Latest news with #Sardinians
Daily Mirror
03-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Blue Zones-inspired soup that could 'make you live to 100'
This dish is a staple recipe among some of the world's longest-living people A chef has shared a simple soup recipe that could 'make you live to 100.' Packed with flavour and nutrients, this dish is a staple among some of the world 's longest-living people. According to experts, minestrone soup is an ideal Blue Zones-inspired meal we should all eat more of. Blue Zones are areas of the world with the highest number of centenarians and lowest rates of chronic diseases. The first identified Blue Zone was Sardinia in Italy. Part of the staying power of Sardinians is thought to be their diet. On its website, Blue Zones LLC explains that their diet is packed with whole foods such as whole grains, beans and vegetables. It says: 'The classic Sardinian diet consists of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables, fruits, and, in some parts of the island, mastic oil. 'Sardinians also traditionally eat pecorino cheese made from grass-fed sheep, whose cheese is high in omega-3 fatty acids. Meat is largely reserved for Sundays and special occasions.' Dan Buettner, who founded Blue Zones LLC, included minestrone soup in his recipe book as a key example of Sardinian cuisine because it is rich in beans, lentils, and vegetables and 'keeps your inflammation in check and your immune system strong.' With this in mind, a content creator shared her simple recipe for a minestrone soup on YouTube. Ayeh Manfre, who is known for her channel Cooking With Ayeh, said this soup will 'make you live to 100'. For the recipe, you will need: Olive oil Onion Carrot Celery Bay leaves Garlic Tomato paste Potato Dried lentils Vegetable stock Parmesan rind Cannellini beans Pastina (small pasta) Spinach In the video, she said: 'This is my Italian minestrone soup and it'll make you live to 100. Start by sautéing an onion, carrots and celery with salt and some bay leaves. 'Add garlic, tomato paste and fry them down. Add a [cubed] potato, some dried lentils, veggie stock and a parmesan rind for extra flavour. 'Add a can of cannellini beans and the key to making the ultimate minestra is to blend two cups which makes it nice and creamy. Add your favourite pastina and some spinach right at the end.' Ayeh drizzled on some olive oil at the end.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Inter Milan & Napoli Stick To Routine Ahead Of ‘All Or Nothing' Serie A Finale
Inter Milan & Napoli Stick To Routine Ahead Of 'All Or Nothing' Serie A Finale An intense Serie A title battle between Napoli and Inter Milan has gone down to the wire. Per Gazzetta dello Sport via FCInterNews, the high stakes have not affected either club ahead of Friday's season finale. Advertisement Only one point separates the best-ranked Serie A teams heading into the final matchday. However, Napoli's slender pre-round advantage could make all the difference as they meet bottom-half Cagliari at home. Meanwhile, Inter head to Como, hoping to take three points while relying on the Sardinians to do them a huge favor. Inter Milan & Napoli Prepare as Usual for Season-Defining Serie A Finale MILAN, ITALY – MAY 18: Simone Inzaghi, Head Coach of FC Internazionale, looks on prior to the Serie A match between FC Internazionale and SS Lazio at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on May 18, 2025 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by) Though the Scudetto is at stake, Simone Inzaghi has changed nothing to his usual pre-match preparations. Indeed, Inter continue to warm up at Appiano Gentile. Inter's training center is only 15 kilometers away from Como's home ground. Advertisement As such, it's the shortest away trip in Serie A, but whether it's the lightest remains questionable. On the other hand, Antonio Conte doesn't feel he needs to change anything ahead of Cagliari's visit. Despite dropping points at Parma last weekend, the ex-Inter boss remains calm and collected. Indeed, he is trusting his usual methods to see Napoli over the line.
Irish Daily Mirror
01-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Daily Mirror
Expert shares nine habits of people who live to 100
There are five regions globally where people tend to outlive the rest of us, and these areas have been dubbed 'blue zones'. Explorer Dan Buettner and his team of scientists identified these longevity hotspots. Their mission was to find communities worldwide where people not only lived longer but also enjoyed a high quality of life in their twilight years. They pinpointed five such regions: Sardinia in Italy, Loma Linda in the US, Ikaria in Greece, Nicoya in Costa Rica, and Okinawa in Japan. Despite being scattered across different continents, the inhabitants of these regions share traits that contribute to their long and fulfilling lives. Buettner firmly believes that their secret to longevity lies in their lifestyle choices and dietary habits, leading him to compile a list of common factors found across these five communities, , reports Surrey Live. Here are Dan's top 9 tips for a longer life. Buettner noted that the world's longest-living individuals don't "pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms". Instead, they reside in environments that promote daily physical activity, such as maintaining gardens and performing household chores manually rather than using machines. According to Buettner, this can add up to seven years to your life expectancy. While we all grapple with stress, those who clock up the most birthdays have routines to "shake off" the tension. For example, Ikarians catch forty winks, Sardinians enjoy a tipple during happy hour, and Loma Linda's Adventists turn to prayer. This is key as stress can trigger chronic inflammation. Folks residing in regions boasting the highest life expectancies typically tuck into their smallest meal in the late afternoon or evening, and then don't raid the fridge again that day. Okinawans live by the mantra 'hara hachi bu', which translates to halting your munching when your belly is 80% full. According to Buettner, this "could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it,". For the majority of centenarians, their plates are piled high with beans, while meat only makes an appearance about five times per month. Apart from the Adventists, folks in the other Blue Zones enjoy a moderate and regular tipple. The secret, Buettner reckons, is to savour one-to-two glasses of vino daily with mates and meals. Over in Sardinia, they sip on Cannonau wine, known for its flavonoid content that packs an antioxidant punch. Studies have revealed that showing up at faith-based gatherings four times a month can tack on an extra four to 14 years to your lifespan. It's no fluke that all but five of the 263 centenarians interviewed by Buettner and his crew were part of a religious community. Folks who enjoy longer lifespans often put families at the centre of their lives, with grandparents and parents living close by or even under the same roof. People in these communities make a dedicated commitment to their life partners and pour "invest in their children with time and love" into their family life. Individuals blessed with longevity tend to surround themselves with friends who encourage good health habits, vital because studies have proven that behaviours like smoking, obesity, happiness, and loneliness can actually spread through social groups.
The Star
28-04-2025
- General
- The Star
QuickCheck: Is there a European 'delicacy' that has live maggots?
WHEN it comes to culinary adventures, Europe is known for stretching the limits of the palate. From blue-veined Roquefort to fragrant Limburger, cheese-lovers have long been tempted by bold flavours and daring textures. But is there really a traditional dish that takes things to a whole new level – complete with wriggling, live maggots? Verdict: TRUE Europe's storied culinary landscape is filled with delicacies that range from the refined to the downright eccentric – but few foods spark as much curiosity as casu martzu, the infamous maggot cheese of Sardinia. With a name that literally translates to "rotten cheese" in the Sardinian language (from "casu", meaning cheese and "martzu", meaning rotten or putrid), this regional specialty is as controversial as it is legendary. Casu martzu starts its life innocently enough as a wheel of pecorino, the hard, briny sheep's milk cheese beloved across Italy. But while pecorino is known for its robust flavour, casu martzu takes things several steps further by inviting in an unexpected guest: the larvae of the cheese fly, Piophila casei. Traditionally, after the outer rind of the pecorino is cut open, cheese flies are allowed – or rather, encouraged – to lay their eggs in the cheese. When the larvae hatch, they burrow through the curds, digesting the fats and breaking down the cheese's structure, which results in a soft, creamy texture and an intense, pungent aroma. The experience is not for the faint of heart; the wriggling maggots can leap when disturbed, sometimes launching themselves several inches into the air. Sardinians in the know are careful to shield their eyes when sampling a freshly cut wheel. Casu martzu's roots run deep in the culture of Sardinia, and its considered a delicacy reserved for weddings, milestone birthdays, or special gatherings. Despite its deep roots and local reverence, casu martzu has faced significant scrutiny in the modern era. EU food safety regulations, concerned with hygiene and the potential health risks of eating live larvae, have banned its commercial sale and violators risk hefty fines. Yet, like many outlawed delicacies, casu martzu has not disappeared. Instead, it has gone underground. In Sardinia's rural villages, small-scale production continues, with wheels of cheese passed quietly between neighbours and friends, or presented at family feasts where tradition trumps legislation. For many Sardinians, the ban is viewed as an affront to their heritage and a misunderstanding of the cheese's cultural significance. While casu martzu might sound like a niche curiosity, it has achieved a certain global fame (or infamy) thanks to travel shows, food documentaries, and the ever-growing appetite for "extreme eats." At the same time, casu martzu divides opinion, even among Sardinians – some relish it, while others balk at the idea of ingesting live maggots. Despite the legal hurdles and its polarising reputation, casu martzu endures as a living symbol of Sardinian culture, a cheese that is at once ancient, rebellious, and uniquely alive. It stands as a testament to the lengths people will go to preserve culinary heritage, even in the face of modern regulations. For those bold enough to try it, casu martzu offers a taste of history – one that quite literally leaps off the plate. References: 1. travel/article/casu-marzu- worlds-most-dangerous-cheese/ 2. foods/casu-marzu-italy 3. article/culinary-guide- sardinia 4. com/arts-culture/five-banned- foods-and-one-that-maybe- should-be-48687965/ 5. programmes/p054hhd7
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Are 'Blue Zones' Really The Secret To Longevity? Here's What Experts Say
We write a lot about longevity here at HuffPost UK; once you've written more than three articles on the topic, certain phrases and ideas bob up over and over like (fibre rich!) apples in the alleged fountain of youth. Expert after expert says that good sleep, exercise, eating well, and socialising are all key to a longer, healthier life. Science has their backs on those. But another cornerstone of longevity research – so-called 'blue zones,' which include areas like Okinawa in Japan and Sardinia in Italy, and were identified by author Dan Buettner as being areas in which people are more likely to live to 100 – have been the subject of scientific debate. In fact, speaking to New Scientist recently, Saul Newman at University College London said: 'The biggest secret of the blue zones is that they don't exist.' So what's going on with the supposed longevity hotspots, a 2005 National Geographic article about which has spurred decades of health advice? Though the article that made 'blue zones' big came out in 2005, the term was first used in 2004 in an article about the longevity of Sardinians by researcher Dr Michel Poulain (a co-founder of the blue zones company). 'The specific mechanism by which persons living in this territory were more likely to reach extreme longevity remains unknown but it is interesting to note that most of the 'longevity hot spots' identified in various regions of the world over the years have been located in mountainous geographical areas even if none of these longevity regions have been fully validated,' it reads. Blue zones went '2005 viral' in National Geographic a year later, as Buettner linked similar findings to Okinawa and Loma Linda in California. A 2019 study by the aforementioned Dr Newman, updated last year, suggested that 'blue zones' were simply areas in which pension fraud may be more rife or record-keeping was poor, leading to incorrect age data. That theory has been questioned by some experts and is itself incomplete; it didn't debunk the recommendations Beuttner has made based on the 'zones' either. However it does highlight an issue with 'blue zones' which more scientists are on board with; Buettner's response, that the benefits of the 'zones' themselves are 'geographically defined,' doesn't sit well with all experts. Speaking to Science, Ross Brownson, an expert on evidence-based public health, said that Buettner's 'Power 9' advice (including eating less red meat, reducing stress, and belonging to a community) are mostly 'Good, safe messages that I don't think many public health experts would argue with.' But a paper published in 2024 suggests that those living in Okinawa, Japan, are no longer living longer than the rest of us; the same goes for Nicoya in Costa Rica. Genes said to be linked to longevity that often appear in 'blue zones' have had their real-life effects on lifespan questioned, too. As Dr Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told The New York Times: 'Are the concepts of blue zones consistent with what we know about ageing? Absolutely.' He added, however, that blue zones provide 'An observation which is consistent with what we think we know about ageing. But it's not a science.' All of which is to say that while common sense health advice is always welcome, don't stress if your healthy cooking or socialising takes place in rainy England rather than sun-soaked Sardinia, or if you're more likely to take a drizzly stroll to the shops than you are to take a scenic walk on the beach. Good health advice may be a little more universal than that. Longevity Is A Rich Man's Game. But What Does It Cost The Rest Of Us? The 1 Lifestyle Choice A Longevity Expert Prioritises For A Longer Life 3 Research-Backed Longevity Rules A Heart Surgeon Swears By
