Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 777 | Live Longer and Learn… | Guests: Dan Buettner and Sarah Janssen

Episode Date: December 18, 2021

Blue Zones Challenge… In The Blue Zones Challenge, readers will learn tips and tricks from the five Blue Zones, this easy-to-implement guide includes advice for setting up a successful kitchen and pantry, as well as resources for expanding a support network. The book shows readers how to set up lasting nudges to—change their diet, increase their activity, discover and live their purpose while building their social life. In this companion to the number one New York Times bestseller, The Blue Zones Kitchen, Dan Buettner has created a four-week guide and yearlong sustainability program for anyone looking to jump-start their journey to better health, happiness, less stress, and a longer life. His new book, The Blue Zones Challenge: A 4-Week Plan for a Longer, Better Life shows how living to 100 is easy with the Blue Zones way! https://www.bluezones.com/ https://www.bluezones.com/books/blue-zones-challenge/ The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2022… Executive Editor Sarah Janssen “The World Almanac has been the source for definitive data and answers to questions on any subject since 1868,” said Sarah Janssen, executive editor of The World Almanac. “In a year of major transitions, the new edition of The World Almanac documents the rapidly shifting world to give a source of historic perspective and new understanding to any curious reader.” https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510761384/the-world-almanac-and-book-of-facts-2021/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it the matcha, or am I this energized from scoring three Sephora holiday gift sets? Definitely the sets. Full size and minis bundled together? What a steal. And that packaging? So cute. It practically wraps itself. And I know I should be giving them away, but I'm keeping the Summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I don't blame you. The best holiday beauty sets are only at Sephora. Gift sets from Summer Fridays, Rare Beauty, Way, and more are going fast.

Get full-sized favorites and must-have minis bundled for more value. Shop before they're gone. In-store online at Sephora.com. Blaze Radio Network And now, chewing the fat with Jeff Fisher. So today, we're talking to Dan Butener, and Dan is a man who has traveled the world, fascinating travels around the world. And he has, well, he's kind of discovered, you know, the fountain of youth. Just a little. And he has a new challenge that he's put into book form and internet form.

and app form called the Blue Zone challenges. But first, I kind of wanted to take a step back a little bit. Now, you've got many cities around the world, or for sure in this country anyway, that have adopted many of your Blue Zone plans. Isn't that right? Yeah. It's called the Blue Zone Project. There's 54 of them to date.

And just in terms of context, you know, we did this under the, the ages of National Geographic, and it wasn't just me traveling. We started first working with demographers parsing through worldwide census data to identify the areas we know are confirmed where people are living the longest. And then once we found that, we distilled what exactly they do. And we discovered that people who are making it to 100 don't have better discipline or self-control than the rest of us. They live in environments where the healthy choices, the easy choice. And my business for the past 12 years has been helping city change their policies and the way their buildings are designed so that eating healthy, mostly plant-based,

and less junk food is easier than eating, you know, burgers, chips, and fries, that it's easier to walk places than to drive, that people are connecting naturally. And this book, the Blue Zone Challenge, which just came out this week, now takes that learning and shows individuals how to set up their lives, so the healthy choice is the easy choice. So what you're saying is for me to actually live longer,

I'm going to have to eat better exercise. And I'm going to have to give up so many things that we in America love, right? Yeah, actually no. Thanks for that softball question. So I'll tell you what doesn't work for sure. What doesn't work is come January 1st, you make a New Year's resolution and get on a new diet or exercise program.

So we know from statistics that about 80 million people on January 1st will resolve to diet and move more. And 80% of those people will fail by the first week in February. With the Blue Zone challenge and the Blue Zone approach says is, look, We know you crave salt and sugar and fat and rich foods. We're not going to try to take those out of your life, but we are going to use science to help you engineer your surroundings so that the healthier foods and natural movement are easier than a swathful way of living. Right.

We're a life that's populated with chips, sodas, fries, and burgers. Well, that's kind of what you found in your studies. slash travels is that many of the people who were living more than, you know, over a hundred years of age, really didn't, weren't striving to live to be over 100 years, right? None of them said at age 50, well, I'm getting on overweight here. I'm going to get on that new diet or I'm going to join Crossbed or call this 800 number. And what was most shocking about my Blue Zone's research, which is now, several cover stories for National Geographic and a,

and not five books, is that people simply, the same genes as we do, same level of discipline, they just live in surroundings where the cheapest and most accessible and most delicious foods are whole plant-based foods, that every time they go to work or friends' house are out to eat, it occasions a walk.

They have gardens out back, and they really pay attention to their three-year, four best friends. And their best friends aren't the ones sitting around watching TV all the time and eating burgers and barbecue and baby back ribs. They're also mostly plant-based eaters. So this kind of lifestyle becomes natural. And the Blue Zone Challenge shows you exactly how you can do that yourself. Well, one of the things that I found fascinating in the challenge and in some of your other Blue Zone studies, the Power Nine habits that really are the encompass what can create, you know, a healthier, longer life. And when they come together, you're doing it right.

Yeah. So the genesis of that Power Nine is really a name for the common denominator. So no matter if you go to Asia, Europe, or Latin America, or the United States, and you find populations living longer, you see the same nine characteristics. And those characteristics are they tend to put family first. They tend to belong to a faith. They have daily rituals like prayer, meditation, or even taking naps that we know lower cortisol, stress, and inflammation. They have vocabulary for purpose.

They drink a little bit, a little bit of blue zones, wine. and, you know, to the point of this book, 90 to 100% of what they put in their mouth is whole plant-based food. They reserve meat, cheese, eggs, and sweets as celebratory food. So we eat about 1,100 meals a year. The average America eats 1,100 meals a year. The Blue Zone's way will say to you, you know, take 100 of those meals and celebrate and enjoy yourself. But the other thousand meals that fuel your day, let the Blue Zone Challenge

show you how to engineer those meals so that they're mindlessly healthier. And that's what's going to help you shed the weight. That's what's going to help you avoid diseases like diabetes and obesity and heart disease, almost all of which are completely avoidable. And that's what's going to help you stay on a program for the decades necessary for to work. And really, that's what, I mean, what we're leading to, or you are leading to, and the challenge is for people to, you know, have their own happiness, right? I mean, we all want to be happy in our own way. And living a healthier, better lifestyle leads to that happiness.

You know, in the last couple of years, we've seen some incredible things happen around the world. How is that whole happiness index through your eyes? How's that doing these days? So, you know, I wrote a cover story for National Geographic magazine in a book called The Blue Zones of Happiness, where I condensed worldwide happiness data. And it turns out most of what we think brings us happiness is misguided or just plain wrong. So, you know, we think that making a lot of money or status or fame is having another child is going to make us happier. But really, the best thing you can do if you want to be happier, is shape your social circle.

We know that if you're, for every new happy person you admit into your immediate circle, your own chances of happiness go up by about 15%. If you're eating five servings of vegetables a day, your chance of happiness go up about 20%. And the most important thing you can do to be happier is not get on the latest positive psychology fad, but it's once again to shape your surrounding so you're not, into the behaviors that are more likely to make you happy. And those nudges are off the couch, socializing, knowing your purpose and living your purpose,

and also saving money or investing as opposed to spending it. So as I was perusing Blue Zones Challenge, the four-week plan for a longer, better life, and we can get into what people can do to join and be a part of it. I took a couple of quick little notes that I wanted to make sure I mentioned. So it says here that 70,000 Americans now are 100 years old or not. Right? In America, there's 70,000 100-year-old people. Is that right?

Yes. Yeah. So how many are we at worldwide? Do you have any idea? No, I don't have any. Okay. I just tell you about one out of 5,000 people worldwide make it make it to 100. Okay.

So do we have to know? any, okay, do we have any idea the percentage of, we'll just use the number from America, the 70,000 that are, you know, actually living their life as opposed to, you know, just vegetating in a wheelchair? I can give you some relevance. First of all, in general, the older you are, the healthier you've been. So people who, who are, the cohort of people dying at 60, they tend to. to have about eight bad years of disease and disability. The people who make it to 100,

on average, have less than one year of disease and disability. So you really do want to make it to 100. But let me just set expectations here. Your average listener, people listening to us right now, if you have an average set of genes, you should be able to make it to age 93, not 100, but 93. And life expectancy in America is 80 right now. So we're all leaving about a dozen years on the table. And those can be good years. And we assert that the wisdom we've learned in blue zones can help you get those extra dozen years. Yeah.

I mean, even if it's half of the dozen years, right? Those could be a tremendous amount of time. Yeah. And the other thing I learned doing the happiness stories is that, You know, we tend to start out pretty happy in our 20s. The worst decades of our life is between 45 and 55 on average. That tends to be the least happy. But then happiness climbs with age.

And as long as you keep your help, older people are actually happier than younger people because they're more content. So you really want to do the things that you can do to make it into your 80s and 90s and maybe even 100 because you're not only getting all the years you deserve, but they will be better years. Right. And really, I mean, it's almost like the old adage of the best time to plant a tree, right? Was yesterday, but go ahead and plant one today. It's not really, that's not an exact quote of the adage. But, I mean, let's get started now, right?

I mean, it's most important to start. So 80 million people, 80 million Americans on January 1st will start a New Year's resolution. by the first week in February, 65 million of those people will no longer be on that resolution. So what I promote is get the Blue Zones Challenge. It will give you 30 evidence-based ways to shape your surrounding so you'll mindlessly do the right thing and avoid the wrong thing for decades, or at least years, rather than a short-term diet again.

why not use science to show you how to set up your life for the long run? And in the Blue Zone Challenge, and we can get to that, there's one more thing I wanted to talk about that's very disheartening to me in your Blue Zone Challenge book. But the most important thing is to be surrounded by people like-minded, right? We already touched on that a little bit. It's not necessarily like-minded. If right now you're smoking and eating hot dogs for lunch, you don't want to be around a bunch more people who do the same thing.

What I show people how to do in the Blue Zone challenge is to sort of curate or evolve their social circle. We know that if your three best friends are obese or smoke or do drugs, that your chances of having bad habits go up exponentially. We show you how to add new friends to that immediate social circle whose idea of recreation is, you know, walking or playing pickleball, who care about you on a bad day or who know how to already. eat healthy plant-based food that taste delicious because those people are measurably contagious. Their behaviors are measurably contagious and they will influence you for as long as the friendship lasts, which is usually decades. And that's what works, the long-term nudges. So, and remarkably in the book, you talk about how to set it up and make it happen and get those steps going and feel better about yourself and put things aside that, you know, the temptations

in life. of them was remove the toaster. And Dan, I got to tell you, that hurt. Yeah. That hurt. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm not saying you have to throw your toaster away, but Cornell Food Lab actually did this research. I'm just citing other people's research. But they followed people for two years and found that people who removed the toaster weighed six pounds less. The toaster seems to be a prompt for us to eat junk food. this same food lab discovered that if you leave chips on your counter, you tend to weigh more after a year. And what the Blue Zone challenge does is show you how to set up your kitchen,

your bedroom, your home life. So the healthy choice is the easy choice. Right. The Blue Zone's challenge, a four-week plan for a longer, better life. Dan Dutner, of course, you know, for National Geographic and New York Times best-selling author. What is, Okay, now you've got this Blue Zone challenge going, and I'm sure it'll be, you know, awesome.

What is the, what's next for you, Dan? You've traveled the world. What's next for you? Right now, I'm actually finding that if you go back, a standard American diet kills 750,000 Americans a year, but if you go back 100 years and look at the ethnic diets of America, I'm not going to tell you which ones, but they were actually eating blue zones right here in the United States. And I'm doing a book with National Geographic and an article that finds those places,

distills their diets, and puts it together in one place with beautiful photography. That's awesome. Dan Boutinger, thank you so much for joining me on chewing the fat, by the way. I appreciate it very much, Dan. Chewing the olive oil. Yes, chewing the olive oil. Of course, chewing the beans. Chewing the beans. I'm okay with that. If anybody has more questions, I'm at Dan Butner on Instagram, and I love answering questions in person.

So the book's available today on Amazon. And right now, as we speak, it's the second best-selling book in America. So it's hitting a nerve. Good. And I mean, we're coming off of a couple of years that, you know, we're a little disheartening around the world. So it's important to get everyone back on track, and I think this will help do it. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate it. The podcast that ages you. I try not to get too political because we are so inundated with the politics of things. It just drives me crazy some days.

And I know it does you too. I appreciate you coming along for the ride on Chewing the Fat. Just remember, please subscribe. If you have the time, rate and review it, tell you how to do it real easily, okay? You subscribe, and then you rate it 20 stars and you review it best podcast ever, and then you're done. Check out Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher. on SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, and Theblaze.com slash radio. So we're coming up close to the Christmas holiday break, and people are still wondering,

what should I get the kids for Christmas? What should I get the grandparents for Christmas? And I'm thinking, I know exactly the perfect guest and gift, the perfect gift, the World Almanac Book of Facts 2022. and Sarah Jansen is joining us here on Chewing the Fat. Sarah, a new year, a new World Almanac Book of Facts. Woo me with the best new fact from the World Almanage, 2022. Oh gosh, don't make me pick just one. You really can't do that to an Almanac Editor.

It's the meanest possible thing you could do. Oh, no. You are absolutely right that it is a one-size-fits-all. gift for the one that you still have on your shopping list. Yeah, I absolutely love these books. And I love going through them and being reminded of some of the things that happened, you know, specifically in the last year because, you know, really, the last couple years have been, I don't know, what's the word I'm thinking of, blur.

And with so much that has gone on. And so, you know, I understand, actually, it must have been a pretty busy season for you putting this together. It is always kind of a busy season. Yeah, I mean, in 2021 was one of those years where you look back on it, it seems like such a blur.

It seems like so much happened that it's almost like it happened multiple years ago. Yep. Events of the year. And, you know, it's always a challenge getting everything into one volume in time for the holidays.

But, you know, we managed to make it work every single year. So as I was going through this year's almanac, I was reminded of some things that I hope, you know, like the, you know, I know that it was a good thing that we got out of Afghanistan. I just don't know that it was a good way to get out of Afghanistan, but I know that that was, you know, a big highlight for the almanac. And you guys have been covering that anyway.

I mean, we've been in Afghanistan for, what, 20 years now? It was almost 20 years to the day, actually. And it was kind of interesting putting that feature together because, you know, looking at, you know, when we started planning for the book, which was the end of last year, we knew that this is going to be happening. We knew that there had been commitments made in 2020.

We knew that that was going to be the incoming administration's policy as well. But we did not know what it was going to look like. And we certainly did not foresee some of the visuals that were, you know, pretty terrifying to see, you know, the crowded airports, the frantic people, the attacks that happened during the withdrawal. So it was definitely a situation that we wanted to be sure to commemorate in the World Almanac this year. So when you break down the different areas in the Almanac, and obviously, you know, you go from, you know, you know, facts in history and government and military affairs and health and vital statistics, which is, you know, pretty big the last couple years. But you also have crime.

And as we get into the crime, I'm going to try to find the page that I had here for crime. But it was, okay, I won't make you pick your favorite one ever. But I will make you pick your favorite crime story in the almanac. Oh, gosh. you know, as far as tracking the crime statistics for the Almanac, we don't actually get to do a lot of specific research. A lot of the, almost all of the statistics for crime in the world, Almanac, come from the FBI. Right. And they have a huge repository of data that we are able to sort through.

But one of the things that's interesting about the FBI statistics is that participation in them is generally entirely up to the local authorities. So the amount that they're able to get coverage is very dependent on that participation. Which is so strange because, I mean, we've really tried over the last few years to, you know, make sure that everyone is, you know, cross-referenced and we have, you know, a database that we're all supposed to follow. and yet we still leave it up to them to participate in giving us the stats, which is really kind of weird to me. I don't know that I understand that. Okay, so walk us through a little bit. And Sarah, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,

and I know we're here for the World Almanac and the Book of Facts 2022. But if I remember correctly, and you're going to say, no, Jeff, you're dumb, and you don't remember this, but you live in New York, correct? I do. I live in Brooklyn, New York. That's right. I do remember that. Good memory. Because you, in the world that we live in right now, your world seems to be retreating, retreating back into pandemic mode again. How's that going? I think it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

especially since so many people are going to be traveling for Christmas next week, with New Year's coming up. It'll, I think that there's, you know, some things that will happen. I will say, you know, I traveled a little bit this summer, so I was in other parts of the country. Things have always felt very different here than they have in some other places I've been. You know, people pretty much were always wearing masks to the grocery store and on public transit, and that never really changed.

here. So I think we'll just have to see what happens the next couple of weeks. There's a lot of new diagnoses just this week alone with the new variant that seems to be much more contagious. Right. We're all sort of in wait and see mode. So, I mean, did you ever think to yourself, and I may have even asked you this question before, but did you ever think to yourself, you know, I need to move? Because I, I mean, I've worked at Manhattan for a while. And, I mean, I commuted. I lived in Pennsylvania and commuted back and forth every day. And then, you know, we moved to Texas.

And that was, aside from my wife being unhappy, leaving Pennsylvania, it's been a pretty good move. Well, I have lived elsewhere and I have enjoyed living elsewhere. But I have to say, because my husband owns a business here in Brooklyn, we won't be leaving anytime soon. So how did he fare? How's that business faring? I mean, is he, is he all right? I mean, is the business at least alive? Holding on, you know, it's a bar and restaurant.

Oh, wow. They were shut down. He was in the heat of the battle. Hanging in there, you know? Yeah, that's great. I mean, good. I mean, I'm glad to hear that. Fingers crossed.

Knock wood, all of that. I'm sure he's glad to hear it as well. I mean, that's a difficult task in today's world. There's no doubt about that. So I'm really glad to hear that. doubt about it. It was that 2020 was for sure the biggest challenge for them because, you know, the shutdowns are mandated for a lot of places here. So hopefully 2020 is looking better. Just unbelievable. Okay. So lay us through. You know, you tease a little bit about starting the

2022 World Almanac in, you know, obviously at the, you know, the very end of, you know, the beginning of the year, right? I mean, you're ready to go. at the end of 2020 and you're already laying out the, laying the groundwork for, you know, 2021. That process, is that truly a year-long process? It truly is.

Or do you set it aside and go, you know what, I'm going to get back to it in July. Absolutely not. There's no rest for the wicked world almanac editors. We are all already taking a look at what we're planning for 2023. And, you know, there are always things that you can anticipate.

to pay you can plan for. We know there are going to be congressional elections that we need to cover, including the redistricting process, which looks to be pretty busy. Yes, no doubt about that. Full of legal challenges, no doubt, too. So we're taking a look at that. We know that there's going to be a winter Olympic Games to cover. We hopefully will still have, you know, all of the sports seasons to cover. And then everything after that is sort of a big question mark at this point. point in the schedule. We'll fill in the details a little later. How much has changed? How much has changed in the design of the almanac? Now, obviously, you know,

so many things are online now, but there's still, you know, the hard copy that you're worried about. And how much has changed in the design of that as years go? I mean, you have your input and it's your, it's your almanac. I mean, you're the, you're the boss. So, I mean, Do you change up huge things or you just kind of keep that main focus and it's the little things that make a difference? So it's pretty much a third of the book every year is old standbyes, like a copy of the Constitution or Maps of the World. About a third of the book is updated every year.

So you might have crime rates for 2020 instead of 2019. and then about a third of the book is actually completely brand spank and new every year. Yeah, well, you have the, I mean, you have the, you know, every year you're changing, you know, I guess you call it the time capsule, right? But, I mean, you go back and take a look at what actually, you know, defines the previous year, right? Exactly. We're looking at covering the entire year from start to finish, everything that's going on in politics, in pop culture, in sports. but we're also wanting to provide a really great tool for the upcoming year. So things that people might want to look up on basically any subject.

You know, we really try to cover everything, all of the bases that people might have questions about. Interesting. So the World Almanac Book of Facts 2022 is out and available. You can get it wherever you get your World Almanacs and Book of Fax, no matter what year. Is there a specific place that you want people, go to get the almanac this year or just wherever their little heart desires? Well, the World Almanac is pretty easy. You can find it wherever books are sold.

That includes your local bookstore or any national or online retailers. You can also follow us on social media. You can search World Almanac at Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You can find us there. And then also you can go to Skyhorsepublishing.com, which is our publisher, and find out more information about the World Lamanak and some of the other books we're doing that we're excited about. I love that.

Sarah Jansen, thank you very much for spending a couple of minutes with me today before the holidays. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and all that happy, happy, happy stuff. I appreciate it. And, you know, enjoy your family and be safe. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me, Jeff. I really appreciate it. Stream and subscribe to more Blaze Media content at theblaze.com slash podcast.

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