DEATH and taxes are all we can rely on, as the saying goes, but death might just be inching further and further away – if we play our health cards right.
“It’s limited, this life,” says Dr Norman Swan, podcaster and author of So You Think You Know What’s Good For You? (£14.99, Aster).
“We're all going to die. So the question is, staying young and dying as late as possible.”
The Glasgow-born writer says that while people in Japan tend to top all the polls when it comes to the country where people live the longest, there’s another community that are also really nailing ageing.
"[People often say], 'How come the French live long, smoking Gitanes and eating bread and croissants all day?'” says Dr Norman.
“It's not quite true about the French, but nonetheless, it's a nice idea.
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“I say forget about the French paradox. The paradox [you want] is Greek.
“The second longest living people in the world after the Japanese are actually Greek Australians living in Melbourne.”
Dr Norman explains why this really quite niche community’s way of life is worth following if you want to live to a ripe old age…
1. DIET
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Yep, you guessed it, Melbourne’s Greek Australians tend to follow a Mediterranean diet.
The longest living members of this group of people “tends to be older Greek Australians who migrated, it's not their kids, it tends to be the parents who tended to have migrated,” explains Dr Norman.
It means they have largely brought their vibrant, sunny, veg and olive oil-packed Mediterranean diet with them to Australia, and continue to stick with it.
“They don't eat a lot of red meat. They eat a lot of vegetables, they get a lot of their protein from lentils and beans,” says Dr Norman.
The Mediterranean diet is incredibly nutritious, low fat and low in processed foods, so really boosts health, helping you maintain a certain weight, and keep blood sugar levels steady.
2. GROW YOUR OWN
What Greek Australians eat is only part of the story, though.
Where their ingredients are from is also crucial, and those veggies often come straight from the back garden.
“They tend to have either an allotment or a backyard and they grow their own herbs and vegetables,” says Dr Noman.
“So they're getting some exercise [by tending their crops].
"Fresh herbs and vegetables have a lot of antioxidants and nutrients in them that haven't deteriorated by being transported to the supermarket, or by lying on the supermarket shelves.”
That freshness can make all the difference to the amount of vitamins you get and benefit from when you eat them.
3. BUY FRESH
We can’t all grow our own, but when you do buy veg, you can make sure to buy the freshest you can get your hands on.
Look for crispness and brightly coloured veg that isn’t wilting and doesn't look limp and sad.
“They're really finicky,” says Dr Norman of Greek Australians when they go shopping. “They really know their vegetables.”
4. COOK IT RIGHT
Now it’s about what you do with that produce in the kitchen.
“Eating raw food is better than eating processed food, no question,” says Dr Norman. “But when you cook, you're cooking up a storm of anti-ageing substances.
“So let's take the basis of a Mediterranean dish. You pour extra virgin olive oil in, you chop up onions, you chop up tomatoes, you cook them together with garlic.
“And that releases very important antioxidants.
“If you take a tomato, a raw tomato is good for you. A chopped tomato is even better for you. A chopped tomato that's cooked is even better again, particularly if it's cooked in extra virgin olive oil.
“And then you add in the herbs and everything else. And they slow cook.
“They don't barbecue; they slow cook, so you don't get that burnt caramelisation on food because that burnt caramelisation means pro-ageing compounds.
“They speed up ageing, whereas Greek Australians more gently cook – and they eat with friends.”
Eating together and socialising regularly helps ward off another big killer: loneliness.
5. FAST DAYS
The “other kicker” with Greek Australians, “is elderly Greek Australians have either returned to the Greek Orthodox Church, or they stayed with it,” says Dr Norman.
“And the Greek Orthodox Church has 100 fast days a year.
“Now, these are not Michael Mosley fasts," he says.
“These are best described as vegan fasts where for a day, they only eat plants, they don't eat eggs, dairy, meat – just plants for a day, often with olive oil.
“So one day in three, on average almost, they're fasting a little bit.
“They're stressing their bodies, they're going through a period of frugal dietary restriction.
“And one thing that we know that works for anti-ageing, in addition to these complex anti-ageing compounds [found in Mediterranean dishes], is dietary restriction.”
6. VINEGAR
Dr Norman says there’s some evidence to suggest vinegar can play a role in living longer too.
Although perhaps not if you just eat it on fish and chips…
“Vinegar, [is] a very ancient compound and the secret sauce in some of the diets of long lived peoples.”
7. TRY OTHER CUISINES
Dr Noman calls the Greek Australian ‘diet’ a “comprehensive way of life” – but it’s not the only one that offers a boost for longevity.
“If you look at Asian diets, particularly the Southeast Asian diet, Vietnamese, Chinese – while they taste different, they’re actually very similar,” says Dr Norman.
“They don't eat a lot of red meat. They don't burn their food, they eat a lot of vegetables and they cook with monounsaturated oils.”
So you don’t actually need to restrict yourself to just Mediterranean ingredients.
8. START NOW
Dr Norman says you’re never too old to make positive, healthy tweaks to your diet. Don’t assume it’s just too late.
He says: “Try to cook one meal a day, and cook it in the Mediterranean style with extra virgin olive oil, cook the onions, cook the garlic and so on, and cook that way. That's a huge start.
“Get exercise, and every so often deny yourself.
“You don't have to do a Michael Mosley fast, there actually are some risks in fasting.
“While in animal models fasting slows ageing, in some human experiments it's speeded up ageing. So be careful of fasting.
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“But some days go a bit hungry and deny yourself and stretch yourself.
“You don't have to be in the Greek Orthodox Church.”
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