#173: Dan Buettner - Exploring The American Blue Zones Kitchen
Dan Buettner of The Blue Zones American Kitchen
Mr. Bluezones is back! That’s right, Dan Buettner is back on the PLANTSTRONG podcast to discuss his newest book, The Blue Zones American Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100.
As most of you know, Dan Buettner uncovered the five places around the world where people consistently live past 100 years old. It isn’t the exception. It’s the norm.
Only one of those Blue Zones happens to be in the United States - Loma Linda, California – but, did you realize that our traditional American food is firmly “planted” in a rich abundance of plant-based nutrition?
Our indigenous and Native American brothers and sisters thrived on grains and beans. Immigrants to the US brought with them potatoes, pasta, masa, corn, beans…beautiful nutritious food.
Buettner and his team took a tasty historical tour around the US and worked with contemporary chefs to create some of these traditional dishes and, today, Dan and I talk about many of these recipes and he shares memories and stories of the chefs, cultures, and meals that have shaped the diverse people we are today.
I know we think of American cuisine (if that’s what you want to call it) as hot dogs, hamburgers, and apple pie, but our history is radically more diverse, nutritious, and dare I say – PLANTSTRONG?!
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Full YouTube Transcript
Rip Esselstyn:
Sometimes we all need a carrot that's dangling right in front of our noses to help get us out that door on a consistent basis and reach some of our goals. And so I want to dangle a little carrot in front of you here today, and I want you to put this on your calendar and join me. I am so over the top excited to invite you all to join TEAM PLANTSTRONG. It is our new national movement to celebrate how the benefits of a whole food PLANTSTRONG lifestyle can keep us active and allow us to move our bodies and feel utterly fantastic. I want to invite you to train with the team and complete your choice of either a 5K, a half marathon, or even a full marathon. You take your pick of the litter.
Now, our first event is going to take place here in Austin, Texas on February 19th, and you're all invited to come and finish the race in my hometown of eclectic, iconic, and the capital of Texas, Austin. But hey, I completely understand if you can't make the trip. You can still complete the goal virtually and earn a medal from this iconic first event. We'll also send you our TEAM PLANTSTRONG racing shirt, and you'll get access to our training plans, coaches, and everything that's inside our private community. If you've never run before, hey, no sweat. You just get over here. Walkers, you're absolutely welcome. Beginners are more than welcome, and seasoned runners, absolutely, we would love for you to partake as we all work together towards this common goal. I can't wait to meet all of you. Come on now, join TEAM PLANTSTRONG at plantstrongfoods.com/team.
Dan Buettner:
In my mind, the only super food there is... Well, the only super foods there are, are beans and greens, maybe turmeric, a little bit, cruciferous vegetables, nuts. These are the things we know have fueled real people into their hundreds around the world. And so don't be duped. And by the way, you can be pretty sure if you're paying a lot for a food, somebody's got their hand in your pocket. Anybody who's checked the price of dried beans lately knows that any American can afford them. A pound of black beans or black-eyed peas or lentils will set you back less than $3 and they'll feed a half a dozen people a nutritious... But the secret, this is where The Blue Zones American Kitchen comes in, the most important ingredient is taste. Americans, as a rule, do not know how to make beans taste good. And this work, I think, does a good job at bringing beans alive and really kind of overtaking their meat counterparts when it comes to protein and making things taste flavorful and delicious.
Rip Esselstyn:
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. The mission at PLANTSTRONG is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based movement. We advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands, promotes, and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health, enhancing your performance, restoring the environment, and becoming better guardians to the animals we share this planet with. We welcome you wherever you are on your PLANTSTRONG journey. And I hope that you enjoy the show.
Mr. Blue Zones is back. That's right, my friend, Dan Buettner, he's back on the PLANTSTRONG podcast for his third time, to discuss his newest book, The Blue Zones American Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100. As most of you likely know, Dan and his extensive work with National Geographic uncovered the five places around the world where people consistently live past 100 years of age. In fact, it isn't the exception, it is the norm. Only one of those blue zones happens to be in the United States, and that's in Loma Linda, California. But did you realize that traditional American food, our roots and heritage, are firmly planted in a rich abundance of plant-based nutrition? Think about that. Our Indigenous and Native American brothers and sisters thrived on grains and seeds and beans, and the immigrants brought with them potatoes, pasta, mesa corn, and more beans, really beautifully nutritious food.
Well, that's what Dan Buettner uncovers in his latest book. He took a very tasty tour around the United States and worked with contemporary chefs to create some of these traditional dishes. And today, I go through several of these recipes with Dan and allow him to riff on his memories and stories of these chefs and meals that have shaped the diverse people that we are today. I know that we think of American cuisine as hot dogs, hamburgers, and apple pie, but our history is radically more diverse, nutritious, and dare I say, PLANTSTRONG. So let's hit the road with Dan Buettner and learn more about The Blue Zones American Kitchen.
Dan Buettner, thanks so much for coming back on the PLANTSTRONG podcast. Love having you on the show. Dan, this is your third time joining us on the podcast. You joined us in 2020, it was episode 39. We talked all about the Blue Zones. You came back for episode 122. It was The Blue Zones Challenge, which was another book that you wrote. I can't believe how you're pumping out killer book after killer book. And you just came out with this beaut called The Blue Zones American Kitchen that I just want to tackle with you. It's spectacular. I have gone through it from end to end. And Dan, first of all, how in the world did you come up with such an absolutely brilliant idea?
Dan Buettner:
Well, it was iterative. Well, thanks for calling it brilliant. But we identified pretty clearly the dietary pattern of the world's longest lived people in the previous Blue Zones books. But I wanted to do an American focused book, and I tried to find cultures of longevity living today. And except for the Seventh Day Adventists, it's a challenge. So I actually gave the food guidelines to an NYU researcher. He spent 150 hours-
Rip Esselstyn:
Is that James Gallen?
Dan Buettner:
What's that? Yes, yes.
Do you know him?
Rip Esselstyn:
I read your acknowledgement, so I know all about how your first call was to Jeff Gordinier with Esquire and a blah, blah, blah, yeah.
Dan Buettner:
Yeah. The New York Times. But concurrently though, working for National Geographic, actually, the facts are most important. The evidence is most important. So we wanted to find subcultures of America who were eating a Blue Zones diet, and we found them among these ethnic Americans and immigrants living about a hundred years ago. But we have the evidence to show that they were eating a Blue Zones Diet. So the idea of this book was capturing America's Lost Diet of Longevity, and it seems to be hitting a nerve.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, big time. So before we dive into that, just for people that are new to the podcast and maybe want to know a little bit more about you and your work, Dan, can you give us a quick summary of the Blue Zone cultures and why they're the longest living cultures on the planet?
Dan Buettner:
Sure. So the idea of Blue Zones was instead of trying to look for a secret to longevity in test tubes or in Petri dishes, we sought out to reverse engineer longevity by finding demographically confirmed areas around the world where people are living measurably longest. And to do that, we engaged demographers who look at birth records and death records and make sure people are really as old as they say they are. We looked at worldwide census data to start out. We found these five, I dubbed them Blue Zones, in Okinawa, Sardinia, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, the Greek island of Ikaria, and then among the Seventh Day Adventist. But then our approach to delivering Blue Zones was to find the common denominators. And remarkably, no matter where you go in the world and you find long lived people, they're doing the same things over and over, about nine common denominators in all Blue Zones. And that really forms the foundation of our work.
Rip Esselstyn:
Got it. And so when you got this idea to go back and look at the different ethnicities in American history that ate the Blue Zones way, well, you got into a Sprinter van with your buddy David McLain, the most incredible photographer in the world, and you guys set out. I mean, where was my call? Why wasn't I invited on this road trip?
Dan Buettner:
That was my oversight, Rip. That was the pandemic and a lot of people weren't available. But my way of exploration is I don't sit in a library. I go out into the world. And once we identified these cultures of longevity, then Jeff Gordinier, formerly of The New York Times, and I had a great producer named Karen Foley, and they went out and they identified chefs who cooked these heritage recipes, historian chefs who could bring this way of eating to life again. And you're right, we got in Sprinter vans, we traveled from Maine to Miami, up to Minnesota, down to Texas, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, even got all the way over to Hawaii to find these amazing chefs. We found 53 chefs, and between them, we found a hundred recipes to live to... We actually found about 300. But in culling through, because I have an obsession or maniacal focus on deliciousness... But we've distilled 300 to 100, the most delicious recipes, all a hundred percent whole food, plant based, and all of them that mapped directly to the diet of longevity we found around the world.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and what also was really interesting to me is that the data that you were able to collect from 1880 to roughly the 1930s showed really definitively that the Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, that their diets were like 84 and 88% plant based respectively. Which to me, I never would've imagined that. I mean, did you know that going into this or were you hopeful?
Dan Buettner:
No, I was hopeful. And also I find, African Americans, they're often associated with soul food, which today, it's really bad usually. But you trace the roots back to the Gullah Geechee, for example, or what enslaved people were eating. It was actually kind of a Blue Zone dinner, very heavy in beans and greens and nuts and grains, and meat was used very sparingly as a condiment usually. And our Native Americans, I know they're kind of famous for being hunters, but really most tribes, they depended largely on corn beans and squash and the root vegetables and nuts and fruits they could gather. So Native Americans, until we came along and sort of corrupted their culture, they were eating a very healthy diet. And I don't think most Americans realize that.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, and you've broken the book up into really five different sections. So the first section is the Indigenous, Native and early Americans. And then you have all these incredible recipes. And I'm going to show everyone some of these photos, if you can see, if you're watching from YouTube. And then you have African American, then you have Latin American, Asian American, and then you have regional and contemporary American. Dan, it is such a... Well, it's such fun read. The recipes, like you said, you mean you've got a palate that just accepts nothing less than a hundred percent deliciousness. Dad, can you see that photo there? I think that's in the [inaudible 00:14:12]. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I'm reading through this and I'm thinking, all right, I want to be on Dan's shoulder doing this research, going from place to place. Like you said, you know, don't like going to the library, you like getting out there. But I mean, how much did this adventure and writing this book just resonate with your soul? Was it just an absolutely fun two years for you?
Dan Buettner:
People who know their sense of purpose and live it live about eight years longer than people who are rudderless. About 30 years, I got really clear on my personal purpose. And my purpose is to go out into the world, explore traditional cultures and bring back their wisdom. And that's underpinned the 21 expeditions I've led, the 10 or so books I've written. They're all based on that same principle. So I've been one of the lucky ones whose job is living their purpose. And there's a very blurry line between what I consider vacation and what I consider work. So they're one and the same, so I'm very blessed. I can argue I've never worked a day in my life. I could also argue I work all the time, but I usually prefer the former.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Well, I think it's a testament that you've been able to carve out this life that is exciting and adventurous for you, and you're doing such great work and giving back so much. And when we had dinner that one night at John's house, I mean, even a guy like Matthew McConaughey is like, "I want be Dan Buettner." I mean, that's pretty cool stuff.
Dan Buettner:
I'd change places with him once in a while.
Rip Esselstyn:
So Dan, Dan, I don't know how much... I know your dad, Roger, has tried every recipe in the book. I don't know if you have, but look at-
Dan Buettner:
No, I've eaten every one.
Rip Esselstyn:
All right, all right. So this right here is the 1920s Plymouth Succotash and I'm telling you-
Dan Buettner:
I think you mean 1620.
Rip Esselstyn:
What did I say, 1920s? Yeah, I'm trying to do too much at once here. You're right, 1620s. And everything about that just speaks my language, from that rustic pot to that spoon that's in there to the greens and everything. I mean, talk to me.
Dan Buettner:
Dot you want to know something interesting about that pot? And next week, Americans will sit down to a bird that lived a horrible life, that's full of hormones and its own feces and saturated fat, and they'll celebrate around that. But what we found is that the original Thanksgiving probably did not even include turkey. We know it didn't include ingredients from Europe because the pilgrims, their stores had been exhausted. So they were eating what the Native Americans were eating. So we went and found what the Native Americans... That pot of food you just showed was probably at the first Thanksgiving. It's four main ingredients, beans and squash and corn, hominy they call it, and then some greens, but then a beautiful broth, which is far healthier, heartwarming, delicious, and historically much more accurate than the dinner we'll sit down to, well, I guess a week from today.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, a hundred percent. What, Dan, exactly is a succotash? Is it like a hardy chili or stew?
Dan Buettner:
Stew. It's a stew.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's a stew.
Dan Buettner:
It's actually a corruption of the Wampanoag word, which is much harder to pronounce, but it looks a lot like succotash. But once again, people continue to eat succotash in the southeast of the United States. And that's a gift that the Native Americans have given us. And they gifted us not only delicious food, but as I believe I unpack with some confidence that it's also longevity food. And we've forgotten it. We've forgotten this way of eating.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, and in the book, you mentioned the, and I might be butchering the pronunciation, the Wampanoag who are some of the, I guess, the Indians that basically saved the, what, about half of the pilgrims that came over and landed at Plymouth Rock. You talked about how that, I think it was that first Thanksgiving, was more of exchanging of ideas as opposed to helping, as opposed to a feast, a celebration.
Dan Buettner:
There's some evidence to show that lasted about three days, not just one meal. And the historical record, it's very brief, but it shows there was food there. But they don't mention pumpkin pie or stuffing or even turkeys, really. So our approach was to find a Wampanoag Native American who cooks their traditional way. We found Carolyn Lynn and she... Carolyn Wayne, I'm sorry. And then Paula Marcoux, who is a food anthropologist, historian, who studies this, and together kind of a modern day pilgrim and a modern day Wampanoag, they collaborated on recreating a likely dinner eaten in 1620 for the book. And National Geographic photographer David McLain took the pictures. I took the notes and captured the recipes, and they're in this book. So you want to get ready for next Thanksgiving or even your Christmas meal, you can do a real pilgrim meal from that section of the book.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. And so I think I read that... Were there 65 different chefs that you got to meet on this journey that you went on to write the book?
Dan Buettner:
There abouts.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's phenomenal. And I would imagine that you probably got to try more incredible food, 65-
Dan Buettner:
And I didn't get fat either.
Rip Esselstyn:
And help us. Why is that?
Dan Buettner:
It's whole food, plant based. There's no meat in there. There's no very little refined sugar, if any. And it's very hard to get overweight if you're eating a whole food, plant based diet. So the most important ingredient in any longevity diet is taste. Because if you're not doing it for a long time, it doesn't impact your life expectancy at all. So for me to tell you that fermented tofu or fermented sesame seeds, benne seeds, or succotash is good for you, if you don't like you, you're not going to eat it. So that's why I was absolutely maniacal about making sure, picking only the recipes that taste good.
My father, 87 year old, meat and potato, born on a farm, Roger Buettner, I take him along, not only because I enjoy his company, but because he tastes every meal, and if he gives it the thumbs down, it doesn't end up in the book. He's the middle America vote. And we had a hard time with him in Okinawa, for example, because he didn't like anything. But here, it was a lot easier for him to like these recipes. Because in many cases, they represent hundreds or even thousands of years of culinary trial and error before they get something people like.
Rip Esselstyn:
So does your dad go with you, for example, over to Hawaii, or was that just you and David McLain?
Dan Buettner:
No, my dad was with me in Hawaii.
Rip Esselstyn:
Oh, that's incredible. So if your dad was over with you over in Hawaii, he also got to meet Chef Stephen Rouelle, if I'm pronouncing it right.
Dan Buettner:
Yeah, yeah. Under the Bodhi Tree.
Rip Esselstyn:
So will you tell us about Stephen or Stephan and his incredible health transformation?
Dan Buettner:
Yeah. So he was vastly overweight, having cardiovascular issues. I think he stepped out of his truck one night, he's working hard and collapsed. And that was the wake-up call. And anybody who does the homework and looks at responsible sources will find that when you're suffering from one of these avoidable chronic diseases, the best path back to health is eating a whole food, plant based vegan diet, in the case of Stephen. And he wasn't finding it on his own. So he went to chef school, learned how to make it, and became a fabulous chef. He opened one of the most successful restaurants in Kona on the big island of Hawaii. He is probably the best plant-based restaurant on the island. And he was kind enough to share with me three or four of his favorite recipes. And these came out of desire to heal. And now he's a healthy guy.
Rip Esselstyn:
So I've been over to Kona probably 15 times, and I've never... What's the name of the restaurant? I'd love to go to it the next time I'm there. Can you remember
Dan Buettner:
Under the Bodhi Tree.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay.
Dan Buettner:
I might be butchering the name of it. Under the Bodhi... But yeah. When you get there and you put plant based restaurants around me in your phone, it'll get you there.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right, right. What's the one... What is it, Healthy Cow, or I'm totally spacing on-
Dan Buettner:
Oh yeah. Purple Cow...
Rip Esselstyn:
No, no, it's not. Anyway, I'll get it before... Happy Cow.
Dan Buettner:
Holy Cow or something. I know what you mean.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's Happy Cow. It's Happy Cow. That's what it is. What I also love about the recipes that are in this book is how some of them are just drop dead simple. Like this, for example, this smokey... Right? Can you see that?
Dan Buettner:
Yeah. It's a candied squash. I think it's from James Wayman.
Rip Esselstyn:
No, that's a smokey collard greens. That's smokey collard greens.
Dan Buettner:
Yeah. I can't quite see it in my little... Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Smokey collard greens, I'm a huge fan, Dan, and we love people eating their four to five servings of greens a day. And these just look absolutely insane. And this is under the Native American section. Yeah, page 93. Now here's one. You're right. I'm sorry, Africa. So on page 97... What I also love doing is reading every story that accompanies the recipes. I find them to be fascinating. And you have the last meal, and this is sweet potato and black eyed pea soup. Can you remember this story behind this one?
Dan Buettner:
Yeah. Yes. It was a Senegalese chef who worked in a Michelin starred restaurant in New York, but he went back to Senegal to trace his roots. And he discovered a few things. He discovered that before these African young men would be shipped to America where they became slaves, they had to weigh at least 150 pounds. And if they didn't weigh 150 pounds, they wouldn't survive the crossing. So they were fattened up cattle. And the food that was used was a black eye pea and palm oil kind of slurry, very high laden in calories. And they'd eat that for a few weeks and fatten them up.
And this Michelin starred level chef, he took that recipe and he applied culinary excellence to it. And he had artesian palm oil, and he had the best black eyed peas and wonderful herbs, and he blended ingredients, and he finished it with edible flowers. And it's a gorgeous, gorgeous piece. And of course, now the irony is he lives in New Orleans and he serves it to largely white people for a hundred dollars a plate. And he takes some satisfaction in that he turned this horrible negative, and he's turned it into a positive with the same sort of ethnicities involved in the original transactions.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. I love the way he turned that around. On page 113, Dan, you've got buffalo cauliflower tacos.
Dan Buettner:
Oh yeah. That's Nicole. That's from Philadelphia.
Rip Esselstyn:
Exactly.
Dan Buettner:
A wonderful Puerto Rican entrepreneur, Nicole. And she's [inaudible 00:28:03] plant based restaurants in Philadelphia.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, Bar Bamba, something like that?
Dan Buettner:
Yeah, that's right. I'm at an age I can hide my own Easter eggs, so even though I wrote that, I don't remember every last name. Yeah, here she is. Yeah, Nicole Marquis. She's a fantastic female business owner, owed several hot bars, and she knows how to make food palatable to Americans, whether they're plant-based or they're love eating meat. The other brilliant restaurant right down the street is Rich Landau has a restaurant, phenomenal restaurant called Vedge. A lot of people don't like tofu, but he taught me how to make a tofu steak that tastes exactly like meat.
Rip Esselstyn:
What's the key?
Dan Buettner:
The secret is you cut it at a one-inch filet, you freeze it first, and then you get an oil that can handle a lot of heat, so like a grape seed oil or avocado. Grape seed I believe is what he used. You first dredge it in this sort of Montreal... They call it a Montreal rub, which is a number of spices you can Google on the internet pretty easily, or you get my book. But you dredge it in the Montreal spices and then you flash fry it on one side, so it gets kind of a thick, almost meaty crust. You flash fry it on the other side, and the middle kind of stays tender. And boy, I'll tell you what, you put that on a plate like a piece of steak with your baked potato and your broccoli, and you have no idea that you're not eating a slab of dead animal.
Rip Esselstyn:
It's so true, Dan. It's so true. And I got to tell you that I've been to Vedge twice when I was in Philadelphia, and it is quite an experience. It really is.
Dan Buettner:
Well, he was one of the pioneers. He's been around for 25 years. By the way, Nicole looks to Rich as her mentor, and there's a half a dozen restaurants in... Philadelphia is really the birthplace of vegetarianism in America in the mid-19th century. The abolition movement, the woman's suffrage movement, and also the temperance movement and vegetarian all grew out of the same sort of mindset because Philadelphia was this opening, accepting place in the 19th century. It was really ahead of its time. The Graham cracker was part of the whole vegetarian movement. I think his name was Robert Graham who invented it.
Rip Esselstyn:
I think Sylvester.
Dan Buettner:
The original Graham cracker is delicious, by the way. And it's not all that unhealthy. It's made mostly with molasses and whole grain flowers, and really pretty healthy food.
Rip Esselstyn:
A couple comments on Philadelphia before we leave Philadelphia and move on. I also thought it was really interesting the way you mentioned that of all the people that we could ever imagine, Ben Franklin introduced tofu to the colonies. I mean, how crazy was that?
Dan Buettner:
That's right. He called it soy cheese.
Rip Esselstyn:
Right. And then Dan, the other thing you mentioned that Rich taught you to make that tofu taste like steak is you freeze it. Because it totally changes the texture. It opens up the cells. And now when you marinate it with whatever it is you marinate it with, it really tends to get in there really nicely. All right, Dan, I'm sorry, but I just got to go through some of these recipes. So this morning, there's a little restaurant right near my house and I always go there in the morning twice a week, and I get these black bean potato and cactus tacos, breakfast tacos, and on page 119, you've got almost the same thing. You've got black bean and nopalitos tostados. Look at that. Oh, it's gorgeous looking.
Dan Buettner:
Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:
And that's Chef Juan Rodriguez in Fort Worth.
Dan Buettner:
Yeah, he's an amazing guy. But he was part of our Blue Zone project in Fort Worth, introducing plant-based eating to cow town with great success. His business took off because of Blue Zone project. And amazingly gifted chef there. And this is, once again, the cactus panels are a little hard to get. Most of the recipes, 80% of them, are very simple and very easy to get ingredients. But the point here is illustrating that there are all these plant fleshes that taste like meat when you put the same marinade to them. The secret is taking the same sort of flavors and applying it to the right kind of plant flesh. You get something that tastes like meat. And it doesn't have to be these Beyond meats or Impossible meats, which have questionable health benefits. So much culinary genius locked up in the ethnicities of America.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. Dan, I'm going to move on now to page 124. And this just caught my attention because, well, A, I am a huge fan of beans, and it's called Frijoles Barrachos, drunken beans. And the second ingredient, Dan, is a cup of dark beer. Did Roger Buettner like these?
Dan Buettner:
Roger Buettner just drank the beer.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, they made it in the book, so he must have loved them.
Dan Buettner:
No. So this, once again, this is seven ingredients. And it's the genius... Who thinks of adding beer to beans? And then the symphony that you create when you put some of this dice serrano chili, which you can get in any Whole Foods, and tomatoes, which people don't realize this, but tomato adds a umami flavor to food, and it's so simple. The whole thing comes together in 20 minutes. The whole thing is cheap. You can serve it to anybody, any fancy people in the world, and they're going to love it. And it's a recipe that'll help you live to a hundred.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah. And Dan, speaking of living to 100, your first sentence of this book is pretty darn powerful. And I'm going to read it to you, and then I want you to riff on it for a sec. And you say, "This book could help you live an extra 10 years."
Dan Buettner:
Yes. And that isn't just hyperbole. So earlier this year, in February, a group of academics out of the Netherlands did a meta-analysis. So they aggregated many studies that followed many hundreds of thousands of people for decades. And they found that the people who ate mostly a whole food plant based diet, they allowed a very little meat, but a huge deviation of the standard American, diet for women, they were living 10 years longer, and for men, they were getting an extra 13 years of life expectancy. So it's not at all an empty promise. And by the way, I know that most Americans, 97% of Americans are eating animal products. And that's okay. I mean, you know what, we're not here to wag our finger at you and tell you what to eat and what not to eat. But I just wanted The Blue Zone Kitchen here, this book, to be a safe space, a place where you can turn off your brain, cook any recipe in this book, and be pretty sure that for you and your family, you're doing them a big favor.
You are doing what research shows the longest the people in the planet ate this exact same pattern. These are real human beings that lived real lives. It's not theoretical, it's not test tube, it's not Petri dish. We know this to be true. And this is one thing, Rip and I think agree violently on. Rip arrived at the same way of eating via very different path, more of an academic path, I would say, with his father and I guess his whole family. But we've arrived at what I like to think at the top of the culinary mountain and just took slightly different paths.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Dan, I'm going to keep going through the book here. All right, page 127, we got Mama Zucchini, zucchini pupusas, and this mother and daughter duo chef combination from Salvador, they got inspired after watching Forks Over Knives documentary to kind of change up. How about that?
Dan Buettner:
Our good friend Brian Wendel.
Rip Esselstyn:
That's right.
Dan Buettner:
He's transformed so many lives with that documentary. And ironically, Claudia and her mom, Claudia and Norma Lopez, they live in perhaps one of the most difficult neighborhoods in downtown Los Angeles, homeless people across the street. But they've really created this oasis of Latino vegan food. And the people who come there, they're not a bunch of rich chi-chi people who can afford to drop a hundred dollars a meal at a lot of other LA vegan places. They're mostly poor people coming in there. And they're getting their Salvadoran favorites like pupusas and beans and tortillas and sofritos, these meat analogs made out of soy. And they're eating the food they love. And they don't even quite realize, I don't think, that these are foods that are adding years as opposed to taking years off of their lives.
Rip Esselstyn:
Dan, I'm going to page 135 if you can follow me there. And I'm looking at plant-powered arepa that I want to make this weekend with my family, because I am so enthralled with not only the thickness of this corn tortilla, but also the fact that I could slice it open and then stuff anything in there. And the fact that it's green, it's green because of the spinach. Look at this, everybody. Look at this.
Dan Buettner:
So this is thanks to the genius of Diego Tosoni and his wife Veronica. They own the hottest restaurant in Los Angeles and soon to be part of John Mackey's new health empire, the Love Life Cafe.And these arepas is really kind of a Venezuelan take on a tortilla. As you point out, it's basically a thick tortilla. And it may intimidate some people, but you can go to a Trader Joe's and get what they call masa, basically corn mash, prepared already. Pat it down into a patty, and heat it up. They fried it a little bit. But Diego has added to it by putting ground spinach and chlorophyll in it to make it green, and makes it even sort of supercharged with health. And you cut it open like a pita bread and you have this wonderful pocket to stuff amazing things in it and delight your friends.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. I can't wait to delight my family with it this weekend. They're going to be so enamored with it. All right, Dan, let's move on to page 176. All right. So one of the things that we also do every Sunday at our house is I make pancakes for the family. And these, they're called [Utapalm], I think. They're savory lentil pancakes. I mean, come on. I cannot wait to dig in and try these. And look at this guy here making them on the griddle here, these lentil pancakes. Who knew? I never even thought of lentil pancakes before.
Dan Buettner:
Yes, so this is the Vilkhu family, they're owners of this super popular Saffron Nola restaurant. And they're so packed, I couldn't believe they agreed... Their whole family gathered for David McLain and I and made this largely Indian feast. And it's really the poorest parts of the world that have given us the most genius food. Because it's not hard to take a slab of meat and fry it in oil and make it taste good. I mean, that napalms our taste buds. It takes culinary genius to take things like lentil beans and chick peas and make them taste good, but you add some fragrant spices and once again tomatoes and cilantro and some chilies and some coconut chutney as things you can easily get ahold of and combining them in the right way, and you convert very inexpensive food into absolute magic.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. So over the course of your year or two writing this book and getting the... I can't even imagine the opportunities you had to sit down with these chefs and their families at their restaurants or at their homes. Did you have one experience that just sticks out more than any other? Or is that an unfair question for me to ask you?
Dan Buettner:
No, it's not unfair, but a few that just come to mind immediately, Don Madrano. Here's a guy who worked in raising money for arts until he is about 60 and became a chef, went to Cordon Bleu or one of these high-end chef school, and they were teaching him how to make Mexican food. Well it turns out he was Mexican. He was Tex-Mex. He grew up eating real Mexican. And we tend to think of Tex-Mex food as steak fajitas or cheese slathered enchiladas. But he remembered from his childhood in San Antonio that actually the Mexican foods they were eating were using things like amaranth and pecans and mole and corn tortilla and this vegetable that comes from cactuses. And he set out to set the record straight. And he brought back the true Texas Mexican food. And lo and behold, once again, mostly plant based.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, tell me this, because in reading this particular story about this individual, I wanted to be there sitting on these slabs of boulders with you guys. And that was James Wayman and his fire beast in a New England farm where he roasted all kinds of crazy stuff.
Dan Buettner:
James Wayman's a Michelin star level chef. He has several restaurants in Connecticut. He's a celebrated chef. And we asked him if he could help show us some of these simple plant based. His specialty is just cooking over open fire. And we were absolutely blown away. He would take a candy squash, but it could be any kind of squash. He started a big fire, let it burn down to coals. And he just threw it in there, threw it in the coals, turned it over a few times. The outside was charred, like into trash. But then he pulled out, busted it open, and here is this beautiful golden custard-like flesh that is a meal right there. It didn't even take a pot and pan. It was that simple. You just didn't realize. He did another amazing thing. He took, we have the recipe for it, mixing miso with sesame seeds and a few other things, some oil and some garlic.
He created kind of a paste. And he took beautiful tomatoes, he cut them in half and then he put this sort of miso-sesame paste over the top, and then he placed it on a rock in the fire and let it sit there until the skin blistered and the top started bubbling. And then he just pulled it out. And it was a tsunami of umami, I called it. And there he is. There's James Wayman. He and I, by the way, were doing a live event in his city, Stony Brook, I believe in Connecticut on December 8th. And om going back there to kind of unleash the the Blue Zone diet, the Blue Zone American Kitchen on... people show up.
Rip Esselstyn:
One of the things that I'm seeing in this book, and I'm seeing it, is whole cauliflowers that are roasted, that are cooked with an incredible sauce. There's one in particular I just saw, and I'm trying to find it right now. I probably won't be able to find it. So let me ask you this question. So I'm going right now through, Dan, some of the regional and contemporary Americans that you visited that I just was fascinated with. So for example, Blake Loftin, Chris De Barr, and Mel Braden, who you talk about you visited in New Orleans and how they were able to take these Cajun recipes from 100-year-old cookbooks. I mean, that's incredible.
Dan Buettner:
Yes. So the premise of the book was we're trying to recreate the diet from a hundred years ago, and these guys are modern day chefs with gourmet restaurants. But they agreed to... We got a big Airbnb with a huge kitchen, and we sat in there for two days and all we did was cook and the photographer shot, and Chris and his gang reproduced these from an ancient cookbook and reproduced them for us. That was a little different take in what we do for... Most of the times, the other chef had been cooking these ways, but he did a fantastic job. I can't remember if if made it in the book, but he made a lettuce soup. Nobody cooks with lettuce anymore, but it was shockingly delicious.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, the one recipe of his that you have in the book that I'm like, I can't wait to try it. He's got a black eye pea and peanut butter hummus.
Dan Buettner:
Oh yeah, that's it.
Rip Esselstyn:
269. Yeah.
Dan Buettner:
Who thinks of putting black eyed peas and peanut butter together? It's brilliant.
Rip Esselstyn:
Dan, what's your take on mushrooms? Are you a fan of mushrooms? And the reason I ask is because I know you met Cameron Clements in central Texas where there were some tumbleweeds rolling around. And you said that this guy, or gal, I don't know if Cameron's a guy or gal-
Dan Buettner:
It's a girl. It's a woman.
Rip Esselstyn:
Okay, thank you.
Dan Buettner:
She's a single mom about 30 years. On Instagram, she's the plant-based Cajun chef or plant-based Cajun. And she's a genius. So she was able to take mushrooms and marinate them in a certain way. And when added to an etouffee, they taste exactly like a crawfish, that same sort of... Spongy is not the right word, but it's a texture that is the right amount of chewiness, so when you bite down, it resists for a minute and then it gives. And so she was able to, by marinating mushrooms the right way and adding the right flavors, give it kind of a seafood flavor that had the same texture. And once again, you don't even know you're eating a bunch of dead critters. You're eating nutrient-infused mushrooms.
Rip Esselstyn:
Here's that photo from James Wayman, the Fire Beast like-
Dan Buettner:
The candy roaster squash. That's one ingredient. No pots or pans. James Wayman is a genius.
Rip Esselstyn:
Dan, I like your friends. Speaking of your friends, talk to me about Andrew Zimmern, your friend from Minneapolis who I guess creates all kinds of cool stuff.
Dan Buettner:
Yes, Andrew. He's best known, I think, for Bizarre Foods, going around the world and tasting weird things. But he's a gifted chef. And in addition to eating things like grubs, he's very good at plant-based. And he's a big celebrity these days, but a good friend of mine from Minneapolis, and he agreed... I asked him if he could plumb his archive for his favorite plant-based foods. And he came up with actually a Korean recipe for us and was kind enough to take us into his kitchens and recreate it. So the idea here was to bring, from diversity of sources, an American pastiche together of foods that mimic the diet of longevity from around the world, from the famous to the non-famous, to mostly these ethnicities, but also under-celebrated Americans. My dad even has a recipe in here.
Rip Esselstyn:
I know. He's got a pasta sauce.
Dan Buettner:
Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah. If you go to page 238, you can see Roger Buettner doing his thing, very much so.
Dan Buettner:
Took our National Geographic photographer to his garden-
Rip Esselstyn:
Right there.
Dan Buettner:
Which he's very proud of. Yeah, there's Rog right there. He's probably got a beer just off camera.
Rip Esselstyn:
Drunken beans. Dan, tell me, what's your favorite restaurant in America? And according to the book here, you say it's in Los Angeles, Venice Beach.
Dan Buettner:
It's called Gjelina's. I eat there every time I go there. It's not a vegan restaurant, but the chef there that... The head chef is a guy named Juan. He's from Oaxaca, Mexico. And the entire kitchen staff are all from the same village. But they have a way of cooking vegetables, and it often involves a little bit of vinegar, but a way of charring and vinegar and the symphony of sweetness, of a little bit of spice, the right use of fats, the right uses of assets. And they could create the most delicious sides that. They have a okra dish to die for. They have a mushroom pizza that has no cheese on it, but the way they do it, for those of you each cheese, you don't miss the cheese. A hundred percent plant-based. And I got no skin in the game with them. It just happens to be my favorite restaurant. But I do owe them an enormous debt of gratitude in that they shared three of their best recipes with us for this book and spent an afternoon cooking them for us and letting us photograph. So now I like them even more.
Rip Esselstyn:
Now, Dan, I know that... Well, first I'll ask you this question and then I'll share with everybody the recipe. So Dan, what is the number one supplement of people that eat a Blue Zone type diet?
Dan Buettner:
Beans.
Rip Esselstyn:
There you go, baby. It's the beans. And so what's with this recipe? Beans and greens and beans. You got it twice. I love it.
Dan Buettner:
I think the other one might be green beans, but it is.
Rip Esselstyn:
This is page 231, Dan, in case you want to reference it.
Dan Buettner:
Well, if beans are good, beans and beans are twice as good
Rip Esselstyn:
For people that don't know, Dan, you got a really adorable Instagram video talking about the number one supplement, and then you go on to say it's beans on Instagram.
Dan Buettner:
Exactly. Well, I mean, other than vitamin B12 for vegans or people a hundred percent plant based, I don't believe in supplements. There are some people with weird conditions and so forth, but for most Americans, you can get all the micronutrients you need out of your food. And that's the best way to get them because food's the best delivery vehicle. Most of what is sold to us as supplements or super foods or power drinks, it's junk. It's often full of sugar, questionable ingredients. In my mind, the only super food there is, well, the only super foods there are, are beans and greens, maybe turmeric, little bit, cruciferous vegetables, nuts. These are the things we know have fueled real people into their hundreds around the world. And so don't be duped. And by the way, you can be pretty sure if you're paying a lot for a food, somebody's got their hand in your pocket.
Anybody who's checked the price of dried beans lately knows that any American can afford them. Pound of black beans or black eyed peas or lentils will set you back less than $3, and they'll feed a half a dozen people a nutritious... But the secret, and this is where The Blue Zones American Kitchen comes in, the most important ingredient is taste. Americans, as a rule, do not how to know how to make beans taste good. And this work, I think, does a good job at bringing beans alive and really kind of overtaking their meat counterparts when it comes to protein and making things taste flavorful and delicious.
Rip Esselstyn:
It really does. And Dan, just to hammer home to everybody listening, that when you eat whole food, PLANTSTRONG, the Blue Zones way, you have one fifth the rate of heart disease, one sixth the rate of dementia, these are stats I'm pulling right from Dan's book, one sixth the rate of certain cancers and diabetes, and obesity rates, you said in the Blue Zone areas used to be until recently under 5%, which is crazy when you think that here in this country, according to the CDC, what, 75% of us are now overweight or obese.
Dan Buettner:
Right. And probably more of us are suffering from a metabolic disease. And that is almost a hundred percent attributable to eating the standard American diet. Our diet kills 680,000 Americans prematurely every year. Way more people have died eating the American way than have died in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War combined. It needs more attention. We need to vote. We need to get rid of the incentives in the Farm Bill that incent us growing more of these corn and soybeans, which are fed to animals in filthy feed lots. They're used as cheap inputs for all of our ultra-processed foods. The incentives need to be taken away from those food stuffs of junk food and shift it to organic foods and more beans, quite frankly. And then it's companies like PLANTSTRONG that take these foods and make them delicious and they make them accessible to the rest of us.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, you know what, we're doing everything we can to do our part. Dan, I know you got a flight that you got to run to, and I don't want you running through the airport. But I want to close on this note, Dan, and that is, I just think it is so remarkable and so fascinating and so creative that you were able to look under the hood of this country and find out that a hundred years ago we were doing things right. Across all these ethnicities, we were doing things right in a major way, in a tasty way, that if we could just go back to where we were, we could elevate the health of this country in ways that would make it this country's greatest asset. And you have uncovered that. You've laid it out there for us. And I can't say enough about the latest thing that you have brought to the world, Dan.
And I love the way you finish, you finish it, Dan, with your dad. The fact that you were able to do this journey with your father, I think is a testament to the relationship that you have with him. And the fact that you were able to get your meat and potato loving dad to basically go like Blue Zones now, that's remarkable.
Dan Buettner:
And not only that, in our book, he's a vegan chef, so I don't think anybody in his family would've ever believed that. So it's called The Blue Zone American Kitchen. It's on sale this week. As you know, you're a book writer yourself, a very successful one, but you can labor writing the best book in the world. But unless you talk about it and you're given platforms like PLANTSTRONG here, I thank you. But it's a great gift. Anybody who you'd like to see live longer, it's a great Christmas gift. It looks great on the coffee table or in your kitchen. There's a hundred recipes to live to a hundred. National Geographic. It's all evidence-based. And support your local bookshop if you can.
Rip Esselstyn:
And again, the photography is second to none. It truly is. David, oh my gosh. Dan, I want to know, when's the next time you and I are going to get together and play a little pickleball?
Dan Buettner:
I don't know. You kind of gave me such a drumming last time, Rip. I think I need a couple years of training, eight hours a day to enter the ring with you again. But anytime. Maybe you'll come play with me in Miami, or I'll see you again at Sports Weekend there in Austin.
Rip Esselstyn:
Well, that'd be great. And you know who's coming up to Austin starting December, I think first is Robbie Barbaro.
Dan Buettner:
Robbie Barbaro. Yeah. Mastering Diabetes, a great friend of mine, pickleball pal. Great program. And I'm sorry to lose him, but I'm glad you you'll have a new member in your immediate social circle.
Rip Esselstyn:
Yeah, thanks. All right, Dan, great American. Great American Kitchen Blue Zones. Way to be, my man. Hey.
Dan Buettner:
Thanks so much, Rip.
Rip Esselstyn:
Do PLANTSTRONG and great Thanksgiving.
Dan Buettner:
Bam. All right, love it. All right, you guys. Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:
The Blue Zones American Kitchen is now available, and I bet it just might make a very thoughtful gift at many holiday parties this holiday season. I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes in case anyone's interested. But as we close out today, I just want to say how grateful I am and thankful for those who came before us and helped to shape America's healthiest food landscapes. Thanks so much for listening and as always, keep it PLANTSTRONG.
Thank you for listening to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. You can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants. Thank you in advance for your support. It means everything. The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Lori Kortowich, Ami Mackey, Patrick Gavin, and Wade Clark. This season is dedicated to all of those courageous truth seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with clear vision and hold firm to a higher truth, most notably my parents, Dr. Caldwell B Esselstyn Jr. and Ann Crile Esselstyn. Thanks for listening.
