The longest living family has a combined age of a whopping 861 years and it turns out they eat the same lunch every day.
Eating the exact same thing everyday for your midday meal might sound like no way to live.
But for one family, it’s proving to be some sort of elixir of life.
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The Melis family live in the highlands of Sardinia and hold the Guinness World Record for longevity.
There, nine siblings of the family have a combined age of 861 years.
The eldest of the bunch was Consolata Melis, who was the town’s oldest citizen before passing away in 2015 at the age of 108.
So, what’s the secret to their long lives?
Before her death, Consolata talked to the Guardian where she shared some secrets on the way the family conduct their daily lives.
One particular insight was a soup that she ate every single day, which her siblings also ate for their daily lunch.
While biohackers are going to extreme lengths to prolong their lives, one expert believes this one simple routine may hold the answer.
Author Dan Buettner has spent his life studying habits that prolong human life and even coin the term ‘blue zone’, which refers to the five parts of the world where people regularly live up to 100 years old.
He revealed that in Sardinia, they have a certain diet that sees them living very long lives.
Sharing a video on Instagram, Buettner said that the dish is a three-bean minestrone soup, which he described as being a ‘kind of chunky minestrone’.
The family dip sourdough bread into it and drink a small glass of red wine with their meal.
On his website, Buettner went on to say: “Minestrone is simply a soup made from available garden vegetables, beans, and grain, usually a type of pasta.
“The combination yields a delicious one-bowl meal that is high in protein and most importantly, a potpourri of fibers and fuel your microbiome.”
The expert met up with the family where they gave him their secret family recipe.
So, if you want to try it out for yourself, here it is:
Minestrone Soup ingredients
- 1/3 lbs dry garbanzo beans
- 1/3 lbs dry white beans
- 1/3 lbs dry pinto or red beans
- 1.5 cups cubed potatoes
- 6-8 cups of water or vegetable stock
- a medium onion, chopped
- 5 stalks celery chopped
- 5 carrots, chopped
- 8 cloves garlic, chopped,
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp oregano
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 1 tsp red or black pepper
- 1 – 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes or 5 Roma tomatoes
- Salt to taste