[Kevin]
Welcome back to Nutrition for Noobs. So I just want to point out, if you haven't listened to the last episode in our feed, this one might not make a ton of sense, so I'd suggest you go back and listen to that one now. But as a quick reminder, last time we looked at leaf study in the 1970s of four different areas in the Andes, Caucasus, Himalayas, as well as Okinawa Island.

So now we're coming a bit more into modern times and talking about actual blue zones as they were studied in the 2000s. And I say actual just because I was referring to these blue zones all throughout the past episode. So don't bother listening to me.

[Michelle]
That's okay. Phew.

[Kevin]
Well, you schooled me last episode.

[Michelle]
I just didn't want the listeners to get confused about which book. That's okay. It's all right.

[Kevin]
Because I get confused. I get confused. So here's Michelle.

Hey, Michelle, how are you?

[Michelle]
I'm good, Kevin. How are you today?

[Kevin]
I'm good. I had a bit of a surreal experience this morning. It was kind of odd.

I was out for my morning walk after dropping my son off at the bus stop. And near the end of my walk, a dog started following me.

[Michelle]
Oh.

[Kevin]
And it was super friendly and, you know, a really nice dog.

[Michelle]
Did you have treats in your pocket?

[Kevin]
No, not at all. I, you know, hadn't just, you know, my breath didn't smell of raw meat or anything. I hadn't been carrying, you know, a big can of dog food around with me.

But this dog actually followed me right up to my front porch. And I'm like, what's up with that? Like, hello, you're nice, but, you know, you don't belong here.

Maybe it's your spirit animal. So then, like, you know, I went inside the house and, you know, just sort of looked back a minute later and the dog was still there. And it's like, okay.

So I brought the dog some water and checked his collar. Her collar actually ended up being.

[Michelle]
Aww.

[Kevin]
And I ended up having, there was no tag with a name or anything, but there was thankfully a vet's rabies vaccination tag. So I ended up phoning the vet. It was two years ago.

So they had to go back in their records and find the tag number and blah, blah, blah. And they have, and of course they couldn't give any information out to me of the owner or anything. So I gave them my phone number.

We were playing phone tag and all that. Finally, a few minutes later, a rather panicked fellow phones me saying, oh, you know, you have Phoebe? Oh, oh, I'll be right there.

[Michelle]
Aww.

[Kevin]
And it ends up he just lives halfway down my street and they had some workers in and someone just left a gate open.

[Michelle]
You know what? That's happened to us where we had workers in the house and they let our dog out. That was when we had the little tiny little Chihuahua.

[Kevin]
Oh, I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]
That's so nice though. Yeah, Magoo. R.I.P. Magoo. But it's so nice that you were, you know, smart enough to look at the tag and reunite, Phoebe.

[Kevin]
Well, I'm just glad that the dog had a tag because I was worried like, oh, you know, because the dog wasn't going anywhere. So it's not like she knew where her home was. But it was so funny because when the, you know, when the person came to pick her up, she saw him.

And immediately it was like, boom, she ran to the street. And so it was very clear. OK, this isn't just some random dude.

This is actually, you know, the right household. So that was that was interesting. But I got to hang out with Phoebe for about a half hour on my front porch this morning, which was really nice.

[Michelle]
You're lucky your son wasn't home.

[Kevin]
I know because he would have been, oh, can we get a dog now? Oh, I really want a dog. And it was so cute because I pet her back, her hind legs, and she'd do a little dance going side to side on her back legs.

It was so cute. She was just a sweet dog. So, Ed, I'm glad you got Phoebe back.

And Phoebe, come and visit anytime because I already miss you.

[Michelle]
Yeah, well, maybe maybe because of Phoebe, you made a new friend, too.

[Kevin]
Maybe.

[Michelle]
Invite them to your community dinner.

[Kevin]
Exactly. It's funny. If I can digress for one second, it actually reminded me of a time when I was on Rapa Nui or Easter Island, as it used to be known as.

And I was out for a walk again. This is my thing, obviously. And a pack of about 10 dogs started following me.

And they were clearly just, you know, local household dogs who were just, you know, allowed to roam free. But I was walking along the shoreline with about these 10 dogs following me. And they were so, like, I was clearly the alpha male.

And I was, like, calling them if someone was left behind. I'd be like, come on, come on. And they'd come and run up.

And I'd be throwing sticks for them. And I felt like a dog walker. It was, like, so cool.

[Michelle]
You're a dog whisperer. I'm a dog whisperer. This is yet another thing that you have, like, freakishly in common with my spouse.

[Kevin]
He has a way with dogs, does he?

[Michelle]
Oh, dogs love him. Like, any dog. Any, like, any dog will come up to him and start following him around.

And I think dogs are just good judges of character.

[Kevin]
I'd like to think that that's the case. That's what it is.

[Michelle]
They can smell the kindness, I think.

[Kevin]
I would like to think so. Okay, so enough about dogs. Let's talk about old people.

No, sorry, long-living people.

[Michelle]
Long-living people, yeah. We all need to check in on our language and learn something from this because these communities are doing something right.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
And they've been doing it all along.

[Kevin]
And it's not a bad thing to have lived on this planet for a longer time than other people.

[Michelle]
Well, and you know what? Just to the comment that you made about, you know, just checking in on the word old people or the term old people. I think this is a theme a lot in health and in mental health is that we, as a human species, a lot of the answer to, at least one of the answers, one of the recipes to getting healthier and being mentally healthier and remaining more positive and less pessimistic is watching our language.

Like, watching the way, the words that we choose to use about ourselves and others. And it seems like a tiny, insignificant thing, but it's a huge thing. Like, I'm a big fan of Louise Hay's work on affirmations and Wayne Dyer used to speak about that.

There's so many teachers that talk about that. But some of the worst language that we hear about ourselves come out of our own mouth.

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, certainly we've seen that. I mean, language is very important.

And even, you know, the word older by itself isn't a, you know, a necessarily negative term, but the way in which you use it or the tone absolutely makes a difference. And I mean, I'm, you know, I studied philosophy, so I can talk for hours all about how language does shape our reality.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
So to your point, if we can be a little bit more positive in just the language we use, that can make a massive, massive, massive difference.

[Michelle]
And, you know, I just have to have to come back to an homage to my mom again. My mom used to refer to herself as old, but not in a negative way. Like, she was very proud of her age and very proud of her experiences and the things that she'd done.

She loved to talk about them and everybody loved to listen. So I think a lot of it, you know, you can tell when somebody is using the term in a derogatory way versus, you know, a non-derogatory way, I guess.

[Kevin]
Absolutely. My mother always referred to herself as an old broad. Oh no, that sounds terrible.

No, no, no. Again, she meant broad in like the 1950s way. So, you know, a cool, sexy woman, basically.

For her, this was if someone called her an old broad, that was the highest compliment possible.

[Michelle]
Oh, that's funny. That's funny. Well, maybe further generations have just been lost in translation.

[Kevin]
Yeah, maybe, maybe. Anyone who's a millennial or Gen Z might have a little trouble with that, but trust me, it's a compliment. Okay, so we left off and we talked all about Leif and all the amazing studies that he did.

So, Michelle, now take us into the modern era and the Blue Zones.

[Michelle]
Yes. So Dan Buettner and some researchers that he was working with who were experts in various areas coined this term Blue Zones. But it was a bestselling book.

The research was published. And then there's been so many different Blue Zones books and documentaries and things that have spun off from this. So you can get the Blue Zones diet living the Blue Zones way.

But the reason they were called the Blue Zones is because they were looking at a map and identifying all these zones in the world. And I think it was as simple as like blue pushpins were what they were using to identify these zones and they became the Blue Zones.

[Kevin]
Makes sense. Okay. It's funny.

I assumed that it was a reference to blue haired. Oh. Because, of course, in England.

No, that's what I assumed. And again, there's like a bit of a negative stereotype. But in England, especially older women who dye their hair are called blue haired because often the hair dye changes the color.

[Michelle]
I know. It's got a little bit of a tinge.

[Kevin]
So that's why I assumed. Oh, okay. Blue pushpins.

That's a much better origin story.

[Michelle]
It doesn't have anything to do about that. So there were different zones. And then these were the Blue Zones.

That was my understanding of how that came about. Anyway, basically, very similar to the work that Leaf did. It's just that the Blue Zones project was updated, was more recent.

And they found the pockets of longevity or the longevity hotspots, they called them, around the world where people are thriving into their hundreds or centenarians once again. So the research began with demographic work that was done in the Journal of Experimental Gerontology. And then Dan Buechner in National Geographic picked this up and then actually pinpointed or collated all this data and pinpointed the five major hotspots that they called the Blue Zones.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
There is no legal or medical definition of Blue Zones. This was just a term that they came up with in their research. And the hallmark of the Blue Zones, very similar to the areas identified by Alexander Leaf decades earlier, was their lifestyles and their environments.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Right? And not just about the food. So the Blue Zones are Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy, Nicoya, Costa Rica, Ikaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, which is a big surprise to everyone who becomes aware of this research or this book because it's right in the middle of Southern California.

[Kevin]
Right. So can I ask, I'm curious, except for Okinawa, there's no other overlap. Was it just the way of studying these that discounted the other three that we talked about last time?

[Michelle]
Well, I think they were going from new data.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
And I think what we acknowledge and we see drift in culture as soon as Western influences start to bring in their restaurants and the next generation doesn't carry on the generations of the previous ones and they become less and less adherence to their diets. Yeah.

[Kevin]
So the other three areas in the Caucasus and the Andes and the Himalayas no longer qualified.

[Michelle]
Well, they didn't qualify more than these five. So I've never heard Buechner speak on that. And it doesn't mean that they don't still have some elders.

[Kevin]
But they're maybe not as outstanding as some of these other places. Interesting.

[Michelle]
The really compelling thing when Alexander Leaf did it was that it was a very, very high percentage of people that were within, I can't remember how many block radius were centenarians. But we find that the next generations are not carrying it on. And we're starting to see that with Blue Zones as well too.

This is early 2000s. We're seeing Okinawa, Japan, the next generation not nearly carrying on the traditions the same way and others. So I don't know what the current ranking of that is.

But they're still talking about it. We're still talking about the Blue Zones were mentioned in the conference that I was in last weekend. Like they're still talking about it.

Sure, sure. Like I said, I don't really know how much since this was published those communities are continuing their healthy diets and their healthy lifestyles. Because I'm sure it's not like a massive drop.

I'm sure it's a tapering if it's happening as new generations mature and younger kids don't eat the same way as their parents and grandparents. But Loma Linda, California we know is. And it's because in Loma Linda, California, their reason for living the way that they do isn't so much tradition as much as it's very deeply ingrained in their religious beliefs.

Okay. Because this is a community of Seventh-day Adventists.

[Kevin]
Ah, okay.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So anyway, so I can get into that. But the other exciting thing I'm going to get into the Blue Zones where they call it the Power Nine.

But I want to kind of introduce a really cool thing that resulted from the Blue Zones research where they said, okay, we've got all this great data. We see all these great things happening in these communities. How can we apply that to make other communities better?

So it wasn't just a one and done. Oh, going to publish a book and that's great. So they actually started or Butener started the Blue Zones project where communities who are very genuinely interested in adopting and learning from the Blue Zones in their community, they can apply for some funding, some seed money to get started.

But all levels of government and community infrastructure have to be on board.

[Kevin]
Right, I would assume so.

[Michelle]
Your schools have to be on board, your local government has to be on board, because some fundamental infrastructure changes may have to be made to make your community exemplify these nine healthy behaviors. It has to be more of walk-to neighborhoods.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Grocery stores don't have junk food as the teaser foods in the checkout aisle.

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]
So there's things about setting up your environment to support your health and lifestyle goals, rather than trying to entice you with unhealthy options.

[Kevin]
Right. Plus, I'm sure there's things like educating kids in school about healthy eating and educating parents as well and just regular people on healthy eating, etc, etc.

[Michelle]
So, so cool. So I wanted to kind of drop that and then we'll come back to that in a second.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
But that's really, really cool. So the major nine, the major nine principles of the blue zones or the power nine, as Buettner calls them, are a set of lifestyle and cultural factors that they've determined these communities have in common. And they are associated with longevity and health.

So because every one of these blue zones, the people tend to live longer and healthier lives. And so this is what Dan Buettner and the National Geographic fellows came up with. So these are not unlike what we just covered from Healthy at 100.

People move naturally more. So they engage in some form of exercise, but it's more like it's part of their lifestyle. It's not like people necessarily go to the gym or Zumba class or anything like that.

It's part of their natural movement throughout the day. So they are regularly engaging in regular physical activity. And it's part of their daily routines, including walking, gardening.

And then there may be other forms of low-intensity exercise. But they don't typically say, yeah, I'm going to do a 90-minute workout right now or anything like that. It's part of regular daily life.

[Kevin]
It's within the lifestyle, yeah, rather than time that you cut out of your regular life for these activities. Yeah.

[Michelle]
Makes sense. That's powerful, Kevin, because then it's not like, oh, I had an appointment on Tuesday, so I didn't get to go to my appointment at the gym or I missed my personal trainer, right?

[Kevin]
Well, it adds up. Just briefly, I mean, you know me. I am a walker.

I've always walked. I love walking. I don't own a car, even though I live in a big city.

Like, I'd rather walk. And I remember years and years ago when pedometers and Fitbits just started getting in, and people started getting them and all that. And I remember getting a Fitbit for the first time.

And it becomes, you know, at work, everyone was talking about it and like, ooh, did I get my 7,000 steps in or whatever? And people would always think I was a freak because I would regularly get 20,000 steps without even, like, trying because I'd walk to work and walk home and walk around.

[Michelle]
I know I've walked to work with you before.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. And if I was in a meeting, I'd pace and I'd take the stairs instead of an elevator because we were only on the seventh floor and the cafeteria's on the second floor, blah, blah, blah. And people would say, oh, you know, I struggled to get 10,000.

What do you do to get 20? And, you know, I had no answer for them because I didn't explicitly go out to walk 20,000 steps. I just happened because it was in my lifestyle.

[Michelle]
You were living the Blue Zones way, Kev. Look at you.

[Kevin]
I'm my own little miniature Blue Zone.

[Michelle]
Before it was cool. You know, I try to do things like that. But, like, we have a rule when we go on vacation, just my husband and I, that, you know, where it's an option, we take the stairs instead of an escalator or an elevator.

And we don't, you know, we don't take the easy way. I'm always, well, I do that even when I'm not on vacation. But, you know, on vacation, you're out and about more, right?

[Kevin]
Of course.

[Michelle]
And in airports and whatnot.

[Kevin]
But that's the thing. The exercise does add up more when you're not carving out time to do it. It adds up much more when you just do it as part of your day.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So there you go, folks. There's a way to get some productivity back into your day.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
Exactly. And I'm a big fan of these standing desks, too, rather than sitting down. I used to remind my mom when she was still with us, mom, because she, like I've mentioned, she wasn't very mobile and it was very difficult for her.

And she didn't have a lot of choice in this matter. So she sat in front of the TV or with her crossword puzzles or whatever every day. I used to tell her, you need to get up every hour once.

Once every hour, you need to stand up and wiggle around and stretch a little bit. Because sitting for that prolonged period of time is one of the worst things that you can do for your body and your health. And to the day she was admitted to the hospital, she told me she used to do it.

She used to make sure she would stand up every hour at the end of every television show or whatever. God bless her.

[Kevin]
Just do a little bit.

[Michelle]
So another thing that we've talked about from John Robbins' book, which Buechner saw in these Blue Zones as well, is that every single one of these communities, if you asked them what was their purpose or what was their reason for waking up in the morning, they knew an answer like that. Okay. Very, very strong sense of purpose for a reason for living, for a reason for waking up every day.

And this is actually number two on the list. That's how important it is. That's interesting.

And it can be driven by work. It could be driven by family, by your hobbies. Because this is what I love to do.

Or because it can be a combination of factors. But how many people do you know, if you walk up to them in your experience and say, what is your purpose? What is your actual reason for being here and for waking up today?

A lot of us would have to stop and think about it and we'd struggle.

[Kevin]
Totally. Yeah. I'd have to.

I have no idea. I don't have an answer to that.

[Michelle]
Well, you probably do. But you've never really thought of it that way. And that's what's different culturally.

They can tell you immediately. And that was one of the things that he found very interesting, that it didn't matter. And he would have these conversations.

Like when they were doing the Blue Zones project, if you read the book, it's a really great read because it's not written like a science-y book. It's really written more like storytelling about meeting these people and what the conversations were and what they talked about and what they noticed. And they would actually spend time for a period of days or weeks, like living with these people and observing, not just talking to them, but observing how they live and what they do and what their routines were and what their interactions were like.

So it's really cool. Okay. The third.

The third of the power nine is that Blue Zone communities across the board tend to have lower stress levels.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Makes sense. The people that are part of these communities, they consciously take time to relax, to unwind. They engage in things like meditation, prayer, napping.

Oh, I love napping. And regular socializing. All of these things are common practice to reduce stress, and they are valued by them.

[Kevin]
Okay, yeah.

[Michelle]
So they know that you can't just go 120 miles an hour all the time.

[Kevin]
Constantly.

[Michelle]
Constantly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And be your best self.

[Kevin]
Right, right.

[Michelle]
Right? Makes sense. Yeah.

Any of us that have traveled to the Mediterranean or anything like that, we've seen that, right? Of course. Have you ever tried to stop with your rental car and get gas in the middle of the afternoon in Greece?

Nothing's open.

[Kevin]
Well, and the very fact, what always strikes me, whenever I go to Europe and other places, but Europe in particular, what always strikes me is, I mean, now in the bigger cities you're getting a little bit, but up until recently, there still isn't a widespread culture of eating, of takeout food. Right. The concept of eating at your desk or getting a takeout coffee isn't that common.

Again, yes, in downtown Paris, I'm sure there is to a certain degree, but generally, culturally, you stop for lunch and you go out to a restaurant for lunch, or you stop for coffee, you go to a cafe and you drink your coffee, even if it's only 10 minutes. I mean, you have a little tiny shot, but it's time out of work, whereas often in North America, it's this idea that you have to be at your desk and do your FaceTime, like put in your FaceTime, you have to be seen in the office and you have to work through your lunch and take crappy takeout coffee in a coffee cup and a disposable coffee cup and drink it at your desk. So that's, again, a lifestyle difference that absolutely makes sense that people in blue zones would naturally have.

[Michelle]
I think it's social mores because I know from my experience in the corporate world, I lost those breaking behaviors the longer I worked for the company and the more senior my positions became. Because I remember having regular breaks, coming in at 8.30, leaving at 5 at the beginning.

[Kevin]
When you're junior, of course, me too.

[Michelle]
Right. And then it's almost like the workaholic tendencies are what's rewarded and what's praised by other people.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
Wow. Look at you. Look at how long you stay or look at how much earlier you come in.

[Kevin]
Well, that's the idea of how you can get a promotion is to work harder. And again, be seen. That was the sort of showing your face around the office.

That FaceTime is something that was mentioned to me over and over again. You have to be perceived to be in the office early in the morning, later in the afternoon, during lunch hour. And that's just unrealistic.

But as you say, that's what's rewarded once you hit a certain strata of the bureaucracy.

[Michelle]
Right. And those mores don't exist in these blue zones.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
You would actually be frowned upon if you worked that way because you would be perceived as not taking care of yourself.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
And how wonderful that is to be part of that community.

[Kevin]
That's a very healthy attitude to have. Yeah, exactly.

[Michelle]
Because now that's exactly what our society is trying to teach people. Like in the health and wellness space, we're trying to teach people.

[Kevin]
Balance.

[Michelle]
You have to care for yourself. If you want your body to take care of you, you have to take care of your body and your mind and your mental health. If you want to be a good mother, you have to take care of yourself so that you have the capacity and the cycles to parent your children.

OK, so now about the food. Not going to surprise you, I'm sure, that the majority of the diet in all of the blue zones is plant predominant. They consume a wide variety.

And I think this is what's key. We saw this with Alexander Leaf as well. Not just the amount of fruits and vegetables and legumes and whole grains that were part of their diet, but the variety, the variety of different types of foods.

And as we know, it's variety that's key to give us that symphony of nutrients and food for the microbiome, etc. So they do have some meat, and especially the red meats are typically eaten in small quantities and less frequently than we see in the West.

[Kevin]
Makes sense.

[Michelle]
But most people were surprised to hear that because when they think of Greece and Italy, they think of these, you know. Again, very Mediterranean and having lots of fish and lamb and other things like that. And it was surprising to the researchers that they don't really. It's still only about 10% or less of their total diet.

So there's obviously some ancient wisdom in here in these blue zones when we're seeing the same pattern as we did with the research that Leif did decades earlier. Now, the other sort of principle that the blue zones researchers gleaned out that was new, and this comes primarily from the Okinawan tradition, is what they called Heri Hachibu, or the 80% rule, meaning that you continue to eat until you are 80% full. So it's a practice common in their culture that you eat until you're 80% full, and it helps you control your caloric intake and encourages mindful eating as well.

So it's something that they would say to themselves when they're eating, Heri Hachibu.

[Kevin]
Okay, I like that. I like that idea. It strikes me that the key component of that is the awareness.

And as you said, the mindfulness.

[Michelle]
The mindfulness. That you're aware you're not just eating. It's not finish your plate, Kevin.

It's not finish your plate. It's eat until you're 80% full.

[Kevin]
Right. And you're not eating until you're stuffed and uncomfortable because that's never pleasant.

[Michelle]
Right.

[Kevin]
But you are aware of how sated you are.

[Michelle]
And how you feel when you eat.

[Kevin]
And yeah, no, that's interesting. That's interesting.

[Michelle]
Very cool, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Michelle]
Okay. Okay. You're going to like number six, although it's kind of contrary to an episode that we just did recently.

[Kevin]
Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Are we going to have to go back and retcon an episode?

Okay, I'm ready.

[Michelle]
Wine at five.

[Kevin]
Oh, okay. Well, you know what? I like these blue zones.

I knew I always liked these blue zones for some reason. And that's where it comes from.

[Michelle]
In some blue zones, particularly in the regions of Italy and Greece, they engage in moderate alcohol consumption, typically in the form of red wine. And it's often consumed in the company of family and friends. So nobody's going home and binge drinking by themselves or anything like that.

But they are typically having a glass of wine every day. So that, I say that goes contrary because we just had the updates of alcohol guidelines episodes. But you know, like who knows what that means too in terms of how much wine are they having.

It's offset also by all of these other healthy, super healthy behaviors.

[Kevin]
Well, that's the thing. I mean, my initial reaction to that is it's all about context.

[Michelle]
So onto this strong social connections, like where we're hearing again is that there is this incredible sense of belonging and making sure that everybody in the community is included and feels like they belong. And having close knit social ties and prioritizing time with your family and friends is something that we saw across all of the blue zones. They also believe in loved ones first, that your family and your loved ones should always be your top priority.

Again, we see this incredible in that, incredible respect and reverence and care for their elders and continuing to include elders as a vibrant and integral part of their community. So that same sense of respect and cherishing them. And then this one is also, this was very similar to number seven, but it's called right tribe, which is surrounding yourself with a supportive circle that encourages healthy behaviors and will positively impact your longevity.

So in particular, what Buechner observed about that one, what that one means, and this was really something he learned from the Okinawans. When you are born traditionally in the Okinawan community, your parents and their circle of people decide who will be your moai. They call it your moai.

So you are immediately, so from the moment you're born and all of the other kids that are born at the same time, they decide who is going to be a circle of support for one another. And then they are raised together and those moais, those little social groups become a part of your upbringing, a part of your experience. And then well into old age, you're still very closely connected and meeting regularly and spending time with your moai, your people.

[Kevin]
It's sort of your cohort.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
That's interesting.

[Michelle]
But your family sets you up to succeed. They set you up to say, we need to make sure aside from us, aside from the family unit, that this child is raised in a community of support and that they always have people that are the same age as them, that look like them, that share their...

[Kevin]
Right, right.

[Michelle]
Right? Isn't that really cool?

[Kevin]
Interesting.

[Michelle]
That was specifically an Okinawan thing, but he saw similar types of having that group of friends across these cultures that they prioritized in their lives. You'd be mine, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. Well, but no, because we weren't born together. But I am thinking, going back to the last episode and just my digression about our communal dinners that we have, it's interesting.

It was moai? Was that the term?

[Michelle]
Moai.

[Kevin]
Moai. My son has a little bit, I can see a little bit of a moai with our neighbor's daughter.

[Michelle]
Cool.

[Kevin]
Because they're three weeks apart.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
And we've always lived together. They were born next door to each other. And I don't know if they're not siblings, but they're not friends.

It's deeper than friends. It's a moai, I think, because it's a peer that they've always known from day one and they get along really, really well. They might not be the best of friends because they have other interests and other friends, but they can count on each other.

And when they get together, they just instantly click. And it's kind of interesting. I can kind of understand a little bit of that moai mentality.

[Michelle]
So cool. It's so cool. Yeah.

And the book is really a joy to read because there's so many, like you sort of get attached to characters like you do reading any book, only these are real life people and they describe following them around and that sometimes you can't tell the difference between who's the 100-year-old grandparent and who's the 80-year-old son.

[Kevin]
Nice.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So it's really a joy. Now, this notion of the Blue Zones communities is a really, really cool one.

And they take these nine principles and then have created a framework of how that can be applied to any community. And there are now Blue Zones Project have funded these projects in dozens of communities all over the United States. And, you know, just just to quote, and this is right off of their website.

And this caught my attention because the quote is Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I've had the complete pleasure of seeing Dr. Willett lecture when I went to a conference one time. I think it was in Long Island.

It was in the New York area anyway. And he, in case no one has ever heard his name, you have, whether you've noticed it or not, been influenced by his research. He is the most cited researcher in the history ever.

[Kevin]
Oh, wow.

[Michelle]
So he has commented on the Blue Zones site that the results of the Blue Zones communities are stunning. They have seen as a result of transforming these communities, double-digit drops in obesity, in smoking, in body mass index, millions of dollars of savings in healthcare costs in Blue Zones communities, and measurable drops in employee, things like employee absenteeism.

[Kevin]
Sure.

[Michelle]
Right. So really, really cool. And, you know, and they can be anywhere.

There just has to be a collective will in the community to make this happen. So I think it's like a multi-year project when it's undertaken, like two or three years, because there's significant changes that have to be made. And they set very aggressive but achievable goals to change things.

So they, like California, Minnesota, Iowa, Texas, like there's everywhere. But the coolest one, at least to me, is we have the first Blue Zone community in Canada.

[Kevin]
Amazing.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And it's, I remember when this hit the news in 2019, just before, you know, that happened.

[Kevin]
Right. We won't talk about that. We all know.

Move on, move on.

[Michelle]
And it's in Airdrie, Alberta.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
And I found, I got curious when we were going to do this episode, Kevin, as to whether, because that happened, I was like, I wondered if that Blue Zone project had gone through, or had it been halted? And it appears that it has. So let me just tell you what it says here.

Abreo Health was a big player in initiating this project. And they, I guess, took the helm of making this happen. They're a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving community health.

So this was a collaboration with Alberta Blue Cross, Alberta Health Services, like every community, every level of government, as I said, has to be involved. Community engagement is critical for any Blue Zone project or Blue Zone community. And they have to all be kind of steering the ship in the same direction to want to make these changes that will be permanent and will become lifestyle community changes to improve social connection, improve the well-being of its community members, get them to make health promoting activities accessible, and to get people to actually participate in them.

So they have found that these projects, these Blue Zone projects do increase the overall health of the population. They do have this net positive impact on healthcare costs, and they see decreases in hospital visits, and people developing lifestyle diseases that we've talked about in this podcast that didn't used to be the case several decades ago that are now just sort of like type 2 diabetes and rates of heart disease and chronic obesity and things like that. And we just see them decrease once there's a conscious effort to transform the community.

[Kevin]
Interesting.

[Michelle]
So yeah, so we have had this project launch in Airdrie, Alberta. And yeah, so that's something to keep an eye on, and you never know. Maybe this is where I'll move to when I retire.

[Kevin]
Exactly. Well, what I think is particularly interesting to me about this is, you know, I'd be interested to see how it goes in 5 or 10 years, simply because so many of the other Blue Zones that we've been talking about, and even the LEAFs zones, have been tropical or semi-tropical. You know, Greece, Italy, Ecuador, maybe not the Himalayas of Pakistan, but most places have been more moderate.

[Michelle]
Or remote, or very remote.

[Kevin]
Whereas Airdrie looks to me, based on a quick view of a map, it looks to be a suburb or a community just north of Calgary, which for those who don't know, is fairly far north in Canada. So it's not a place where you can grow food 365 days of the year. They will have a wicked winter where it can drop to, you know, minus 30 degrees, which is, you know, minus 25 Fahrenheit or something like that, for long stretches of winter.

So, you know, fresh, homegrown food is not necessarily available, you know, 12 months of the year. So I'm curious about that element.

[Michelle]
Yeah, I should be contacting them about my indoor gardens.

[Kevin]
Exactly, exactly. But I'm curious, though, how that's going to, you know, how that's going to impact and how that can sort of be worked around in more northern or southern climates that aren't in that, you know, sort of semi-tropical sweet spot that so many other blue zones seem to be in.

[Michelle]
Well, fortunately, Canada does have only like first world problems and distribution of fruits and vegetables. You know, if there is the demand is there, the supply can be supplied.

[Kevin]
Right. But I mean, you know, going back to some previous episodes where we've, you know, where we've talked about the ripeness of food and how, you know, a tomato grown in your backyard is different from a tomato grown 2000 kilometers away from you that's been sitting on a truck for five days. So in the middle of winter, you know, greenhouses aside, and even then daylight hours are much shorter in winter when you get that far north.

It's going to be interesting to see how the blue zone philosophy specifically around fresh food is going to be adapted to a, you know, a place that has more four seasons and has a, you know, a very strong winter compared to some of these other places.

[Michelle]
I think it's this whole notion of it's, you know, not hoping that people are going to take advantage or make those food choices. It's about what Buechner calls setting up the community with what he calls the life radius.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
So in the life radius, you have your individual purposes, and then you have all of the places that you frequent, and then you have the policies that support what drives things in your, in your community. So, you know, those of those principles that we talked about having a strong sense of purpose, having like an individual one, and then having your moai and having your, your, your family, all of that stuff. And then having your, where you work, where you shop, the restaurants, the school, and your, and your faith communities, your faith traditions, having those as part of the infrastructure that are involved in the project.

And then food policy, local food policy, things like, one of the first things they change in Blue Zones community are smoking areas.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Right? Or, or spaces like, so they really try to deter, like it's, it's not like here where if you're so many feet from the building, you can go out, you can smoke there. You can't.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
Smoke. Right? In the, in the Blue Zones, in, in that built environment.

[Kevin]
That makes sense. I mean, that's very low hanging fruit for, for improving the health of your, of a society. That makes sense.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And the grocery stores, you know, it's easier to find the healthy foods over ultra processed foods or junk foods. Right.

If they even have them. Well, I was reading about Loma Linda, California grocery stores. I was reading this article about how you would not believe, like if I was walking into an LA grocery store versus Loma Linda grocery store, what's available on the shelves are different.

And the, and the variety of foods that, that you can get that are fresh. Right. So different because it's, what's valued in that community.

It's what people come in to shop for. It's what they're looking for. And therefore it's always available.

You know, what, what I love about the, the Blue Zones projects approach is their recognition that you have to engage all aspects of the infrastructure in order for this to actually work. And as a project manager, I really get that. If you miss a stakeholder that is integral to how things actually work on the ground, it might work for the first little while, but the change will drift.

Right.

[Kevin]
Absolutely.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So I think it's, I think it's a really cool project. If anybody, you know, wants to go on the Blue Zones website, wants to look into this, it's a competitive funding opportunity.

And, you know, the goal overall is promote walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly environments that is inclusive of all ages, all incomes, all abilities. And they look for mid-sized communities because they know, for example, you can't take on something the size of Toronto and try to turn it into a Blue Zone, right?

[Kevin]
Of course not. Yeah.

[Michelle]
Which is why we tend to see these. So, so I love this idea that, you know, how big of a change can we make? Well, we, we have to, if we're going to get everybody involved, it has to be containable so that we can get our arms around all of the stakeholders, but it's not an insignificant startup grant that you get.

It's like a hundred thousand dollars plus technical assistance.

[Kevin]
Oh, that's good.

[Michelle]
I don't know for how long that's continuing to, to go on. I hope they continue to get funding to do that because what we've seen in the communities they've been able to transform, it's really, really cool. And it's really nice to see something that isn't just a book that gets popular for a while.

And then it ends up on the shelf and people move on and look for the shiny object. They're actually taking what they learned and finding meaningful ways that those who have the will to do so can actually use that intelligence of the longest living people on the planet to make change. So.

[Kevin]
Exactly. Exactly. Here, here.

Amazing. Well, thank you. That is, that is really, really incredible.

I'm, I'm fascinated that it's not just what, what interests me is it's not just an academic exercise in studying these, you know, communities that sort of accidentally are blue zones, but it's now how to turn it into something that we can learn from and how to actively try to convert other communities to follow the same examples and to take those nine principles and make it work in other places. So that's, that's amazing.

[Michelle]
Yeah. I'm so grateful that there's researchers out there that are, you know, willing to ask that question. What are these people doing?

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
That's making them or enabling them to live so long and so healthy.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
I want, I want a piece of that.

[Kevin]
Exactly. I definitely want a piece of that. Okay.

Well, it's time. It's that time again.

[Michelle]
It's that time.

[Kevin]
It's that time. I got two for you today. And the theme I'm staying, given last time, I'm staying away.

It's, it's tough to find long livid people, jokes that aren't offensive. So I'm going for the color blue this time as the theme, but they're not blue jokes because this is a family podcast. So they're not that kind of blue joke.

Oh, you just spit out your tea. Oh my God. I'm so sorry.

[Michelle]
Sometimes I just don't know what you're going to say.

[Kevin]
How's the microphone? Is it all wet now? Oh man.

I'm so sorry about that. Okay. Did you hear about the color bomb?

[Michelle]
I did not.

[Kevin]
It blew up.

[Michelle]
Oh, that's bad.

[Kevin]
I know. I know. Okay.

And don't drink your tea for a second. Cause I got another one.

[Michelle]
Oh yay.

[Kevin]
I heard a joke about colors once. It blew my mind. Okay.

What else do you expect from me? Come on, come on.

[Michelle]
All right.

[Kevin]
So on that note, I don't know if I should be asking people to subscribe, but I would really like people to subscribe and leave us a review.

[Michelle]
Subscribe to the Nutrition for Noobs podcast, not the Dad Jokes podcast.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. And if you leave us a review, just don't talk about the dad jokes. Okay.

Cause like, you know, that might not go over so well.

[Michelle]
I think they're cute. I just like to see cute.

[Kevin]
At least one person does. But please do subscribe and leave us a review so that the magical algorithm of the podcast distribution companies can help find us. And you know, don't leave us hidden outside the algorithm, please.

It's dark and scary there.

[Michelle]
And share with your friends.

[Kevin]
And share with your friends and tell the world, shout it from the rooftops and, and, you know, send texts to all your friends about how amazing this is and help them find it. Um, please. And we will create our own little podcast blue zone here.

[Michelle]
There you go. And don't be shy to send in your questions, folks, and share with your friends.

[Kevin]
Yes. Please send us your questions at n4noobs at gmail.com. And until then, eat your greens.

And be real, everyone. This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it.

If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs at gmail.com. That's the letter N, the number 4, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favorite platform might be.

Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic.

The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice. Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.