Are Religion And Diet The Keys To A Long Life | The Art Of Living | Tonic

[Laughter] who doesn't want to live a long and healthy life my name is nicholas yexted and i run three restaurants my greatest passions are food and health since i recently crossed the 40 year old mark and it feels like i'm in the middle of my life thoughts of living for as long as possible run through my mind more frequently there are six mythical areas in the world where it's common that people live to become a hundred year or more these places are called the blue zones how come you get so old in these places who are the people living there how do they live what do they eat and what is the secret to a long and healthy life i have decided to travel the world and visit the blue zones to get answers to my questions [Music] this is the first time i cook breakfast for a hundred year old man look at that jeez are you kidding me she has her own radio show no no you have sex up to a high age as well are you done for today are you gonna do more wins no no i i've already been here for two hours you are hipsters yes but we started it hopefully i will come back knowing how to live to the magic age of 100 or even more what you're saying actually is that my diet can change my gene yes exactly but you believe in the devil yes in hell yeah bye bye it's just difficult to understand i mean he's born in 1915. [Music] i have now made my way to the united states of america and the city called luma linda it's about a two-hour drive east of los angeles [Music] so early morning here in luma linda where i'm gonna meet up with a lady called mareke who is a part of a church called the seventh-day adventists and they're very very present in this neighborhood of la malinda so i know very little about the religion i know very little about what they do and how they live but i know they're very religious so it's a little different for me because i'm not religious at all so let's see how this works out [Music] a thing that surprises me is the fact that u.s even have a blue zone obviously i'm thinking about their massive fast food culture but the reason why luma linda differ from all the other cities is the fact that almost everyone here belongs to the seventh-day adventists for the first time before a visit like this i do feel a bit nervous maybe it's due to the fact that i'm a non-believer i'm afraid that i'll not really understand their philosophy but who knows i might just as well come back home as a newly saved seventh-day adventist good morning how are you really good welcome to loma linda thank you i am so glad you made it come on in yeah yeah just one thing before we go we need to know how do i pronounce your name mareka marika mareka murray yes as you think english you think of a rake and you're a nicholas yes marieke have been a seventh-day adventist for 46 years and is a very central figure here in lu malita this is totally cool come on in nicholas okay thank you breakfast huh breakfast time yes this is breakfast and our breakfast is oatmeal i can hear on your accent you're not from around here right now no no no no i am from the netherlands i was born and raised in the netherlands and uh i came to this country 51 and a half years ago so how did you end up here in the u.s oh it's a long story necklace please i have time yes oh awesome okay let me in between here what i do i have oatmeal yeah and i do a spoon of oatmeal and then we do a little bit of hemp okay so it's a better use than cannabis we don't go there maybe my time will come as i get old and i need to puff something you know but right now you have hem for breakfast instead so this is what i do i do have filtered water here in my kitchen this is really smart right so what you've put here is like oatmeal hemp chia seeds and cranberries and cranberries and then the oatmeal and then you know yeah and then you just mix with some stir with some water some water yeah three minutes in the microwave yes each from the farm not from the factory that's that is the motto that's the model you know yes that's a really good thing right i i think it is more from the farm and less from the factory exactly yeah yes so how did the dutch girl end up in the u.s ah here we go you see my husband was stationed in the army and um anyway see they moved he was in france and then they moved them to the netherlands and so that is where i actually met um i actually i used to be a bartender at that time so we were so far removed from each other's thinking and lifestyle just beyond um i was army officer american met the dutch girl there you fell in love and then eventually you ended up here in in the us yes but the church and his religion you knew nothing about nothing at all so like me now yes here we go it's a good beginning because because the church in in holland is very similar to the swedish church right i mean it's very moderate yes very much so um it's not what it used to be and but anyways and then i i got to know more about god i read about him but then i had his awesome experience experience nicholas there was nothing like it i was totally overwhelmed so did you feel more in love with god than with your husband or it's a different love what i should say when i fell in love with god my understanding for my husband and his relationship became more pronounced it became more real to me [Music] all of this thank you so much let me put some i got the goodies here so so you so your life here in luma linda i mean the community what percentage belongs to the church oh i would say at least 95 percent that big and and and most people who belong to your church live a very healthy lifestyle the majority of them do yeah we are very um why is that the connection to all of this is we are god's creation and but but you believe in the in the the bible right yes so it's the same as a but our body is the the temple of god that's what it says you know we are his temple and in order to keep it whole we want to eat healthy we want to exercise we just want to stay whole yeah and this is part of loma linda living experience [Laughter] experience is great you have the fun you have the kind of search yeah maybe i do maybe i do and then maybe i haven't been open enough for it maybe i need to open myself more that is the key so what's on the on the agenda now are you ready yes here we go yeah i'm going to put this inside quick yeah i'm going to change shirts and then we're going to hit the treadmill head to dressing okay does it sound great to you some exercise sounds good oh healthy breakfast and uh here we go you got the right nutrients in so we can work it off thank you fantastic hey here we go this is the dresses here is the dressing center gonna get fit trayson center opened in 1995. it's a health center here in luma linda and that advocates physical emotional holy wholeness a lot of the people here training are older is working as an associate professor in the department of public health at luma linda university physical activity for the centenarians is very important the type of physical activity they have done has um changed over time right as they go through seasons in life but they still are very active you might run into them in the community you'll see many of them walking and if they can't walk on their own they have a walker so is very important to their lifestyle their mental well-being their physical well-being to get out and do things how old are you i'll be 95 saturday wow congratulations and happy birthday and i play golf twice a week no way awesome 95. don't don't play well that well anymore but yeah you know smoother but it's fun we have some of our own rules you know the ball rolls across the hole which isn't our fault that gravity didn't create don't you love that that's awesome so here at the university we do a lot of work on longevity uh for my research i really focus on the people who are over a hundred and looking at their childhood experiences because we know that there are adverse childhood experiences or aces and when you get too many of these ace scores high ace category score the less likely you are to reach a hundred so how old are you uh i'm going to be 95 in august it's amazing is it yeah yes you're amazing what's your secret how how do i become 95 now what should i do you should start when you're young although i didn't we had no idea how to live healthily except my parents were seventh-day adventist movement and happiness and trusting god and being honest and i do so that helps that helps so aces are adverse childhood experiences and basically it's trauma that a child would experience or might experience um during childhood and aces include things like extreme poverty uh parental harm if a parent physically abuses them or mentally abuses them if they witness violence in the community all those kind of things you can imagine that are really traumatic so for instance a score and a score of four uh it's going to significantly impact your life right a score of six or more they say it shortens your life span by 20 years well our centenarians all had a minimum a score of four or more and a few of them have an a score of six yet the oldest one is my husband's great aunt living at 106. so really this here in loma linda is the first community to be identified that shows signs of resilience against aces and basically it's um a super blue zone how old are you i'm just short of 80 10 days a day 80 years old yeah you're 80 80. yes 8-0 [Laughter] that's good whoa now pull up your leg hold it hold it hold it way to go fine something huh so loma linda centenarians living longer than the average is really a complex story when i went and interviewed the centenarians i see eight factors starting from childhood that look like they really afforded protection for them the first one which i call a keystone habit is time in nature kinetic activity so you can imagine as farmers even across their lifespan they move a lot the third one is simple foods simple foods right back more to the ground to the nature and it's plant-based and the drink of choice well for the centenarians when they were young it was the only choice it was water another connection is um family and friends camaraderie right so high social capital they really maintain these connections across their lifespan another one is critical one our faith foundation strong faith foundation another one is uh resting reset i call it so they take breaks throughout the day it's not the hectic pace that we see now and as a parent sometimes i'm guilty of it i schedule 500 things right we have to take a step back and really rethink the other is a positive mindset it's just the belief that they can overcome things not that they have a happy child or a happy all the time existent but the belief that the decisions and the actions they make is going to improve where they're at and then helping hand is another one i have so along with this positive mindset they have this uh gift of wanting to help their friends and giving back and so you live here and i live here yeah and you used to work at the university or yes yes i started out the university in 1967 and now i work at the sac clinic uh so you still work i still work only a little bit halfway a week and how old are you i'm 87 87 yeah yeah and still going strong oh i have a great time yeah i just enjoyed myself why should i quit and how often do you work out uh four times five times a week four to five times a week yeah for a couple hours mornings see i can either rest out or wear out i'm not gonna rust out okay so so what do you think about the kids today about so what's the big difference between like my generation growing up now compared to your generation be honest with you yeah they don't understand what life is about what's real and so they want to get and they don't realize that life becomes real when you give and they need to learn to give it's a striking point actually thinking about it i don't think i do it at all yeah i mean what how does the younger generation spend their non-ordained time and it's getting and getting you never get enough no when you start giving and you see somebody smile because of what you did that's so satisfying yeah it brings joy to your heart and it's it's a very small thing to do as well it's not complicated at all and it's not expensive no it's zero yeah you go to the church here as well are you religious as well yes i take it rather serious you know the statistics of longevity when we compare here in loma linda to the rest of the us there's been a number of published studies looking at this and it just shows on average about 10 years longer right and so that's just what the data shows but i have a feeling based on meeting these centenarians that it's likely even longer as the health in america may not be quickly improving and the centenarians and the loma linda community is really maintaining these habits so the the the disparity between the rest and the blue zone it may be widening so you always do the same machines harvey tomorrow i'll do arms and chests oh you change i change why why are legs so important when you get old to do so i can get up from a chair i don't want to be stuck in the toilet a tough guy do you come in the mornings or in the afternoon mornings yeah we usually get here about 6 30. you're here 6 30 in the morning are you done for today are you gonna do more weights no no i i've already been here for two hours you're strong i'm done harvey elder amazing guy i'm glad you had the opportunity to meet him so that is totally you're very welcome hey do you want to come tonight and help me make some supper for all of us yeah great awesome looking forward to do something what a fun gym visit it was so incredibly impressing to see the many elderly people being active and being so strong and fresh i don't really know if i like their religion but it does bring one good thing to the people of lu malinda they are all very active and take good care of their bodies and i assume their diet is just as important [Music] so we're doing vegetables i guess yes all this is all gonna be vegetarian with the exception i have real cheese i have cheddar cheese i use if you don't mind yes so your diet is not vegan it's not vegan i'm vegetarian i think that i would probably be able to eat like this on the weekdays and then on the weekends i would probably would like some caviar some salmons and that's that's okay too that is okay and you know you just adjust to what do you want in life salmon is is very good for you it has the omega-3 but then where is it raised as well or where mercury there is so much mercury of course i mean all food products with a lot of that contain protein are not sustainable you know that and that even goes for some of the vegetables like soya beans for example yeah and this is pinto beans you use pinto beans and you can use a pinto or black you can use any kind of beans to put in here you cook them and then you mash them and then you put some olive oil in it and then a little pepper and a little salt you can do a little taco sauce seasoning in it as well but i just keep it very simple so this is instead of minced meat or yes this is our protein this is the protein for the meal i don't know if you guys know the mcdonald's the golden arches right that might be universal so that was even a big taboo to develop that here in the blue zone right the city has very strict standards of what they will allow to get uh alcohol license very difficult for a restaurant here in loma linda tobacco we don't sell you know i don't see many smoke shops uh so we take pride a lot of pride in maintaining the healthy habits of the city hey tom how are you oh hi nicholas that's my husband tom finally ready to eat huh you could smell the food already here you go please do take a plate and then uh have you been to the gym as well no i have no i do my exercises here yeah he does exercises here you prefer you like your wife's cooking oh he's fine yeah as i said what cooking there is to it it's good he is very very gracious so you're the guy that brought this dutch woman to the united states huh yeah this liberal doctor she gave me a life hey so the diseases that are less common is kind of a misnomer we die of the same things that most americans you're gonna die of heart disease or cancer it's just that you die of that at a much later age than what typical you'll see people dying 50 60s of heart disease i mean you have a diet that's you know leaning towards vegan and yeah you don't drink right no alcohol yeah so it's that type of diet but still you praise modern medicine yes we do i mean because there are pockets in parts of the world where people eat very simple food like with vegetables and don't have a processed food but they don't have modern uh medicine in modern hospitals but you do we do have cutting edge yeah yeah the medical treatment is is top badges the medical treatment is top edge and we are very um aware of um uh like the opioid crisis that's a huge problem in the usa it is a huge problem and it is a problem in loma linda because we have had numerous doctors that would be uh in in our community i'm not saying just at our institution but all around that would provide opioids like terrible and candy it's everywhere and those those are tablets right these are tablets these are pills these are pain medications we have three times a week oxycontin oxycodone yeah like that fentanyl you name it why do people get opioids i mean to start off i mean we don't even have them i mean i i mean i do i've never heard of that problem in europe i don't know it probably exists i am ashamed to say it has been prescribed way too much people would physicians would prescribe it and people would take it for two three weeks at a time and then they would go back and the patient would say oh i'm still in pain and the doctor would keep prescribing the stronger given more give him more and up the you know up the dosage and cannot get up it kills families the children are the victims of the circumstances of their parents because the parents can't take care of the kids when they're on these strong drugs they walk around like they're in a stupor or something zombies very addictive it is unbelievable [Music] [Applause] the american opioid epidemic had its sincere outbreak in the 90s when some pharmaceutical companies started to aggressively market painkillers which was in fact opius many doctors whom had little knowledge about the long-term effects prescribed those drugs for the patients who had minor problems like ache or other easy health problems in a very short time a whole generation of americans got addicted to those opioid painkillers and when they couldn't afford the prescription drugs they went out on the streets and this is when the market for synthetic drugs exploded for example fentanyl which is about 100 times stronger than heroin as of today it has developed a huge national health crisis with about two and a half million addicts and approximately 85 percent of all the opioids in the world are is now consumed in north america it's been an amazing day thank you very very much for showing me all these things my pleasure it has been an amazing trip today i never thought i was gonna meet i mean i meet so many interesting people at a gym yeah that is an amazing okay i understand that you live healthy eat well and avoid alcohol still the city struggles with a quite large opioid addiction is it so that no matter your belief people still have an urge of escaping reality i'm now on my way to campus hill church where i'm going to meet up with christian who's a priest and he's going to tell me more about his religion and about life in the community [Music] after having spent 24 hours traveling around in the city of luma linda i really feel that the church is very present they can be seen everywhere in the very small town of 23 000 inhabitants there are 20 churches [Music] hey christian necklace welcome to campus hill church thank you that's a beautiful church you have here well i'm glad you came to visit yeah excited so how long have you been here in this church uh about 17 and a half years now 17 years yes wow so you were very young when you came here i just graduated uh seminary okay um and this was my first official pastoral job pastor that's your title that's my title okay you're not the priest no in the adventist church we have pastors which are the equivalent of priests in traditional christian churches that's interesting so tell me a little bit about your church about the seven days adventists because i know nothing about them i mean nothing okay the main belief is jesus's return uh as we know it as a second coming um is imminent uh thus we're called um seventh-day adventist adventism pertains to an advent to a coming we believe that he went to heaven and we believe that he's coming back that was his promise that just as he goes he will come back but what will happen when he has arrived then what's the post jesus second time on earth like the arrival of jesus the second coming of jesus um at the heart of it is the day of judgment if if all all we have to do is just flip on a tv channel and we see a whale that was found with so much plastic what's the fault of that sea animal you know what what what did it do wrong to be to be undressed right so so that's that's not right that's not right uh we see in the living as well as uh you know in the in the uh realms of of natural phenomenons we we see quite a lot of things that are not right and the day of judgment is the day that makes all things right again for everybody and everything just a matter of connecting and going regularly to church has tremendous health benefits in addition to the mental health benefits that i experience just each uh each sabbath when we go into sabbath i know my blood pressure immediately drops and lowers because i don't have to open my email so when we go to that sabbath no computers no nothing and so i know immediately for myself personally i can feel this sense of peace come over me why i'm here in luma linda is of course health diets the way that your church teaches that the body is your temple right the temple of god the temple of the holy spirit the scripture says that god gave adam and eve all of the fruit trees every seed bearing a tree as their food not enemy not any meat as a matter of fact all of the other created uh beings were entrusted to adam and eve and they were given um [Music] the responsibility of caring for all of these animals we believe in a vegetarian diet we believe in in healthy diet we believe that uh clean water is the best uh to satisfy our thirst and we believe that uh all vegetables that have nutritive value are best for our bodies diet is an important part but i think it's more living whole it's just one component of the big picture so if you're only focused on diet to reach 100 likely you will be doing yourself a disservice because you have to live whole which is why lo melina's motto is to make man whole we believe that there is a strong component that pertains number one to our responsibility to care care for all life right we are the ones who are entrusted we we've proven that we could control pretty much all other life we could hunt down an elephant that that that's way bigger than us we we could destroy and kill everything i think that phase has to be history now we have to number one default to the original diet so we don't destroy what god created correct but but you believe in the devil yes in hell yeah but what will happen to him after judgment day about the devil what will happen to him after judgment day we believe the scripture that says that everything evil and everything wrong will be terminated will be destroyed there will be an end to it so what you're saying is that if i live a healthy lifestyle i'm a vegetarian i exercise i live a nice life but i'm not a christian i still would be even healthier and better off if i was absolutely a strong relationship with god is a major factor in a person's uh quality of life and you don't think that's just thanks to their diet and they're being vegetarians and they're not drinking and then that they have physical activity in their life isn't it also that their faith correct correct i believe that all of those are good factors including the genetics there are people with great genes but when you add the component of a personal faith that adds on top of what a good lifestyle what a good genetic inheritance already brings to the table if you take away the religion it becomes difficult for our community i believe to live as long and as healthy uh even religion in itself there's studies showing that attending church and a faith in god they see less chronic diseases among that population also because they're connected to that social capital as well the faith in god and then also um the social capital does tremendous for your mind your body and your spirit right and so also this belief that my life has a sense of purpose and it's in god's hands it takes some of the stress off of me i do really understand that one feel less stress and climate anxiety if you trust the belief that jesus shall one day come back and fix all things us human have destroyed you can probably earn quite a few extra years of your own life not having to bear these thoughts on your shoulders like most of us do [Applause] lumalinda university has their own veggie oriented dietitian education i'm meeting up with their head teacher corey who will teach me some vegetarian cooking it'll probably be pretty far from the dishes at my restaurant hey hello so what are we doing today we're cooking well yes that's what you said you wanted to do so love to cook well i got out a few things for us and i figured that we would make enchiladas with rice on the side and vegetable salad called escobiche which is not a lettuce-based salad it's a little bit different it's an interesting one and there's not nothing like lumalinda doesn't have its own cuisine that's a good question um no because the united states is such a conglomeration of people from around the world corey is a seventh-day adventist and nutrition expert he has worked in various restaurants all around the world why is this university focusing so much on health and diet so it comes from the adventist heritage we have always had a focus on keeping the body healthy and so now we um recognize that a vegetarian diet is uh one of the better ways to do that so you know loma linda's heritage now is being proven by modern science and it's pretty cool to see pretty cool the students here are they all adventists no we pull students from all over the place um but we do require that our students go to chapel sessions whenever we have a new student who comes on campus part of the orientation is that they uh learn where the chapel is and that's one of the things you have to accept if you're going to be a student here is okay you're going to be sitting in chapel so to be honest with you when the researcher for this show told me that we were going to go to the u.s for healthy food i thought she was joking because for me as a european i don't think of the us as a healthy nation the u.s does not have a reputation for healthy food you're right absolutely but because of the fact that we are such an international group we do have enclaves where people are eating differently from the majority and i think loma linda is one of those places yeah um yeah we haven't had a mcdonald's in loma linda forever just a couple of years ago they were finally able to build one and it was interesting the amount of community backlash was substantial and uh i've been told although i don't know that for sure but that uh the mcdonald's has been challenged staying in business here in loma linda okay in general for my community here in the blue zone diet is very important right we we really look at eating more simplified foods plant-based beans drinking water no caffeine here if you try to find a cup of coffee on our campus i don't think unless it's hidden away somewhere in a faculty office you're not going to find coffee or you know or caffeinated beverages and we're just trying to soften these these are going to be the stuffing for the inside of the enchilada now a lot of times people are using meats in the in the enchilada so it's b for it's chicken or shrimp i've seen shrimp before as well but obviously not something that i want to do here at loma linda since we are vegetarian vegetarian yeah and all of our clientele is looking for vegetarian food so we need to do it in a different way but it's just interesting to think of because i think that me as a european and especially as a swede we think of vegetarians as either in like environmental friendly people who don't want to animal to be slaughtered for the course of food yes or we think of vegetarians as you know health freaks okay i'd very rarely think people would think it as a christian value oh interesting i didn't even know about it before coming here okay i never even had it slightly thought about that christianity has a vegetarian slant to it the united states has been a hotbed of really bad foods that people love to eat and it's because it's so available at the european it's very striking the amount of overweight people when you come to the us which is like it's uh it's very you know we're not used to it it was interesting the first time that i ever went to europe i was really surprised at portion sizes they're so different between what we have in the united states versus europe okay so you think maybe it's is it that's one of the reasons you you eat too much yes absolutely so it's not going just simply getting too many calories that's our biggest struggle because like i said it's so available i mean you go to the grocery store and you buy a little personal size container of yogurt and it's this big go to europe and buy a personal size yogurt and it's half the size yeah so how do it's a big struggle all right so to uh to do these what we're going to do is just dip them in the hot sauce and that's going to soften up the tortilla and then we'll be able to roll it just getting it coated put it in the pan put some of our filling into it and it doesn't take a lot these shouldn't be over filled you want to have a finger sized piece so wrap it up and put it on its open end so that holds it together and then we'll go with the next one fill all these and then we'll pour some sauce over it and then it goes in a warm oven just to melt the cheese and then it's ready to eat the young people that live here in the blue zone some is similar to the centenarians yes some is changing right the values are somewhat changing however i believe it's still better off than the surrounding communities because we still have a strong faith connection that is really our cornerstone and we really value but my concern is with the electronics and the loss of time in nature our younger generation are making decisions that may decrease their health status right spending more time on computers less time outdoors so across the lifespan really concerning of how the blue zone will be viable so my goal here is to really help us reconnect back save our own blue zone if other blue zones need saving i'm here to help and be a service that's that's a vegetarian dish you have protein in there you put the black beans inside there's actually quite a bit of protein in the rice and in the corn so you've got the protein component fully taken care of and then of course the rice is your grain and then the vegetable you've got plenty so it is a complete meal it's delicious that's good isn't it yeah so easy to make and yet one of my favorite things love this dish thank you very much guys it's my pleasure yeah i know so much more now and it makes sense more good yeah i'm glad yeah i'm happy that you were able to come and experience some of our kitchen and some of our cooking and just be a part of a little bit of adventist culture thank you yeah that was fun i'm with penises [Laughter] [Music] okay [Music] it's not the most exciting town i've visited it's pretty boring actually and it's very yellow and dull and very suburban but i must say i kind of like the seven date adventists i like the way that they look at food i like the way that they want us to treat our body well and want us to eat more vegetables there's nothing wrong with that i must admit that and that's something that i'm gonna bring with me home i'm probably gonna cook more vegetables for my kids back home and those enchiladas those tortillas they were good in my opinion religion do most often lead to limitations and conflicts this is actually the first time that i've seen something that i believe can result in something positive i mean they're healthy and live long due to their strong beliefs time to waste i'm heading to you you

Channel: Tonic

Views: 127,936

Keywords: Tonic, Yoga, Recipes, health, exercise, Loma linda, loma linda university church, loma linda california, loma linda medical school, loma linda university, how to live longer, Why Loma Linda residents live longer, why loma linda diet, loma linda blue zone, loma linda blue zone lifestyle, loma linda blue zone diet, loma linda blue zone national geographic, loma linda blue zone food, cnn loma linda blue zone, why is loma linda considered a blue zone, blue zones loma linda recipes

Id: QT-SzdvaAIM

Length: 41min 38sec (2498 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 28 2021