Infinite Ideas - Live Longer: Your Whole-Health Route to Longer Life

Live longer

Your whole health route to longer life

Infinite Ideas with Sally Brown

7. Your anti-ageing diet

Every meal you eat is an opportunity to fend off ageing, so eat the right foods.

If feeling and looking younger than your years is important to you, youll have already made the connection between your health and your fridge.

Theres a good chance therell be broccoli, spinach and carrots in there. You wont have to rely on the lettuce in your burger for one of your five-a-day portions of fruit and veg. You probably know from experience that some foods give you energy and make you feel full of vitality, and others drag you down. Youre well on the road to the perfect anti-ageing diet. Now its time for an upgrade.

Food is our most important weapon in the war against ageing and disease. You only need to look at the differences in life expectancy around the world for proof. Its why those Japanese living in Japan, eating a diet rich in fish, vegetables and soy, and low in fat and sugar, have the longest lifespan and the lowest levels of heart disease. Its also why women in Scotland are nine times more likely to die from a heart attack than women in France.

A disease-fighting, anti-ageing diet means cooking from scratch, buying fresh ingredients and including as many foods as possible that have been identified as superfoods. Here are just a few of the easiest to find and cook with. Try introducing one or two a month and experimenting with ways to eat them.

Spinach

Its all in the colour spinach and other dark green vegetables such as kale, watercress, rocket and spring greens are packed with hundreds of disease-fighting micronutrients. Spinach is good at protecting eyesight as well as keeping the arteries clear of cholesterol, reducing blood pressure and lowering the risk of almost every type of cancer. Try using baby spinach leaves as a base for salads (it contains 90% more antioxidants than iceberg lettuce), adding them to stir-fries (right at the end it barely needs cooking), or steaming them and serving as a side dish sprinkled with fresh lemon juice.

Broccoli

Broccoli is cancers worst enemy. It comes from a family of cruciferous vegetables (including cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts) that contain high levels of sulphur compounds which increase the enzymes that stop cancer cells growing. They also contain high levels of the antioxidant vitamin C and cholesterol-lowering fibre. If there are any leaves left on the stalk, dont discard them before cooking they contain more carotenoids than the florets! Simply steam and serve, making a perfect accompaniment to meals.

Onions

Onions are high in the flavonoid quercitin, which can cut heart disease risk by 755%. Flavonoids also boost the immune system. One study showed a strong link between regular consumption of onions and a reduced risk of stomach cancer.

Sweet potatoes

While white potatoes provide low amounts of antioxidants, the orange-skinned sweet potato is packed with anti-cancer antioxidants. They can be baked in their skins, or boiled and mashed or try cutting them into chunks and roasting them in the oven in a little olive oil to make chips.

Nuts

Nuts got a bad reputation during the 1980s fat-free diet craze we still think of them as a naughty treat. They are high in calories, but in moderation (a handful, a few times a week) they can reduce your risk of having a heart attack by up to 50%. Theyre packed full of monounsaturates, which lower bad LDL cholesterol and raise good HDL cholesterol. Go for them raw rather than salted or roasted. Theyre delicious simply chopped, or toasted in a dry frying pan, and added to salads or sprinkled on soups.

Wholegrains

White, refined carbohydrates such as white bread, rice and pasta plus refined flour products such as cakes, pastries and biscuits have little to offer an anti-ageing diet. Refined flour is stripped of its disease-fighting fibre and nutrients. But foods that come from the wholegrain, those that still contain the antioxidant-packed wheatgerm, will help to lower your risk of heart disease, hypertension and certain cancers. So if whole isnt the first word in the list of ingredients, ditch it.

Yogurt

Live bio-yogurt is a good anti-ageing food as its full of probiotics or good bacteria essential for healthy digestion and boosting the immune system. Getting your digestive system working effectively means youll also get the most out of the other anti-ageing foods youre eating.

How did it go?

QIve heard that a raw food diet provides the most antioxidants. Is there any truth in this?

AIts true that cooking reduces the nutrient content of food (with the exception of tomatoes cooking makes lycopene, the anti-cancer compound found in this fruit, more readily available to the body). Some people choose to eat all or most of their vegetables and fruit uncooked and say its the key to staving off disease and boosting energy levels. Its also a challenging diet to stick to (especially in winter). A less extreme version is to steam or lightly stir-fry vegetables instead of boiling them and eat a vegetable-packed side salad with lunch or dinner every day.

QWhats best for anti-ageing three meals a day or grazing on lots of snack meals?

ASome anti-ageing experts are keen on grazing they say that snacking throughout the day puts less stress on the body and promotes better digestion than eating three larger meals. If this style of eating suits you, try opting for six mini-meals a day, making sure you get a full range of fruit and vegetables, nuts, pulses, wholegrains and fish.

Heres an idea for you

Grow your own superfood at home you dont even need a garden! Sprouts are young green plants germinated from the seeds of vegetables, nuts, grains or beans and theyve got antioxidants in super-concentrated amounts. You can buy sprouting kits or just use a large jar and some clean muslin. Simply soak the seeds overnight, place in your sprouter, then rinse with water twice a day. Keep in a dark warm place and they should be ready to eat within three days give them a boost of sunlight before eating, then just grab a handful to add fresh crunch to salads or sandwiches.

Defining idea

Are you getting enough sweet potato?

A popular greeting among Okinawans, one of the worlds longest-lived people

8. The anti-ageing store cupboard

Its time to go shopping. Supermarket shelves are full of anti-ageing superfoods if you know what to look for.

Not the most organised person on the planet? Prone to throwing together meals at the last minute from whatevers left in the fridge? You can still eat an anti-ageing diet.

Stock up your store cupboard with these everyday items that are all actually superfoods in disguise. Here are your shopping essentials.

Tinned sardines/herring/mackerel

A cheap, convenient and delicious way to get the all-important oily fish into the diet. No one should be without a stack of cans of sardines and similar oily fish, preferably in tomato sauce (a good source of cancer-fighting lycopene). If youre ever stuck for a simple supper idea, simply mash up a can with a squirt of lemon juice and serve on wholegrain toast. Delicious.

Tinned tomatoes

In the 1980s studies revealed that people who ate a lot of tomato-based foods were less likely to get prostate cancer. Its the lycopene, which gives the tomato the red colour, that makes it a superfood. Whats more, this powerful antioxidant is most easily absorbed by the body when its cooked so tinned tomatoes (or tomato-based pasta sauces) are actually a better anti-ageing choice than fresh. Try them warmed and served on toast for breakfast.