At icon we are often asked about the Atkins diet or Dr Mercola’s ’no grain diet’. Our views are pretty well known. We think the former is dangerous and the latter misleading. ’No refined grains’ might be a better sound-bite.
The diet is mineral rich and based on whole grains, sweet potatoes and leafy greens
Now comes a new book on diets of the world ’The live longer diet’ by Sally Beare. This looks accurately at the diets of, for example, the Bama of China, The Hunzas of Pakistan, the population of Symi a Greek Island and more. All peoples who have long life expectancies. The ’winners’ are probably the Okinawans. Okinawa is in fact 161 coral islands. The diet is mineral rich and based on whole grains, sweet potatoes and leafy greens. They also eat seaweed, fresh fish and boiled chicken and pork with the fat trimmed off.
But they consume only 1500 calories per day of which one third comes from whole grains like buckwheat. The diet is also low on sodium.
There are 34 centenarians per 100,000. In the UK the figure is 5.