There are a number of blue zones with increased longevity. One of them Loma Linda[0], CA defies pretty much all of the other US trends. That area is the home of Loma Linda University[1], a Seventh-day Adventist University.
What is interesting about Seventh-day Adventists, aside from being a slightly different protestant denomination, is that they preach a very strong health message -- it's not like don't do these things and you'll go to hell, they don't actually believe in a literal hell anyway, it's closer to "The body is the Temple of God so you should take care of it".
Anyway, I digress. Adventists are by and large vegan or vegetarian (even after leaving the church I grew up in I'm still vegetarian), they don't drink and they don't smoke. They live on average a decade longer.
There are many factors that can lead to longer life and longer quality of life, as evidenced by other bluezones, but these are relatively easy changes that you can make to your life that will have a positive impact.
Hell you don't even have to be fully vegan/vegetarian to get the benefits. Just swap out a bunch of meals that would otherwise have meat with vegetarian alternatives. Have a steak once a month vs once a week (etc).
Note: My father is a retired Adventist pastor in Australia. I am no longer religious but was within the Adventist church from 0 to 22ish.
I went this direction slowly over time, originally because I didn’t want to support what I see as being an incredibly inhumane animal agriculture system, but now I’ve found I get a lot more satisfaction from an occasional really awesome, expensive cut of meat than I did having cheaper meat more frequently.
Buying pasture-raised meat also made me realize that a lot of standard supermarket meat is just kind of…bad these days, see “woody” chicken breast.
If I recall correctly from the original Blue Zones book, the main difference in diet they noted in Loma Linda was the high amounts of nuts in their diet
> Adventists are by and large vegan or vegetarian (even after leaving the church I grew up in I'm still vegetarian), they don't drink and they don't smoke.
There is the problem all these studies: which of the above is the cause factor and which is irrelevant. In general vegetarians are likely to not smoke as well, so is it not smoking or is it their diet, or some mix - it is very difficult to tell.
It's a combination of factors most likely. A lot of the blue zones also have strong communities and that's another impact. The way a lot of meat-eaters eat is not overly balanced as well, our farming is likely problematic at the industrial scale.
A lot of the problems with seafood have nothing to do with the animals and everything to do with the way we're trashing our planet.
This is very much a loaded question, but have you ever looked into the longetivity of the Californian Mormons, who as far as I know eat animal products?
What is interesting about Seventh-day Adventists, aside from being a slightly different protestant denomination, is that they preach a very strong health message -- it's not like don't do these things and you'll go to hell, they don't actually believe in a literal hell anyway, it's closer to "The body is the Temple of God so you should take care of it".
Anyway, I digress. Adventists are by and large vegan or vegetarian (even after leaving the church I grew up in I'm still vegetarian), they don't drink and they don't smoke. They live on average a decade longer.
There are many factors that can lead to longer life and longer quality of life, as evidenced by other bluezones, but these are relatively easy changes that you can make to your life that will have a positive impact.
Hell you don't even have to be fully vegan/vegetarian to get the benefits. Just swap out a bunch of meals that would otherwise have meat with vegetarian alternatives. Have a steak once a month vs once a week (etc).
Note: My father is a retired Adventist pastor in Australia. I am no longer religious but was within the Adventist church from 0 to 22ish.