Food for Longevity – Top 3 Food I Eat for a Healthy and Long Life

There are many factors that can affect health and how long you live:

• Family history
• Environment
• Lifestyle
• Diet

You can’t change the genes that you are born with. However, your living environment, life style and diet are in your control.

In this article, I will share with you what I eat regularly for health and longevity.

Before going into the specific healthy food that I consume daily, I would also like to share with you the criteria that I used to determine whether a food is healthy or not.

Criteria of a healthy food:

• Unprocessed – the food is in its natural form
• Nutrient dense – rich source of certain vitamins, mineral, good fatty acid or protein
• Anti-inflammatory properties
• Plant-based
• Non-nightshade vegetables
• Lectin-free

Top 3 Food that I Eat for Health and Longevity

1. Sweet Potato

I’m a carb-lover. A keto-diet which is low in carbs in so hard for me. Hence, my adventure into keto-diet only last about two weeks. Then, I found that I can also enjoy the benefit of being in ketosis without giving up my carbs and that is intermittent-fasting. That’s for another article for me to share about my venture into intermittent fasting.

I realised that I can’t do without the satisfaction of eating a starchy meal. And to my delight, I have found a good alternative to rice, noodles and breads which used to be my main carb source which is sweet potato.

Why I eat sweet potato as my main carb source?

• It is lectin-free unlike most grains
• It contains resistant starch
• It is anti-inflammatory (especially the purple sweet potatoe)

Two main benefits of consuming resistant starch:

• Prompt growth of friendly bacteria in the gut as they feed on resistant starch because as their main food source
• Unlike other carbs, they are unable to be broken down into simple sugar hence would not cause a spike in blood sugar

But do bear in mind that resistant starch only accounts for about 11% of the starch in the sweet potatoes, the rest are mainly rapidly digested starch hence eating too much of it can also cause a rise in blood sugar.
However, cooling before the sweet potato before consuming it will help increase the level of resistant starch in it.

There are also other benefits of eating sweet potatoes regularly which you can read more about it in this article on sweet potato from Healthline.com but for me the above few main benefits are the ones that swayed the votes for me.

2. Cruciferous Vegetables

I love a variety of vegetables, but I have intentional choose more cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbages and bok choy. These are my three favourite cruciferous vegetable that I eat on a regular basis.

Below is the list of cruciferous vegetables:

• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Kale
• Bok choy
• Arugula
• Brussels sprouts
• Collards
• Watercress
• Radishes

Why I eat cruciferous vegetables as my main source of vegetables?

• They are lectin-free
• They do not belong to night-shade family of vegetables
• They are low in calorie
• They are nutrient dense
• They have anti-inflammatory
• They have positive effect on estrogen metabolism
• They can help prevent cancer

3. Probiotic Food

I started falling in love with kimchi when I was introduced to Korean food. The spicy, sour and slight sweet flavour coupled with a crunchy texture is such a refreshing combo as an appetizer or side dish.

Another favourite fermented food of mine is miso soup. I love adding miso paste to my food to flavour it or use it as a soup base.

Why I eat fermented food regularly?

Fermented food contains good bacteria that will help in maintaining a healthy gut. A diverse microbiome is associated with anti-obesity effects and appears to protect against infection and autoimmune disease—it’s one of the mechanisms believed to contribute to declining health with age.

Food that contains probiotic:

• Kimchi
• Miso paste
• Kefir
• Sauerkraut
• Kombucha

To preserve the benefit of these probiotic foods, do not cook them in high temperature which will kill the good bacteria. Hence, I usually just eat kimchi uncooked and only add the miso paste into the soup after I turned off the fire in the stove.

You might have observed that the food that I listed here that I eat the most regularly are good for the gut and have anti-inflammatory properties.

Our gut accounts for 70% of immune system and played the most important role of protecting us from illnesses. Thus, having a healthy gut is of utmost importance in living a long and diseases-free life. Ageing processes are mostly due to free-radical induced damages resulting inflammation in our body Hence, any food that reduce inflammation can help in slowing down ageing and even help prevent cancer.

There are many foods that I do consider as healthy but I only eat it occasionally due to reason such as I may not like the taste as much or I find it more difficult to incorporate it in my diet in a regular basis due to my lifestyle.

On a Final Note…

You might have observed that the food that I listed here that I eat the most regularly are good for the gut and have anti-inflammatory properties.

Our gut accounts for 70% of immune system and played the most important role of protecting us from illnesses. Thus, having a healthy gut is of utmost importance in living a long and diseases-free life.

Ageing processes are mostly due to free-radical induced damages resulting inflammation in our body Hence, any food that reduce inflammation can help in slowing down ageing and even help prevent cancer.

There are many foods that I do consider as healthy but I only eat it occasionally due to reason such as I may not like the taste as much or I find it more difficult to incorporate it in my diet in a regular basis due to my lifestyle.