The People On This Greek Island Live Over 100 Years | The Art Of Living | Tonic

what about tinder does that work on island tinder yeah tinder yeah you know like the app where you date people oh my gosh no 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 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 a hundred 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 health yeah bye bye it's just difficult to understand i mean he's born in 1915. [Music] ikaria is one of greece most peculiar islands located in the eastern and windiest part of the agency as far from the greek mainland as you can get the island population is about 9 000 people the people on nicaragua live on average about 10 years longer than other inhabitants in the european union and i want to find out why [Applause] this is the first time i'm in greece and the second time i'm on a scooter but it's an amazing island i mean the ocean the smells the mountains just stunning island and i'm going to meet tia who knows everything there is to know about ikea and the cooking and the lifestyle here so excited about this look at that view that blue color is amazing i wonder if she's awake though i mean apparently on this island they don't really care much about time so we'll see if she's awake looks like a bed and breakfast or something hello i'm nicholas welcome to ikari i'm thea it's very nice to meet you wow this is your place this is my place yes it's a restaurant or it's a restaurant it has we have rooms it's like an inn a gathering place a little bit of everything yeah are you hungry yes would you like some breakfast i'd love some breakfast okay yeah let's do it all right we'll go have some breakfast then great looks like tiaparikos owns and operates tia's inn and restaurant in the village nas like the rest of the islanders she doesn't own a watch um you know how you talk about american time greek times things like this all right so in america everything probably sweden's also the same i'm sure if you're supposed to be somewhere at 12 o'clock you're there at 5 to 12. yes okay in the states pretty much the same ikaria we don't have this if i'm going to be meeting somebody around noon i might be there 12 15 12 30. not for a doctor for airplane for this we're okay but it's not because we're lazy or because we're slow it's because time isn't an enemy for us and it's not the boss it's more of a guide dr cleo is a senior specialist at avedo's health center hospital in ikea she's part of the research team that studies longevity on the island so so when you compare the career you compared it to the united states why is that you your background there i was born and raised in michigan really yes my mother's family came from ikaria my father was born in america he's an america he was american so i'm second generation american born of vicarian descent but now you live here now i live here yes after high school i started coming more and more and spending more and more time and i felt more at home here i like the lifestyle the culture the way the people think and we've been here now for about 25 years oh wow yes so so now you're more greek than american or probably a little bit of both yeah yes but i'm more i carry in okay that's different no no no i don't know okay so this is different yeah if you go back in history ikaria was very isolated even now it's not so easy as you saw on your trip coming i imagine right so yes of course we're greek don't don't take it this way but because we were isolated we had to depend on each other so much and we had to come together and work together if you're building a house i help you if i'm putting in grapevines you help me so we learn to help each other do with work with each other and support each other and we still have this tradition of supporting yeah so what did the greek what did the people on the mainland of greece think of ikea that we're different yes yes we are a bit different we have um oh goodness this is sometimes hard to explain we have a different pace but everything gets done do you understand what i'm saying yeah i'll give you an example yes please there was two i carry and men who are painters they came here to have their lunch break they had some beer they ordered some food they sat for an hour and a half there were some other people from a different country sitting nearby and they say hey what are these men done with work i said no they're taking their break what do you mean they're taking their break i said well yes they're relaxing having their lunch break yeah and how long do they take that lunch break oh i don't know because it's hot maybe they take longer and then we had a discussion i said yes but they don't punch a clock maybe they work until nine o'clock at night yeah you know what i mean this is the thing so this is what people don't see because their perspective of work is at an office nine to five yeah exactly and we don't have this perspective no yeah so tell me a little bit more about ikearians what are they like um we're a little bit more relaxed we don't stress as much about the little things for example if i'm driving down the street i'm going this way and you're coming this way and i stop you because i have something i need to tell you okay if a car comes behind me or a car comes behind you they're going to wait a few minutes because it'd be considered very very rude to beep their horn really yes because if it happens to them i will wait but if you sit there for 10 minutes talking also this is rude okay you can't go crazy with it [Applause] the relaxed and no stress attitude on nicaragua to most likely contribute to that hard to see some and high blood pressure uh occur more seldom here than in rest of europe italia is also one of the last regions in europe where people most people take a daily siesta and scientists has proven that this can lead to lower blood pressure and less heart disease and and also better working blood vessels it's also probably very contributing that people here eat a lot of green leafy vegetables and herbs which contains for example a lot of nitrates and the nitrates help to soften the blood vessels and and that could for example lead to that you get more oxygen oxygen in the brain and that better healing of wounds and actually also to to better and increase sexual ability you know i want to become a little bit more icarian if you can take some parts home with you yeah that'd be good great so tell me a little bit more about my day what will it what will i do today first of all i'm going to send you off with my husband yeah okay i don't know when you're going to come back no but you're going to go with him for a while no watch no watch no and you're going to see what's in season what's growing whether it's herbs or greens i have no idea great but whatever is available you're going to bring some home yeah and do some cooking we're going to do some cooking great yes yeah so you have to work for your food [Music] imagine if it could be this quiet on the roads in stockholm imagine that you would not get hung at immediately when you dream away at a red light [Music] [Applause] tia is your your wife yes my wife yeah how did you meet a long time ago yeah they come into korea for they have family and they one day we see one day you met yes yeah love at first sight sure so so ilyas tia's husband is born in ikedia and works as an organic farmer and winemaker okay so what are we we're picking some herbs now uh yeah we have a is many here around here look at that how beautiful yeah okay so what what is this oh it's like a radish yeah and and in the winter time we cut the leaves yeah they boiled little bit we're making salad we mix it in okay yeah it's like a bitter salad yeah it's good they they clean the the blood you know good for the liver okay and now they start to making the flower so we cut that one if somebody drink too much yeah oh it's a good hangover yeah yeah uh hangover medicine yeah yeah okay [Music] so who taught you this like which ones to pick exactly told him but i experienced from my child i see my grandmother they collect my mother my father and my neighbors and and after we we know yeah but it's also i mean these are also super good for you right i mean as you said there were different you pick herbs for different reasons right if you eat every day it's nothing it's nothing gonna happen you know yeah so your lifestyle and the way that you cook and pick your herbs it's very similar to your grandmother the food is the it's pretty much the same yeah and and so how old do you think you'll be do you think you grow to be a hundred i hope yeah yeah and yeah and if you drink a wine yeah it's good probably it's better yeah yeah also for attending a trophy [Music] as a chef and a food lover i mean this is heaven because in these days of super farms and so many domestically grown products i mean just coming here to this small little hill picking these wild herbs and these onions is uh yeah it's amazing i can't wait to come back and cook this let's go back to tia yeah yep [Music] it's amazing that so many on the island grow their own vegetables and make their own wine most of them are self-sufficient and it feels like traveling back in time i understand that you can earn a few years of life if you do not have access to fast food chains and live with the total absence of everyday stress hello what you got there i got but the whole half of it yeah with me back look at that fantastic now we can let her have some dinner today then yes so what are we cooking actually we're going to be cooking sufiko it's it's what it's saying is a traditional icarian dish it's a vegetable dish so it's everything that's in the garden it's summertime okay okay and as we're cooking it i'll tell you more about it okay perfect we have to get you to work yes and who's this sorry oh this is athena hi nicholas athena is the head chef here okay cool and she's an awesome cook if you want authentic i carry in food she's the one perfect she's the one she knows the icarian cuisine so these are the vegetables we're cooking these are the vegetables that we're going to be cooking yeah so you called it no we call it sufiko and sofico hold on i have to get another knife doxxy taxi what's the taxi means okay okay and that's great everybody thinks it's a taxi but it's not doxy is okay i love and the problem with greek right is that you say na for yes right you say no for yes yes yes yes what is uh know them so if you want to do just with a facial expression if you want to say no do this no if you want to say yes you do this no [Laughter] we'll you'll be fine yeah first you're going to start with the eggplant this is the first time i've ever started a vegetable dish with not the onions no the onions are going to go afterwards because yes the eggplant takes a little bit longer to cook so we're going to start with the eggplant okay so this is a summer dish as we say and we we sort of layer it and just leave it on a low heat okay she says we're going to keep you you're good in the kitchen okay and now you want this on top yes i'm sorry and salt a little bit of salt yes on top [Music] and now the olive oil and that's the most important ingredient in this dish you can't do this with any other oil you can't have a house without olive oil [Music] okay so just straight on the stove straight on the stove it's a low heat i mean this is a great dish anyone can do this back home as well it takes 10 minutes to prepare so so the diet on this island has recently got a lot of attention because it's super healthy and good for you right and why is that do you think what's the main reason oh i think that we i think it's because so much of our food actually comes directly from the earth you drink kombucha no we don't drink kombucha no no we don't drink kombucha that's good you drink wine right we drink lots of wine look at that you like that this is a look at how beautiful that is so you have several kinds of wild greens in there you have wild fennel in there and this is going to be boiled now for a salad this is one of the most basic parts of our diet is the wild greens and see what i mean again there's like 10 different varieties of greens and leaves and you have different nutritious values and uh you're right yes and we just like it it tastes good together yeah i must say i love this type of cooking there's so many ingredients and everything is foraged wild it's it's this this idea of cooking like this is something that you really dream of as a chef okay so it's 10 minutes on this about mm-hmm and this one is about 15 minutes okay good but there's no clock in the kitchen i can't see a no of course you don't use an egg clock a time or no time no no and no one's wearing a watch no um okay so now she's telling us how we know when the whole thing is so it's not 10 minutes okay there are no minutes there is no time [Music] so this is the famous wine from ikea yes this is actually my husband's wine so you can tell me what you think of it it's great very light and refreshing so the all the cooking here is vegetarian or you use some meat sometimes we have meat also but we have so many vegetables you know we have we have a lot of vegetables and there's so many different ways to prepare beans that we do here in ikaria so every day we have a we have one basic bean dish and we'll always have other bean dishes you like your beans salad we eat a lot of beans in your curry are you gonna come back to the beans all the time we do read a lot of that yes you are hipsters yes but we started it thank you for this amazing meal thank you so much for showing me it was truly delicious and if you need a community she thinks you also yeah if you need a commie in the kitchen if you need a and a printer someone to helping you yeah yeah that's mr naboos you can come in august yes when it's high season [Music] i love wine and here at ikea all families make their own wine now i am on my way to one of the island's largest wine producers afiyana's winery it's run by nicos and his wife maria [Music] finally some wine nicos hello oh hello how are you hi nicholas fine thanks thank you so your wife works with the vines as well yes yeah yes okay good so it's a family business yes i have two two children a boy the girl yeah both of them like this job all right study in france okay this is a spa no no this is a spa for grapes for the fluids okay this is a a place which uh put to the grapes inside the pressure with our feet so it's the first process in the wine making yeah so you you put all the the wine the whole grapes and everything in here separate the stems okay the stems yeah the skin juices the peeps for red wine or both of them yeah does the granite actually do anything to the juice yes if you see all of the land or the this is the geological phenomenon of caria the granite give a high percentage of potassium okay uh magnesium volume and don't give at all culture so so what you're saying pretty much is that this stone adds things to the wine when you eat you taste the wine then we speak specially but do you think that the yeah i mean this is the wine that the locals have been drinking for generations right it's a similar process to what they did so pretty much when when they talk about ikarians that they have a very healthy lifestyle and they live long and that's why we're here that's one of the reasons right so you say that wine is one of the reasons yes i believe it because but it's not any wine it needs to be the wine from here yes are there any other additives into your wines when you make the the process no no you don't put anything other than than grape juice into your wine nothing only juice okay so maybe for for viewers who don't know wine this is very exceptional because 99 out of all the wines in the world have maybe 30 to 40 additives into them what do you say a lot of them more yeah more so up to hundreds of additives yes in a modern type of wine but your wines on this island have zero yes yes this is a very different type of wine correct the korea wine is well known for almost 3000 years and which was actually mentioned by the founder of modern physics hippocrates as spirits of life the korean vine cannot really be compared to most mass-produced industrial wines of today it's completely natural and have no additives in it and it's also very high in a compound called resveratrol which is a well-known research for its healthy characteristics of course it's the fact that alcohol is not healthy but for the people of ikoria that doesn't seem to have a huge impact probably because of their healthy lifestyle in general people here live a very active and healthy lifestyle my wife she tells me that the only time i'm really happy is the moment i'm opening a wine bottle which i don't know if it's a good thing but it's cool [Music] oh wow that's great it's very unfiltered right it's that's why it has this color that's great um unfiltered and fine a natural wine yes yeah and the sulfate which contain came by the yeast okay by the way this natural added to the wine yes and that may that makes it last longer or yes doesn't go bad how thick it is yeah it's like honey it is uh not common for the white wines because the fermentation is a naturally yeah but so in other drinks and in other beverages people are very used to having a unfiltered like orange juice or beer you know but in wines people are used to a clear drink yes but actually this is the original wine so people need to get used to this correct so and how do you find this wine this is an amazing wine it actually reminds me a little bit about um i would say like an orange wine almost it has skin contact right yeah a small person small percentage of skin contact and it has peaches and all types of amazing things oh that's good thank you very much nikos this was a an amazing afternoon in so many ways nice to meet you yeah see you very soon good luck with everything bye bye bye maybe this is a good thing that my scooter don't start after a couple of wines maybe i need to be walking i had heard that they drink a lot of wine on the island and it made me a little confused since wine may not be the healthiest beverage but now with this knowledge i understand it's really different from the wines that most people drink with more than a hundred additives [Music] [Applause] now i have spent almost 24 hours on this wonderful little island and i have already found an inner peace it's the kind of calmness that is hard to find in my hometown stockholm always time and dates to keep track of plenty of work taking your children to school and other activities i would probably do good in putting down my phone and taking off my wrist watch from time to time to live more in the present now i am on my way to the mountains to meet with georgios denos in the mountains you'll find the oldest people on the island giorgios have been producing honey since he was 17 years old today he's well over 80 but still works every day we're going to go and get some honey color [Music] [Music] you're 87 years old and are you still working i wonder which way this goes are the bees very aggressive here does this actually work i mean there's tons of holes in this it's okay okay ducks i'm closing my one i don't want any bees in here okay let's go no gloves no gloves no wow there's so many so so you never thought of retiring at 65. uh [Music] is oh yeah it's super heavy it's just honey and it's very dark uh dark honey is it ever dangerous do you have any thoughts about long living on the island why it's so but it seems to me that the people on the island are very aware of nature and how everything is intact i mean if the if the bees die we die thank you very much i really appreciate you taking your time and showing me around and talking more about the canadian lifestyle thank you but i do really appreciate hanging out with the people here on ikea i mean it's again this is another example that they really live close to the nature and they are really in one with their products and the produce that are produced on this island and of course without a lot of bees there won't be any small farms there won't be any flora so it's uh it's stunning really [Music] me and many other swedes count the years until they finally retire here at ikaria you work as long as you can and feel good enough to work it seems more healthy than sitting in a retirement home [Music] [Applause] i'm now on my way to maveriano monastery where large village parties being organized today i will meet with eleni who's going to tell me more about the strong solidarity on the island [Music] hey hi nicholas how are you how are you hello hello helene helene yes welcome thank you how nice nice nice to meet you guys yeah this is my crew ellen is born and raised in ikea and have a great local knowledge okay so what's going on here today there's a lot of activity well yes today is uh the first of may yeah but do they celebrate it as a labor day as you do in other countries the labor day we do celebrate the labor day but not here yeah it's actually a celebration a spring flower celebration if you want to get a name of it and they get some incomes from here from this day and the incomes are for the village okay with this kind of incomes they help here the monastery to do some work some um to repair things because it's a very old one and it needs operation and also other money goes to to the village to make roads to repair a bridge to so even even to help a family that needs that needs financial help okay so it's a type of charity yeah so everyone's helping out so this lady over here she's peeling some onions yes i think she needs some help yeah that's good good we are going to help her out hello good morning eddie handshake uh everybody thank you very much this is nice to meet you this is mrs alexandra i squeezed my hand i know really hard i'm sure that was that was cool yeah can i help you of course you've gotta one thing that has led to a very strong sense of solidarity on the island of italy for thousands of years actually since the roman era is the fact that dissimilar people have been deported to the island from the mainland at the same time ikea is a very remote and isolated rocky island in the windiest part of the aegean sea the people here have always needed each other to cope with everyday life and this can still be spotted in the very unusual non-materialistic approach to life which people have here in the island people here do not really ask what you do they ask who you are and money and status is not so important and and there are not really any big inequalities when it comes to class or gender the women in ikea have a very special position in the society oh yes yeah i like this so the woman has a strong position in the family or in the society in general in society and family they are always respected so you don't really need a feminist movement on this island because the woman has already a strong position in the society it was very very weird to know that women have to fight for the rights yes and that's interesting you see here if you go to the mainland you will never see a woman in a coffee shop playing cards smoking having coffee or a whiskey or a chipper or something if you go in greece in mainland here there are they go everywhere they go out even from the very old times even by themselves so i would like to ask her how old is she i usually don't do this to women if she if she doesn't want to answer she doesn't have time 77 77 yeah so does she think that she's gonna live to be a hundred [Music] [Laughter] what does alexander think is the reason why people live long on this side it's um one thing is the natural life that we live another thing is the world she is working a lot yeah yes she doesn't stay on a couch or she moves around naturally we use a lot of olive oil the vegetables and all we need well we get from our gardens it's organic even our even the wine the alcohol that we are consuming is organic it's yeah it's natural yeah it's a natural material yes and it's a matter of socializing yeah so a healthy lifestyle you move around a lot you eat organic yes you drink organic you drink organically and i'm 20 minutes i'm quoting the doctor yesterday so this is not me i'm quoting she says also that you have sex up to a high age as well mrs mrs yes she knows [Laughter] i mean so so right now they're prepping for the party yeah yeah what time will the guests starts arrive i think uh one to five and you don't have a clock either no i don't i know what time about it is what time is it now it must be about 11 30 11 11 30. but you're guessing now yes i'm guessing does he know what time it is do you know what time it is sister in there that's another one i don't know ah he has a smartphone [Music] [Laughter] so how often are there feasts like this this village they are doing twice here twice per year in this area first of may and 25 of march and i think they have one or two eyes panagiria the big fiestas in their village which is in the mountains okay so every village has their own feast but they don't have it at the same date so they spread it out they spread it out there's always time for a party yes okay wait i need to know i need to wrap this up there's pretty much a party every second week yeah you drink wine every day you have sex until you die yes and you hang around you hang around with all your friends yeah and all the food is organic tell me that yes live in europe that's the tongue what's the best part of the animal i think it's i think it's the brain yeah it's like butter and with a little bit salt and pepper that's your favorite yes the brain yes yes of course i've been waiting for it the whole day yeah i like you like brain yeah yeah everybody likes a brain [Music] it's very thick very heavy a little bit like um i think it's better than the brain [Laughter] i think i prefer the tongue from the brain [Music] imagine if me and my neighbors could pull together such a party to raise money to help families who need it in sweden three people would probably show up at the thing like this we keep to ourselves and would never dare to ask for help it would be nice if we could change that i mean i think i can get used to this i mean get a little bit tipsy in the afternoon eat a goat head socializing with some friends so yeah that's it that's all i ikaria i'm heading back home thank you very much i really enjoy the life of ikaria the incredible and friendly people and the great hospitality everything felt so real the food the wine the culture and most of all the people oh

Channel: Tonic

Views: 448,294

Keywords: Age-Defying Nutrition, Anti-Aging Foods, Centenarian Lifestyle, Costa Rica Culture, Elderly Happiness, Elderly Health, Elderly Nutrition, Healthy Living Principles, Lifestyle Choices, Lifestyle Medicine, Live Past 100, Long Life Achievements, Long Life Recipe, Mediterranean Cuisine, Mediterranean Diet, Natural Living, Old-Age Wellness Practices, Secret to Aging Well, Senior Health Tips, World's Oldest People

Id: GP4ouNyTd0I

Length: 43min 5sec (2585 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021