Live long, drink yoghurt

Okinawa…

…has the highest number of people over a hundred years old. It must have something to do with the diet. The first few recipes I looked at all suggested the Okinawans have a low-fat, low-salt, low-this, that and the other diet. Digging deeper revealed more interesting material. Thanks too, to MM for further information.

The low-fat thing is rubbish. The main meat eaten is pork, and stir fries are stir fried in lard. Apparently the whole low-fat thing is a myth perpetuated by the cornstarch lobby, who want people eating stuff sweetened with their product.

I don’t think cutting anything out is the answer, diet-wise, unless it come pre-packed, pre-cooked, or pre-fiddled with. My gut (whoops, sorry) feeling is that it’s the processed things you need to eliminate. Having said that, what counts as processing? Getting tofu from soybeans must involve a certain amount of machinery and test tubes.

The gist of the Okinawa cuisine seems to be: plenty of fresh veg, some fish, about half as much meat as fish. Flavours are soy sauce, sesame oil, and the other usual suspects. Nothing weird or wonderful. Plenty or turmeric, as a seasoning and in the form of tea, turmeric powder, hot water, sugar and lime. That seems to be the main difference from mainland cooking, the turmeric.

The new wonder food

New, as in I’ve not even tried making it yet.

Nepal, everyone not only lives to a ripe old age, but is charging up and down mountains into their nineties, without oxygen tanks. The diet is laden with yoghurt.

Okinawa, where the world’s oldest person has just died at 116, and where the 115 year old taking his place in the Guinness Book of Records resides, and where the secret ingredient is turmeric.

Drum roll, quick change into white top hat and tails, full western bottled miracle cure salesman regalia, Big Audio Dynamite playing ‘Medicine Show’ [Youtube it, great song, awful video] in the background:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Long Life Lassi. Take one good dollop of plain yoghurt, the best, most organic and least played-about-with you can find (or better still make your own). About half a pint or so, you’re going to want a second glass. Stick it in the blender and add approximately an equal volume of water. Throw in salt to taste, a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, and the same amount of curry powder. Zizz until frothy and drink. Cures everything from the acne, through the common cold to zika fever. Thank you”

Here’s some more tips…

…that may make you live longer, but that will help waste less of the time you have:

Linux, not Windows. Less time starting up, shutting down, and watching the little spinney thing.

Avoid the M25 between junctions five and seven. There no-one working but the EEC cone mountain has been dumped there, and there’s a permanent broken down lorry blocking a lane, so it takes an hour to do ten miles.

Same for the Blackwall tunnel in rush hour.

Avoid television.

Adopt a dog that needs a home. People with pets live longer.

Follow the five a day rule:

• One new album, by a musician you’ve not listened to, preferably.
• One online broadsheet, even if it’s just the headlines.
• One chapter of a decent book.
• One good meal.
• One Long Life Lassi ™ from the Long Life Foods shelves of your friendly neighbourhood store.