h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been reading "Healthy at 100" by John Robbins.

He gives brief descriptions of three or four "blue zones" in which above-average numbers of centenarians seem to be clustered. (It was published in 2007, so there are 11 years of more recent research studies that the author did not have access to. I will try to be charitable for this reason.)

This thread will focus on the Hunzas, a remote community near the Pakistan-India border, where the Himalayas reach 20,000 feet or so. Its remoteness was an advantage for some of Alexander the Great's soldiers who went rogue, bringing their Persian brides there so as to get away from what must have seemed like a crazy world. Obviously, the Hunzukut peoples have not been totally cut off, since 300 B.C., or Islam would not have found them. English and Urdu are understood by some of them, another reason to suspect at least a little bit of contact with the outside world.

People have been marveling about long-lived people since time immemorial, a human trait that makes many of us gullible enough to believe falsified ages. I don't think the Hunzukut peoples deliberately try to deceive people about their ages; they just express the accumulation of years in a different way than we are used to.

In any event, the gullibility of us outsiders has spawned some strange myths about them. Take "Hunza bread," for which there are numerous reciepso n the Internet. here's one example:
http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/bread/other-bread/hunza-diet-bread-recipe.html

Note that cinnamon, soy milk, buckwheat and molasses are among the ingredients. I know that in recent times Hunzukut has had a little more contact with the outside world, but where would they have gotten molasses, buckwheat, and soy products. I don't think they even had soybeans originally. They had lentils, sure, but soy? And their diet uses no sugar at all. This would have be a false recipe.

The myth of the HUnzas spotlights the beautiful scenery, mineral-rich water, and clean water, but it doesn't mention the starvation in late Winter, when stores of last year's harvest are gone, and no new food is available yet. The locals call this "The land of never enough."

I will come back with some more thoughts in a later post.

Some sources say that the Hunzukut only have enough cooking fuel for one hot meal a day. This is the evening meal, which consists of chapati and stewed lentils.
Here's a recipe for basic chapati:
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/chapati-breads/
Just five ingredients: flour, garlic, salt, oil and water. I have a recipe for Gandhi's spicier version of chapati, and there may well be different Hunza versions as well, but that's the basic idea. After a long day of intensive farming, the Hunzas would presumably be hungry enough to eat just about anything. No fancy recipes would be necessary.

For special occasions there might be a little wine and /or pork, along with fermented dairy products. apricots (fresh or dried) and nuts and seeds would be eaten raw in the middle of the day. Again, when there never is enough food, you won't need much to whet your appetite. Winters are long and cold, and there is barely enough heating fuel to avert frostbite. Outsiders marvel that Hunzas don't eat until they are full. Rather, they stop when are 80% full. This may seem like nobility or exemplary self-control but it probably reflects the reality that when you need to feed 100 people but only have enough food for 80 of them, everyone has to eat less.

Fasting is another issue. the Hunzukut may offer religious explanations for it, or they might just be realistic and explain that late Winter is a time of little or no food. What are they going to do?

Some more thoughts.

There are detractors as well. here's a website that says
"There is no evidence that Hunza life expectancy is significantly above the average of poor, isolated regions of Pakistan. Claims of health and long life were almost always based solely on the statements by the local mir (king). An author who had significant and sustained contact with Burusho people, John Clark, reported that they were overall unhealthy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunza_Valley

What to take away from all of this?

Well, it makes sense to believe that a lifetime of low caloric intake, combined with adequate vitamins and other nutrients would account for long lives. This has worked for many laboratory animals, and seems to be at work in countries like Japan and France, where cultural pressures on women to remain thin throughout their lives seems to correlate with above-average longevity.

The mineral content of the water, coupled with clean air and not having any tobacco to smoke, would reduce some of the factors that in other countries would have shortened people's lives.

Finally, let's ask ourselves whether we would want to live in a place where there is rarely enough of anything to go around. All those who would want that, please raisde your hands.