Blue Zones/Buettner [was: Benefits of cohousing for Diane Margolis
From: Fred H Olson (fholsoncohousing.org)
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2015 20:40:04 -0700 (PDT)
The end of March as part of the discussion on Benefits of cohousing
Dan (not "Mark") Buettner and his ideas about "Blue Zones" where people
live very long healthy lives came up.
http://lists.cohousing.org/pipermail/cohousing-l/msg38524.html

Dan had also been mentioned in Nov 2012 on the list with more related links.
Subject: Re: The Island Where People Forget to Die
http://lists.cohousing.org/pipermail/cohousing-l/msg35109.html

A month ago I mentioned that Dan would be speaking in Minneapolis
and was encouraged to ask him if he was familiar with cohousing.

He did speak to a packed auditorium (300-500 people?) tonight and I
did get a chance to ask about cohousing during the question period.
Basically 'was he familiar with or had he studied cohousing?' and
for the benefit of the audience and him a briefer description
of cohousing than I would have liked to give (due to time pressure).

He did not seem very familiar with cohousing but based on what he knew
and what I said he expressed considerable interest. Afterwards I was
able to speak to him even more briefly and give him a card with
cohousing.org and my name and contact info which he took and tucked
away.

Much of his presentation was about healthy diet in the 5 natural Blue Zones
that he studied.  But he pointed out that Diet Programs (Atkins etc etc)
are almost always ineffective in the long run.  Instead a change in
the food environment, the food practices around us may be more
effective in improving our diet. They have organized in cities and
towns that would like to become Blue Zones and established policies
like limiting signage for fast food, getting fruit in more prominent
places and salty and high sugar foods and drinks less accessible. Note
that their organizing did not try to ban any foods just to make it
less accessible and healthy alternatives more accessible.

He studied the diet in the natural Blue Zones which I would summarize
by citing Michael Pollan's "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
(Curiously he did not mention Pollan.)

He pointed out that one of the natural Blue Zones is losing that
distinction due to the invasion of American style fast food etc.

So the question that comes to my mind about cohousing is, how much have
cohousing communities done to promote this sort of healthy diet?

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org         My org:
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