Want to live a extended daily life? Consume fermented cabbage and drink a litre of olive oil a week

MARSHALL ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC

Peering out of the aeroplane window, it appears as however we’re touching down in paradise: azure waters lapping a sun‑soaked shore dotted with palm trees. But when the wheels sink into the greasy tarmac, it gets to be rapidly obvious that we have landed in one particular of the most obese areas on the planet.

In 2013, the Global Diabetes Federation identified that far more than 80 per cent of the adult population is overweight. And you can see it. Baggage handlers, airport protection and the chaps at passport management are all demonstrably carrying extra pounds. And with all this fat come some extremely grave consequences. The Marshallese have the third highest prevalence of diabetes in the globe – 50 per cent of folks aged more than 35 have the condition, and amputees can be noticed island‑wide as a end result.

So exactly where did it all go incorrect? Fifty years ago, the Marshallese out of the blue changed their diet regime. Soon after the 2nd Globe War, the islands became a trust territory of the United States. The US started trading with the islands, and as a result the Marshallese diet regime shifted from fresh fish and coconuts to an imported, processed “Western” diet plan of flour, white rice, sugar and fatty meats. And this is the diet they nevertheless eat these days.

One particular evening I ate with a nearby loved ones at house – mum, dad and 5 beautiful kids. On the menu had been two varieties of white rice – a single with sugar and a single with no – and turkey tails. Turkey tails are in essence a turkey’s derrière. And, I speedily identified as turkey fat dripped down my chin, they don’t pack much muscle in their trunk, because their tails can contain a staggering 73 per cent fat. So a lot unwanted fat that they have been banned in nations this kind of as Samoa.

And with a watermelon costing $ 38 in the neighborhood supermarket, there wasn’t a fruit or vegetable in sight. The island is a coral atoll, so expanding fruit and vegetables is nigh-on extremely hard. And on the average wage of $ two an hour, imported fruit and vegetables are a luxury most people cannot afford.

Rice, flour, sugar and fatty meats are a lethal combination if you don’t add any fibre in the combine. With no it, diabetes is practically an inevitability.

SOUTH KOREA

It was way past my bedtime. Armed with a strategic electrical power nap and a box of doughnuts, I shuffled up a back alley. Punctuated with neon, it was like some thing out of Blade Runner. I arrived at an apartment and a quite, petite South Korean woman opened the door. Not the racy madam I was expecting. Hyo-Jin tucked the doughnuts underneath her arm and ushered me into her bedroom. She gave me a slick of red lipstick, smoked my eyes and tamed my mane. We have been prepared.

I was about to participate in something fairly radical. Eating alone in South Korea is a key social taboo. Mokbang is the antidote. It signifies “broadcast eating”, anything that is taking the country by storm and is earning Hyo-Jin a little fortune. Her dwell stream is free of charge to watch, but if individuals are satisfied with the services they can give a donation. We tucked into an array of South Korean delights: kimchi pancake, fried pork in soy, and one thing a little far more acquainted, fried chicken. In just an hour of consuming on a webcam, we’d produced a couple of hundred bucks.

With such a passion for foods, it is perhaps surprising that South Koreans are some of the slimmest folks on the planet. In 2012, a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Improvement identified that they have the lowest level of obesity in the developed world. So why are they so wholesome? Firstly, and very merely, they eat an inordinate volume of veggies. They eat much more than twice the quantity of greens we do and develop sufficient to have 222kg of vegetables per particular person offered each and every year above our 94kg. Alternatively of five a day, it’s much more like ten a day. Fresh and often raw veggies are a staple everywhere, even at support stations. This is a far cry from our roadside Ginsters and packets of crisps.

Second, fermented meals are a major element of their diet regime. Kimchi – a spicy, fermented cabbage – is eaten at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with the typical South Korean consuming a hefty 150g-200g per day in the winter, and 50g-100g in the summertime. Packed with good bacteria called lactobacilli, it aids improve metabolic process and aids digestion.

Match to burst, I rolled out of Hui Jin’s flat. Feeling somewhat objectified, I did genuinely feel, probably naively, that I had provided organization at dinner for a number of hundred solo eaters. I asked her what I need to do about my bloated tummy. She had a one‑word answer: “Kimchi.”

ITALY

Tucked away in the Italian countryside, just a couple of hrs from Rome, stands a magical hilltop. Identified by scientists as the “village of eternal youth”, the typical life expectancy in Campodimele is 95 many years. Evaluate that with the Italian common of 77.5 for men and 83.five for females. In addition, their cholesterol amounts are some of the healthiest in the planet. In the Eighties, the Globe Overall health Organisation discovered that the cholesterol in 80‑year-olds was related to that of newborn babies.

Why are they living so extended? There’s no doubt that they have longevity in their genes. However it is what they do with people genes. I spent a day with Geraldo and Liana. They are 85 and 83 respectively, yet search and move like they are at least ten many years younger.

I request them to demonstrate me what they eat. Geraldo invites me on his Vespa, and I am half-expecting him to consider me to the supermarket rather, we roll down the hill to feed his chickens and verify on his wheat fields. As for the supermarket, he laughs and tells me that the closest one is 50 kilometres away and he’s never been.

On returning house, his wife Liana is getting ready lunch. A delicious rustic feast of pasta, passata, chickpeas, lashings of olive oil, and a substantial goblet of deep, fruity red wine poured from an old Evian bottle. The distinction is that every single component is house-grown and home‑made. Getting virtually fully self-ample, each and every week this couple commit a few euros on just two extras – milk and coffee.

Geraldo and Liana are not an exception to the rule. Professor Cugini has studied the town because the Eighties and refers to their diet program as “hyper-Mediterranean”. It is all the greatest bits of the Mediterranean diet, turned up complete blast. The villagers get pleasure from top-good quality, residence-created fresh elements that are packed complete of vitamins and minerals. Their diet regime is minimal in meat and virtually devoid of red meat and butter.

The folks here eat an typical of one particular litre of olive oil a week, the best recipe for heart wellness – washed down with two glasses of red wine a day to offer a daily injection of antioxidant polyphenols.

Despite working water and electricity, the men and women in Campodimele are living a daily life much as they would have done one,000 years in the past. This isn’t feasible for most of us, but if we all ate a small far more like them, we may just truly feel the advantages.

One particular can only hope that somewhere in a parallel universe, the tuck trolley currently being wheeled around my dad’s hospital ward is loaded with a Campodimele harvest and, rather than crisps and chocolate, it is fresh vegetables and olive oil that are becoming administered.

‘The World’s Best Diet’ is on Monday June 30 at 9pm on Channel four

Want to live a extended daily life? Consume fermented cabbage and drink a litre of olive oil a week