The Science of Living Longer by Gini Graham Scott

Author:Gini Graham Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2017-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

The Life Extension Express Approach

As part of his seven-step approach to living longer in Life Extension Express, David A. Kekich provides his recommendations for diet and nutritional supplements, which are much less complicated to follow than the CR diet with 90 essential nutrients. In brief, Kekich recommends either the Paleo or Mediterranean diet, which both emphasize proteins, leafy green vegetables, and fruits high in antioxidants, along with the most important supplements.

In Kekich’s view, having a good diet is critical as the most powerful weapon for overcoming the ravages of aging. Moreover, Kekich harks back to Paleolithic times to suggest that the hunter-gatherers ate a much better diet than we do today. Not only was there a good balance between oxidants and antioxidants, but the hunter-gathers had a diet that consisted of about 70 percent raw fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, about 10,000 years ago, with the development of agriculture, once people started growing their food, they stopped eating a wide variety of raw foods. People started cooking more and began processing their food. The problem, according to Kekich, is that “cooking destroys many vital nutrients, and overcooking can create carcinogens.”8

The result, he claims, is that people age more quickly if they eat too much cooked food, whereas people who tend to eat more raw food often become biologically and visibly younger. Accordingly, Kekich’s MaxLife company recommends that people eat about 30–50 percent of their food uncooked. How? One way is by drinking vegetable juices and eating a salad for lunch.

Yet as much as he values raw foods, Kekich recognizes some exceptions, such as the many people with digestive problems who can’t handle raw foods or beans very well. He notes that many beans and legumes, such as raw soybeans, black-eyed peas, and peanuts, contain trypsin inhibitors, which block important digestive enzymes; and certain greens, such as raw sprouts and lettuce, could be a source of food-borne illness, so you should wash these and all raw foods well before eating them. On the other hand, whereas cooking’s downside is that it destroys vitamins, it helps with absorbing certain nutrients, such as the carotenoids. That’s why Kekich and most nutritionists recommend a combination of both raw and cooked foods. He especially recommends consuming superfoods, such as green smoothies, since greens are the one living thing that can turn sunshine into food. Moreover, these greens contain all the essential minerals, vitamins aside from B12, and amino acids that humans need for optimal health. And smoothies can taste good, which can alleviate the difficulty of staying on a raw foods diet, because many other foods taste so much better.9

By contrast, Kekich warns against eating grains, dairy products, and legumes because humans have not fully adapted to agricultural diets. Instead we still adapted to the hunter-gather diet, which humans have eaten for millions of years. The basis of this diet is eating cooked meat and some vegetables. So for better health and to reduce the effects of aging and live longer, that’s what he recommends, along with being physically active, since that’s part of our hunter-gatherer heritage as well.

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