An Easy Swap to Increase Your Lifespan By 48 Minutes Per Day

While there is no magic pill to increasing your lifespan the lifestyle choices that you make can add up to a lot of extra or lost time. One lifestyle factor which influences your chances of a longer life is your diet.

The Western Diet is typically high in red and processed meats, added sugar and fat and put simply, life shortening. A recent study that supports this statement found that those people who swapped only 10% of their diet from beef and processed meats to selected seafood, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes gained an extra 48 minutes of life each day this swap was maintained.

Here are some easy ways you can make a 10% change in your regular eating habit to gain years if kept up as a lifestyle.

1. Swap half the red meat in Bolognese sauce for legumes like red kidney beans.
2. Instead of a devon sandwich at lunch try a salad sandwich with hummus or tahini.
3. Move over fried bacon and eggs try baking mushrooms, and tomatoes with a side of baked beans with your eggs in the morning.
4. Instead of beef jerky sticks for a snack try 2-3 wholegrain crackers with 50g of avocado and pepitas sprinkled on top.
5. Instead of takeaway pepperoni pizza try a pizza using tuna or salmon as the star protein with Italian herbs and spices, olives, red onion, and mozzarella cheese.
6. Swap a sausage roll for a grilled tofu sandwich.
7. When making a food platter try adding nuts, sliced boiled eggs or grilled vegetables instead of processed meats.
8. Make your beef burger patties with half the amount of meat and substitute with finely chopped mushroom. Mushrooms are great at soaking up the flavour of red meat and make a perfect swap.

Take home message: What is brilliant about this study is it shows that you do not need to become completely plant-based to help increase your chances of living longer. Try these easy swaps today and you may be adding years to your lifespan if they become lifestyle choices.

Reference:

Stylianou, K.S., Fulgoni, V.L. & Jolliet, O. Small targeted dietary changes can yield substantial gains for human and environmental health. Nat Food 2, 616–627 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00343-4