From the Holy Grail to the elixir of life to the fabled blue zones, human history is packed with hopes and wisdom for living as long as possible, if not forever.
Increasingly, it seems that diet plays a massive role in keeping you around for longer. You can’t change your genes, but you can eat more healthily.
But not all healthy foods are equal in their benefits, and so specialised diets and superfoods are often of interest to those who already eat healthily.
And where better to look for some sage advice than someone who reached well over the ripe old age of 100.
Emma Morano became the world’s oldest person before dying at 117 years old. At the time, she was the last verified person alive who was born in the 1800s.
Born in Italy on the 29th of November 1899, Emma died on the 15th of April 2017 as the fourth-oldest European to ever live.
As much as lifespans have been trending upwards since the world industrialised and developed nations have been able to feed, nourish, and treat its populations with more consistency and quality, passing the 100-year mark is still an incredible feat.
117, though? The odds are incredibly low for reaching that age. Only 12 people have been verified as having reached that lofty figure.
Of course, such advanced age brought with it plenty of questions as to how she’d managed it, and for Emma there were two simple factors:
- Following a strict diet
- Steering clear of relationships with men
Across her 117 years, the second point came along a little later. In her youth she endured an abusive marriage and lost her only child, and that was against a backdrop of two World Wars, fascism in Italy, and more than 90 Italian governments that came and went while she persisted.
After leaving her abusive husband, and losing a man whom she viewed as her true love during the First World War, Emma decided to stay single for the rest of her life.
The decision to marry hadn’t been hers in the first place. She said: "He was someone from here, from the lake. I didn't want to marry him, but he forced me.
“We lived in the same courtyard and one day he sent his mother to call me.
"I went there and he said to me, 'If it suits you, you can marry me, if not I'll kill you'. I was 26 years old. I got married." It seems chivalry has been dead for longer than many of us have feared.
This charming man got the boot he deserved in 1938, after which Emma resolved to never “be dominated by anyone”.
The former factory worker didn’t retire until she was 75 and said she was “happy with the life” she had led, which no doubt played a part in her longevity, too.
She wasn’t on any medication at retirement and remained active throughout those later years. 42 years of retirement is no mean feat, not least when you retired at 75!
A positive attitude towards the future in spite of so much trouble and strife over the first half-century of her life was another attribute she credited.
But her diet was, to her, absolutely crucial.
There were two key elements: three daily eggs and a daily measure of grappa, a traditional Italian alcoholic drink.
The eggs habit came about after she was diagnosed with anaemia in the 1910s, although presumably the grappa was just for a love of the sauce.
"I eat three eggs a day and to digest I drink the grappa that I prepare myself: I put it in a jar with seven sage leaves, a bunch of rue grass and some grapes,” she said. “Then I drink it with a spoon."
Her immediate family was pretty long-lived too, with her mother reaching 91 and some of her sisters crossing the 100-year threshold.
Carlo Bava, her doctor of almost 30 years, said that Emma wasn’t particularly keen on fruit and veg.
"When I met her, she ate three eggs per day, two raw in the morning and then an omelette at noon, and chicken at dinner," he said.
In many ways, diet, exercise and attitude are all ways of bettering your odds, but the whims of fate have a lot to say about for how long we each live.
The important thing is to focus on enjoying the time you end up with – for Emma, that part was as important as the eggs, grappa, and steering clear of blokes.
Featured Image Credit: Olivier Morin via Getty ImagesTopics: Diet
Rachael Davis