Ikarian Longevity Stew

Based on Dan Buettner's book, 'The Blue Zones Kitchen', this is a recipe derived from a 'Blue Zones' island of Ikaria, Greece.

Dan is a researcher for the National Geographic. Working alongside renowned doctors and experts Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain, Dan identified the places around the world where people live the longest. Drawing lines in a world map in blue ink and thus Dan patented the name and concept of Blue Zones.

This stew was the pilot experiment in the city of Albert Lea, Minnesota which is famous for meatpacking. The idea was to show how to cook it and feed it to 2,200 people as chefs demonstrated how to make the Ikarian stew in two giant boiling cauldrons.

In less than one hour later, the giant pots were completely empty and that was the city's first step to a better diet.

According to the book,

after just one year, participants added an estimated 2.9 years to their average life span, while health care claims for city workers dropped 49%.

Now Dan and his team operates the Blue Zones Project to 47 communities across the US. He was a guest at the Rich Roll podcast where he mentioned that the projects are mainly funded by insurance companies.

So if you want to live to a healthy 100, you can start with the recipe here from his book.

Ingredients

1 cup dried black-eyed peas

1/2 up extra virgin olive oil, divided

1 large red onion, finely chopped

1 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 fennel bulb, cut in chunks

1 large ripe tomato, cut in chunks

2 tsp tomato paste, diluted in 1/4 cup water

2 bay leaves

1 bunch dill

salt (optional)

Method

Soak dried black-eyed peas overnight. Or cover peas with cover and boil for 1 min. Remove from heat and let stand for an hour.

In a large pot, heat half the olive oil over medium heat and cook the onion, garlic and fennel, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 12 mins.

Add the black-eyed peas and toss to coat. Add the tomato, tomato paste and enough water to cover the peas by about an inch, add the bay leaves.

Bring pot to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the peas are about half way cooked. This can take between 40 mins to an hour.

Add the chopped and season with salt if using. Continue cooking until the peas are tender, about 20 mins.

Remove from heat and pour in remaining olive oil, stir and serve.

That's the exact recipe from the book.

Olive Oil and Salt

For a healthier version if you wanted to be completely wholefood plant-based, because apparently oil is a type of processed food. You can simply replace oil with water as you cook and keep adding water when your ingredients get dry.

Most people start cooking with oil. I start cooking with half a cup of water. If sometimes I feel like eating some good oil, I cool down what I cooked first to about 46 degree Celsius and drizzle some oil on top.

From the Blue Zones Kitchen book, olive oil is specified as a top longevity ingredients from Ikaria, which they have at least four tablespoons a day, may protect against heart disease and that it's also why one study suggests Ikarians have a 50% lower mortality rate.

Simply omit salt if you didn't want or you could do what is recommended by

Dr Michael Greger from NutritionFacts.org, replace salt by white miso paste. Yeah, I know miso has a lot of salt but the scientific explanation is that the soy from miso offset the bad stuff in the salt.

For more depth of flavour, I added the following ingredients to my version of the stew:

2 tsp tomato paste

2 pieces of dried porcini mushrooms, soaked overnight with half cup of water in the fridge

1 fennel bulb

1 large tomato chopped and added to top of stew five 7 mins before the stew is cooked.

Garnish with some air dried oregano (another longevity staple from Ikaria)

I serve mine with sourdough bread to mop up the sauce from the stew. I drizzle some olive oil on my bread.

CHEERS and ENJOY!

I grow some herbs in my backyard and here I used an old picture frame to air dry them.