 Blue zones are regions of the world where people live much longer than average, popularized by Dan Butler, a New York Times best-selling author. These blue zones are Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, Nekoya, Costa Rica, Icaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, California. One of the major claims is that the diet of these people tends to be plant-based, but if we actually look at what these people are eating, it becomes very apparent that anyone promoting a plant-based diet based on blue zones is trying to mislead you. First, we need to understand the caloric sources in the standard American diet for reference purposes. Now, you might think that Americans are meat-heavy dieters, but if we look at percentages, they actually consume 30% of their calories from animal foods and 70% of their calories from plant foods. Is this not already plant-based? This is pretty far off of our indigenous ancestors, all of whom wished consumed an average of 65% of their calories from animal food sources. Interestingly, the people of Sardinia consume more animal products than Americans do, although only by a slight margin. If their animal and plant consumption ratio is similar to Americans, why are they so much healthier than us? The answer here is the food quality. These people aren't consuming grocery store shelf, homogenized and pasteurized cow's milk. They're consuming raw sheep milk straight from the animal. They are consuming the highest quality versions of both animal and plant foods they have access to, prepared in these traditional ways. Not only are these foods far more nutrient-dense than our modern counterparts, they are far less inflammatory. What about the Okinawans? Don't they get most of their calories from sweet potatoes? Not quite. Here's a paper of 94 Japanese centenarians investigated between 1972 and 1973, showing a higher proportion of animal protein to total proteins than the average Japanese person. High intakes of milk and fats and oils has favorable effects on their longevity. What people don't know is that the true Okinawan diet is centered around meat, especially pork, but all you hear about is their sweet potato consumption. What about the Nikoi and Costa Ricans? They consumed significant amounts of poultry, fish, eggs, turtles, and many types of force game according to reports by 16th century settlers. One 109 year old woman described her favorite dish of pork shanks cooked with liver, kidney, ears, cheek, brain and heart, also describing another dish eaten by pregnant and nursing women. One of beans, bones, lard and a type of plantain very rich in potassium and magnesium, eaten with boiled eggs. Then we have the Icarians of Greece. And although the Icarians of Greece do not typically consume significant amounts of meat, they make up for it in their fish consumption. They typically had a late breakfast composed of goat's milk, yogurt or cheese. Then for lunch they had various legumes and vegetables with generous amounts of olive oil. Local fish was consumed pretty much every single day and a goat or pig was slaughtered once a week. So these four places all have similar to if not higher rates of consumption of animal foods than Americans do. But what about Loma Linda, California, where the Seventh Day Adventists are famous for their vegetarian diets? Adventists in Loma Linda are the only vegetarians out of all of these blue zones. They don't drink, smoke, and get plenty of exercise. So there are definitely some confounding factors here at play for their lifestyle. One interesting thing to note is that Adventists who consume nuts at least five times per week had about half the risk of heart disease and lived two years longer than those who don't. If we look at their diets, approximately 15% of their calories came from animal products, half of the other blue zones. So yes, once we actually look into the diets of these people, it becomes very apparent that the food quality, their way of life, their activity, their sun exposure play much larger roles in their health than the animal and plant food proportions of their diet. But why are we looking at specific parts of the world where centenarians exist as opposed to overall life expectancy and mortality rates in general? If we take a look at life expectancy, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Spain, Iceland, and Italy are at the top. All of these countries have some factors of the blue zones, whether it's high animal fat and fish consumption or plenty of activity and sun exposure. The most vegetarian countries are actually ranked far worse for life expectancy than these countries are. Bangladesh is ranked 102, having almost 10 years less of a life expectancy. India is ranked 145, 5 years lower of a life expectancy than Bangladesh, even lower. If we look at the lowest rates of heart disease, South Korea, Japan, France, Denmark, all of who consume ample amounts of animal fats and fish have drastically lower rates of heart disease than other countries. So although I think it's more compelling to look at the statistics of places like Hong Kong that has a very high life expectancy in addition to a very high meat consumption and say, well, why are vegans and vegetarians ignoring this data? It's still very apparent that when we look at blue zones, these people are literally lying and making things up. One thing matters in the diet. It's what I've been preaching across the three years I've been making YouTube videos, being food quality and nutrient density. So these vitamins have a much more important precedence in early stages of life and development. That's why, although our indigenous ancestors might have consumed higher proportions of animal foods to plant foods, the main differences are going to be the height, the stature that's developed over generations and generations. It's very apparent you can still follow an incredibly healthy diet based around longevity, as long as you have a certain amount of high quality animal foods present in the diet. So thank you guys for watching. If you guys could share this to any vegans who love spouting the information that blue zones are plant based, I would appreciate it. You know, when you actually show them that some blue zones consume more meat than Americans do. It really questions where they're getting their sources of information from. So if you guys like the channel, please subscribe and share the video. If you guys want to check out my Patreon, I do exclusive videos on there. I have an Amazon shop with products I use in my day to day life. 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