone kitchens, one pot meal.
40:08
So okay, this is a couple things that caught my eye.
40:13
Zug. Okay.
40:15
I had never heard of this.
40:17
It is, a sauce.
40:19
I love a sauce.
40:21
So one, one cup of parsley, one cup of cilantro, garlic, serrano peppers, cumin, coriander, cardamom.
40:29
And then you have a half cup of extra virgin olive oil.
40:32
I don't need oil.
40:32
So I would leave that out, but I do.
40:34
The Esselstyn protocol.
40:36
I reverse my heart disease by doing that.
40:39
That's kind of how I came into this realm.
40:43
So but I might put some you know, I know that this is done with it says in with a mortar and pestle, but you could put it in a blender or something like that, I would probably add in maybe some walnuts and put it in like my mini chopper or something.
40:59
So you can, you can do that.
41:00
But then you could put that on, you have a gorgeous roasted cauliflower in here.
41:04
But like I said, I love a sauce.
41:08
That's. Yeah, yeah.
41:10
Are you a big crock pot, person?
41:13
I'm not.
41:14
Why do you have a suggestion?
41:16
Well, these one pot meals, part of the reason that it was set, deliberately for one pot is a there's a million ways to make cheap, affordable food.
41:28
Tastes great when you slow cook, simmer them over time.
41:32
But Americans are busy.
41:32
Americans are busy.
41:35
Americans, some can't afford an entire kitchen, on tray of tools and utensils and pots and pans.
41:46
And so having just one pot that you can go to for a bunch of different healthy meals, throw it all in there, crank it up, forget about it.
41:57
Go pick up the kids at school.
41:59
Go, go, go to work, come home and it's done and ready to eat.
42:04
Yeah.
42:04
Is part of the deliberation of one pot meals.
42:08
Yeah. That's so smart.
42:09
And now that you're saying that actually when my kids were younger, I probably did use a crock pot more.
42:15
But now, like, I work at home and so I could run in the kitchen and stir a pot.
42:21
And, you know, I don't know, I like I love tinkering around in the kitchen, but not everybody does and not everybody has the time.
42:27
So that's good.
42:29
And then, I love this creamy mac and cheese.
42:33
That's a gorgeous one.
42:35
That was you know, I always loved mac and cheese.
42:38
And then the other thing that, caught my fancy.
42:42
Where is at?
42:42
Let's see.
42:43
They're all gorgeous.
42:44
These are all beautiful meals, by the way.
42:46
You guys did a great job on this cookbook.
42:48
Veggie forward shepherd's pie.
42:50
I love, look at that with the lentils and potatoes.
42:54
Oh, yum.
42:55
So, yeah, everybody should check that out.
42:58
Yeah.
43:00
And I love the idea that you've just made them one pan, one sheet, one pot to make it easier, because that is really I know that time is a luxury and I'm very fortunate to have that.
43:12
So I appreciate that you guys made this beautiful book.
43:15
Yeah. Yeah.
43:16
You know, it's it's got to taste good and it's got to be easy to prep.
43:21
Otherwise most people who aren't chefs in their own right like yourself, won't stick to it.
43:29
And so if you want to get them on a little healthier track, taste good.
43:34
Easy to do.
43:35
You know, they'll keep coming back to it.
43:37
Yeah, I agree, I typically ask, like, what's your best piece of advice for aging?
43:43
Well, but I feel like the whole podcast has been your best piece of advice.
43:46
I mean, do you have any little nugget left in you or.
43:50
I, I, I don't, I don't I mean, it's you've gotten all, all my best.
43:56
You you've given us a lot.
43:57
I mean, I definitely think that, you know, my, my nugget from you is just kind of prepare your environment for success.
44:08
I feel like that that's been your big message to, you know, at least in my mind.
44:12
And then who do you admire for the way they're aging?
44:18
My badass mother.
44:20
My badass mother, I mean, absolutely.
44:22
She she, came over from from southern Spain, for love and had three kids and by and large, had to raise those three kids alone.
44:36
And, the kids had some of the kids had special needs.
44:43
And she went through a lot far away from her mom and her sisters in Spain, working as a teacher, raising three kids, in a foreign culture.
44:58
And go figure, when you've been through the fire, you come out the other side with this iron strength that now she's the happiest person on earth.
45:12
I mean, she just she meditates and does yoga and travels with her husband, and she's a involved grandma and just the grace.
45:22
And she never broke her grace.
45:25
Throughout all of that.
45:27
And for me, it's it's it's just a lesson that, you know, back to the blue zones.
45:34
None of these people lived easy lives.
45:36
They're not drinking Mai tais on a beach somewhere.
45:39
They have stress.
45:41
They worry about money.
45:42
They were about their kids like we do. They.
45:45
They have bad things happen, but it always makes them stronger.
45:51
And, and so my, and as far as anti-aging and motion and medicine, I can't keep up with my own mother.
46:00
So she's my she's my anti-aging hero for sure.
46:04
That's, you know, a good point that you brought up about their their lives aren't necessarily easy, but I feel like they find a way to manage the stress.
46:14
You know, whether it's meditation or yoga or having a glass of wine with your friend in the evening or whatever, you know, whatever it is, it's like, yeah, you have to find a way to manage that.
46:25
Stress is, I mean, can I be nosy?
46:28
Is that is your mom or your mom and dad's still married?
46:31
No, no, no. Okay.
46:33
You know, sometimes because something ends doesn't mean it was a failure.
46:37
Exactly. Yeah.
46:39
I, I love that you brought her up because, you know, I really, everybody kind of is familiar with your dad, but you you.
46:48
We haven't talked about your mom.
46:48
What's her name?
46:51
Raphaela.
46:52
Rafi. Oh, that.
46:53
She has a beautiful name.
46:54
Yeah. Raphaela.
46:56
I bet she is. Beautiful person.
46:56
I love that you brought her up.
46:58
Thank you.
46:59
And, lastly, just one question for fun.
47:03
What's your favorite concert you've ever been to?
47:06
I went to a Carlos Santana concert in the early 2000 and Denmark, well, well, doing some summer work, over there.
47:22
And it was a big festival called Roskilde Festival, and it was rainy and muddy, and all these Nordic folks were just, you know, being Nordic folks.
47:32
And Carlos Santana comes out and he just explodes upon with his electric guitar and his style.
47:39
So that that was one of those radical moments.
47:43
You're like, this is cool.
47:44
Oh, that's so awesome.
47:46
And, you know, I, I love music that's probably, you know, especially living in Austin, we go see live music all the time.
47:54
And I mentioned we were in New York, but then we also went to upstate New York because my husband wanted to see the site of Bethel Woods, where, Woodstock was, and I this just happened a couple of weeks ago.
48:08
And you talk about Carlos Santana.
48:10
We watched these videos of him at Woodstock.
48:14
I want to tell you talk about shredding this guy.
48:18
I think him and Jimi Hendrix really stole the show.
48:21
I mean, I I've always liked Carlos Santana, but I don't think I really appreciated him until I saw that performance at Woodstock was incredible.
48:31
Have you ever seen that video of him?
48:34
I Woodstock I've definitely watch Woodstock documentaries, and I might have to go back and see if I can get a clip of young Santana shredding. Oh.
48:44
I, it was unbelievable.
48:46
I mean, yeah, that's such a good one.
48:49
Yeah, yeah, good.
48:50
Good job.
48:51
Warren, thank you so, so much for you.
48:54
I just really, really appreciate all the work that you guys have done and and helping us to age better.
49:01
So thank you.
49:02
Yeah I look forward to, to, sharing our conversation on my end.
49:09
Thank you. Danny. Take care. Bye bye.
49:11
Thanks for listening, friend.
49:13
From my heart to yours.
49:14
Be well. Until we meet again.