I've never been old, but I can imagine that I'd be OK with holding onto life for as long as possible. There are lots of little things you can do to expand your life, and your eating habits have a lot to do with it.
AsapSCIENCE's YouTube channel posted a video on how to live to 100 years old, and a lot of the video touched on dietary habits.
Some of them are pretty tough, and I'm sure you already know where this is going, but there's no way around the fact that we need more veggies in our diet. The video also shows that we can take a cue from Japan's eating and drinking habits, since they tend to live a few years longer than us.
The video is above, and it has other vital non-food tips, like exercising regularly, sleeping well, and having lots and lots of sex, but we pulled out the food points for you below.
Here's hoping we all live long enough to be like those hip old people:
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Home Cooked Meals
The first subject involved takeout food, and we basically have to cut that out as much as possible. A study showed that when 65 year olds ate home-cooked meals at least five times a week, they were 47 percent more likely to add an extra 10 years to their life.
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Vegetarian Diet
This next one hurts, as Asap points out that those who switch to a vegetarian diet, not necessarily vegan, lower their chances of premature death by 12 percent.
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Cut The Cold Cuts
I know, I'm on your side, too. It'd be hard for me to switch over to the veggie-filled dark side, but they do provide some middle ground for us. Even if you don't want to give up meat, giving up cold cuts in particular will help, because those kinds of processed meats are often linked to cancer and heart disease.
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Take Notes From Japan
The Japanese live longer than Americans. On Average, Japanese women and men live to 87 and 80 years old, respectively, while American women and men usually top out at 82 and 77 years old. With that in mind, some of Japan's biggest dietary keys are eating fish, and drinking green tea.
A study conducted on 40,000 Japanese people showed that those who drank more than 5 cups of green tea a day, lowered their risk of heart disease. As far as fish goes, 2.2 years of life were added to the Japanese folks who added Omega-3s fatty acids to their diet.
