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Jenni Israelsen
A lot of people do a lot of things in search of a long and healthy life, complicated diet plans, gym memberships and expensive dietary supplements. But in a four-part Netflix series called Live to 100 Secrets of the Blue Zone, Best Selling Author Dan Buettner says a lot of that is misguided.
He traveled to places he calls blue zones where more people live significantly longer than average, trying to figure out how they do it. Recently, I spoke with Buettner and asked him why he chose to start a series on longevity in a cemetery.
Yes, if you want to know what 100-year-old ate to live to be 100, you have to know what she was eating as a child and middle aged and newly retired. So to get at that, we found 155 dietary surveys done in all five Blue Zones over the last 80 years. And we average them with the help of Harvard. And we found that 90 to 95 percent they're eating a whole food plant based diet, meat only about five times per month and contrary to a lot of sort of keto slash Paleo diet advice, it's mostly carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates, which I think shocks a lot of people.
When I first started writing about this, I did a cover story for National Geographic in 2005. Nobody was connecting loneliness to longevity. And I was pointing out the importance of strong social connections and social circles and turns out that's worth about seven years of extra life expectancy.
But the big revelation and you'd never hear about it because it's not saying exceed marketers can't sell you things but like an extra 10 years of life expectancy is the sum of lots of small improvements we make in our lives mostly in our environment, applied for decades.
As soon as the American food culture comes in the front door, longevity goes out the back door. And I'm giving most of these blue zones a half a generation before they completely adopt our way of life and therefore started adopting our obesity rates and diabetes and heart disease rates to tragedy actually.
The big lesson is don't try to change your behavior you'll fail for almost all the people almost all the time in the long run. You change people's environments. In other words, you design for health. Our Blue Zone projects unleash a swarm of healthy nudges and defaults that are put in place for years. They're mostly environmental, making cities walkable policies that favor healthy food over junk food and so forth.
And setting Americans up for success, as opposed to the failure our food environment portends right now. Every city we work in, we've seen major improvements in people's health. And we've seen obesity drop, and we've seen health care cost savings in the in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
I have no faith. And I don't know of any research where you can change a populations health by trying to convince individuals to change their behavior, or somehow imbue them with responsibility. We're genetically hardwired to crave fat, salt and sugar and take rest whenever we want.
So unless we set up an environment where it's easy for us to eat, basically whole food plant based, easier for us to walk than it is to drive. We're going to continue to see health care costs in the trillions as we're seeing today in America.
You talked also about in the series about something we've talked about on this broadcast the fact that life expectancy is becoming shorter. And a lot of it is because younger people are dying from suicides, homicides, drug overdoses and car accidents. All preventable. There's none of this as is an organic problem. Did you learn anything in your work? That would relate to that?
The number one killer in America is our diet. We lose about 660,000 Americans prematurely to the way we eat. If we don't take aim at that, these other things are more peripheral. In Singapore, which I dubbed ouzo 2.0, individuals cannot own guns. In America, we lost 55,000 people to gun deaths last year that dragged down the life expectancy. in Singapore they lost two, where they're very tough on drugs in Singapore, I mean, if you could be put to death for selling drugs in Singapore.
But the other side of that equation, only 15 people died last year and drug overdoses, whereas we lost almost 110,000 Americans and drug overdoses last year of drug related deaths. So yes, there are lots of things on the fringes. But the big thing we need to take aim at is our diet. And until we get that squared away, the rest of the stuff is a rounding error.
Toward the end of the series, you see the same things that help us live a long healthy life are the things that make life worth living. Are you saying that if we concentrate on the quality of life, that the quantity of life will come?
The concentrating on quality of life helps, but these silicone multimillionaires shooting themselves up with a young people's blood, and working out six hours a day and taking all these weird pills and genetic interventions. People in Blue Zones are living a long time because they're socializing, because they know their purpose. And they live their pure purpose. They live near nature. They keep their families close by and we can map all these to higher life expectancy.
Yes, I become mostly plant based. I don't eat meat anymore. I used to be a ultra-marathon cyclist and now I do things like play pickleball and take walks because I know that favors my longevity more than hardcore physical activity.
I got very clear on my purpose. It's very hard to get me to do things that are right down to the strike laying up my values and what I'm good at and what I like to do and how I can give back. And I've also prioritize family because I know keeping your family nearby adds three or four years of life expectancy over being single and alone.
John Yang is the anchor of PBS News Weekend and a correspondent for the PBS News Hour. He covered the first year of the Trump administration and is currently reporting on major national issues from Washington, DC, and across the country.
For cord-cutters, shifting from cable to streaming can be a wise financial move. Because you're able to sign up for monthly plans, it's easy to jump into a streaming service and jump out when prices increase or content gets dull. But according to Deloitte's 2024 Media Trends report, the average US household spends $61 a month on streaming. The main reasons people cancel their streaming subscriptions are due to price and availability -- or lack of -- engaging content. Media companies call this behavior "churn." We're calling this the rotation method, and you should try it.
The incentive? You save your coin and avoid content droughts. Let's say a series like Percy Jackson or Reacher is set to premiere on a streaming service. Find the total episode count and wait until they're all available at once on a platform. You cancel Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus or other service and then, once all the episodes are available, resubscribe to catch up. Alternatively, you can start streaming a show midseason to cut costs. My monthly guide on which streaming services to cancel can help you keep up.
The downside? You won't have immediate access to every show you want to watch and will have to wait until the full season airs. And since many streaming services release new episodes weekly, you might not be caught up at the same time as your friends. If you're someone who prefers to watch episodes immediately when they drop, you may decide it's worth it to have multiple subscriptions at a time. If you have patience, however, you can save some money.
The strategy can also work if you have a live TV streaming service to watch a particular sport or major event like the Super Bowl. Once the season wraps, cancel the service or move to a cheaper platform with fewer channels, like Sling TV.
Set calendar reminders for your billing cycle and upcoming TV show or movie release dates. Give yourself enough warning to begin or end a subscription. Apps such as JustWatch, TV Time and Hobi help you track when and where TV shows and movies appear on a streaming service. And JustWatch added a tracker specifically for sports. If you have a smart home device from Google or Amazon, you can set reminders for specific dates and allow a voice assistant like Alexa to notify you of an upcoming bill or streaming release date.
Look for discounts on streaming services. For example, Starz regularly offers months-long deals that slash its $10-per-month price. You can also take advantage of the Disney Bundle, which provides access to Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus in a single package for a reduced price. And eligible Hulu subscribers can add on Disney Plus for $2. Lastly, be sure to look for student discounts and check with your mobile carrier to see which ones offer free streaming subscriptions.
Subscribe to one or two must-have services for the year, and select only one or two more options to fit your monthly budget. Rotate the bonus service(s) according to what you want to watch, ensuring you don't miss your favorite shows while sticking to your monthly spending cap.
Avoid annual subscriptions and pay attention to your auto-renewal payment dates, even if it means using one of these tracking apps. Your billing cycle can help determine when it's the best time to quit a service, even if you've only signed up for a free trial. The only advantage to signing up for an annual plan is when the price is drastically cut down.
Hulu allows you to pause your subscription for up to 12 weeks, and Sling has a similar option with stipulations. Check with your streaming provider to see if you can take a temporary break without canceling.
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