CNBC by Dan Buettner 12/2/2023
I spent 20 years studying foods 100-year-old people eat—and this is the world's No. 1 healthiest breakfast
As a longevity researcher, I've spent the past 20 years studying the habits of people who live to 100 years old or longer, particularly the foods they eat.
And in a tucked-away corner of Nicoya, Costa Rica, I may have found the world's healthiest breakfast.
Under a red-tiled roof, a dozen or so people of the Cooperativa Nicoya wake each morning at 4:00 a.m. They stoke wood fires in clay ovens, put cauldrons of spicy beans to boil, and mix corn dough with wood ash.
A woman pinches off a golf ball-sized piece of dough on a piece of waxed paper and rotates it with mechanical precision into a perfectly round patty. She slaps it onto a hot clay plate, where it expands to a puffy disc before collapsing into a perfect tortilla.
At the other end of the stove, three others mix beans with onions, red peppers and local herbs. The beans cook slowly for about an hour to tender perfection and are then mixed with rice.
What makes this hearty longevity dish so healthy?
The corn tortillas, chewy with a nutty flavor, are an excellent source of whole-grain, low-glycemic complex carbohydrates.
The wood ash breaks down the corn's cell walls, making niacin (a B vitamin that plays a role in cell signaling and DNA repair) available, and freeing amino acids so the body can absorb them.
The black beans contain the same pigment-based anthocyanins (antioxidants) found in blueberries. They're rich, colon cleansing, blood pressure lowering, and insulin regulating, and they are filled with folates like potassium and B vitamins to boot.
The bean-and-rice combination creates a whole protein, which is to say all the amino acids necessary for human sustenance.
The coffee here, made from a local strain of "pea berry" beans, provides a boost of antioxidants plus metabolism-boosting caffeine.
The chilero, made with vinegar, carrots and searingly hot peppers, offers a probiotic boost to the breakfast along with curcumin, a compound shown to possess antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties.
Total cost of the breakfast: $4.23. A very fair price to discover Nicoya's secrets to longevity. You can do as the Nicoyans do — make a large batch of bean soup and then enjoy it all week
More:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/12/02/i-spent-20-years-studying-how-100-year-olds-eat-this-is-the-worlds-no-1-healthiest-breakfast.html
