Try Beans This Way! Plus, more Benefits :)

Beans to add 4 joyful years to your life! Plus, it tastes great!

Here's another way to eat them: Tricky Traditional Lasagna!

Tricky Traditional Lasagna

Dan Buettner is an author/researcher who studies the places on Earth where people live the longest, and shares the habits and traditions they all have in common to help us all live longer. I wanted to share a link to Dan Buettner's email newsletter, though I have been unable to locate it online, on his website or elsewhere (this is a link to his first 49 editions), so here's a big quote from Dan's Live to 100, Edition 56:

"If there’s one food that unites the world’s longest-lived people, it’s beans. Lentils in Ikaria. Black beans in Nicoya. Garbanzo beans in Sardinia. Soybeans in Okinawa. Pinto beans in Loma Linda. They all show up day after day, often as the centerpiece of the meal.

And here’s what’s remarkable: In every blue zone, people eat at least a half cup of beans daily, often without thinking about it. It’s not part of a fad or challenge. It’s not something they have to remind themselves to do. It’s just what they’ve always done.

A way of eating that’s woven into their culture, their kitchens, their lives.

It turns out, that half cup might be one of the most powerful dietary decisions we can make for our health and longevity. A 2023 meta-analysis of over 1.1 million people found that eating just 50 grams of legumes a day (about half a cup) was associated with a 6% lower risk of death from all causes, and a 9% lower risk of dying from stroke.

That’s a small amount of food with an outsized effect and meaningful long-term impact.

So what makes beans so powerful?

Let’s start with the fiber. Most people fall far short of the recommended daily fiber intake and low fiber is linked to a host of chronic issues, from heart disease to colon cancer to type 2 diabetes. Beans are one of the richest sources of both soluble and insoluble fiber, which helps regulate blood sugar, reduce cholesterol, promote fullness, and support healthy digestion. Soluble fiber also feeds the gut microbiota, the trillions of beneficial bacteria that live in our intestines and play a key role in everything from immune function to brain health.

But it’s not just about fiber. Beans are a slow-digesting carbohydrate, with a low glycemic index that keeps blood sugar stable. That’s critical for long-term metabolic health, especially as we age. They're also one of the few plant-based proteins that are rich in lysine, an essential amino acid that helps with tissue repair, hormone production, and calcium absorption. Plus, they deliver key minerals like iron, magnesium, potassium, and folate, which support everything from heart function to cognitive performance.

Beans are also a stealth anti-inflammatory food. Thanks to their high levels of polyphenols and resistant starches, they help lower inflammation at the cellular level. This matters because chronic inflammation is a major driver of aging and many age-related diseases—including cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and certain cancers."

I encourage you to sign up for Dan's biweekly newsletter by going to the very bottom of his website and filling out your name and email address.

Here is a previous fresh-you post about the Blue Zones