BLUE ZONE - IKARIA

Ikaria, North Aegean Islands, Greece

Area: 32 km2, Population: 8,354

Number of centenarians living in Ikaria: 17, number of supercentenarians: 4

Life expectancy: men 79 years, women 87 years

Ikaria is the most isolated, or I could say the most secluded, of all the Blue Zones. Apart from Loma Linda, this could be said about all Blue Zones, but in the case of Ikaria, we are clearly talking about a secluded world. Ikaria is located in the easternmost part of the highly fragmented Greek islands, so far east that we are almost talking about Turkey. Ikaria is such a closed world that its inhabitants do not really identify as Greek, as evidenced by their own language and identity. You should imagine this a bit like Barcelona in relation to Spain. There, too, they have a separate language, a separate religion, and in general, they are Catalans, so leave them alone with the Spanish story. I consider these points important to mention because these separatist communities can form incredibly strong communities, as nothing binds people together quite like the "we don't belong there" mentality. But for centuries, Ikaria was not an isolated area because all 8,300 inhabitants of Ikaria turned their backs on the Greek state, but for two reasons.

Firstly, Ikaria's location is far from everything. It is the easternmost, most secluded island, but even within the island, Ikaria is situated as if it were truly turning its back on Greece. Ikaria reinforces this unfriendly body language with high, steep, and sharp rocks surrounding the villages, so everything is in place to ensure that no one in the world would want to come and live here. I didn't even understand why any community developed here, because it's one thing that Ikaria is surrounded by mountains, but Ikaria from the sea side is not the Mauritius-like experience with sandy beaches; rather, it's characterized by rocky, shoreless sections with minimal sandy areas. Of course, tourism has developed there now, and you can find some pretty good beaches, but I'm talking about the old Ikaria, when Ryanair wasn't flying to every corner store. By the way, in the case of all Blue Zones, I am referring to the conditions 100-150 years ago, when globalization had not yet done what it unfortunately has done today, and when people truly ate what was available within a 25-kilometer radius.

And there wasn't much, but what there was came from a pure source and had an excellent effect on the human body, allowing a quite unique gastro-cultural environment to develop. As a result, a population emerged in Ikaria that could expect to live 8 years longer than the Western world, not to mention that the incidence of heart disease in Ikaria is 50% lower, and the incidence of age-related dementia is 80% lower.

The Ikarian population is characterized by a strong stress tolerance, and compared to other Blue Zones, community cohesion is even stronger, which is no coincidence. If someone wants to get a huge slap, they should go up to an Ikarian resident and call them Greek. Ikarian residents are not Greek, at least they do not consider themselves Greek, but rather Ikarian residents, and they politely decline anything to do with Greece. This kind of isolation stems from Ikaria's secluded location and their almost non-existent contact with the outside world, as those born in Ikaria didn't go anywhere, and those who wanted to go to Ikaria didn't because the island is characterized by very strong winds, strong currents, and sharp rocks completely unsuitable for docking. For centuries, the people of Ikaria alone dealt with recurring famines and natural disasters, and in general, they settled all their disputes among themselves without external assistance or law enforcement. Ikaria is a truly closed world, both geographically and socially, and if there is a cohesive community where everyone has a role, it is here.

The strength of this cohesive community is well illustrated by the story of a certain Stamitis Moraitis, an Ikarian resident who emigrated to New York. In 1976, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and decided he wasn't interested in treatments; instead, he would go home to Ikaria and die among his loved ones. This was in 1976, and Stamitis Moraitis died in his childhood home in Ikaria, just as he had planned.

In 2013. At the age of 102.

It's hard enough to live in a marriage for 47 years, let alone with lung cancer. It's not really known why Stamitis didn't die within six months as the doctors predicted. This case could easily be spun into a mystical, even magical, story, showing how the Blue Zones can even cure cancer, but I would caution everyone against that.

The lifestyle of Ikaria, like Okinawa, Sardinia, Loma Linda, or Nicoya, cannot cure cancer; it would be pointless to try to make anyone believe that. However, I am absolutely certain that the lifestyle of all Blue Zones can significantly reduce the chance of cognitive decline and fatal diseases. And the recipe is given. Maintaining a clean diet in the Blue Zone sense, regular exercise, presence in family and community, and having a purpose in life, a reason to get up. Blue Zones offer nothing special; it's just that today the world is so fragmented, our societies are so overstretched, the stimulation threshold is pushed so high that people think that a healthy long life requires some special, as yet undiscovered new method, but it doesn't. The solution is there in the market: exercising for 20 minutes a day, and it doesn't hurt to have someone to talk to, to have a few friends.

I chose the Blue Zone as the basis of the Tiian system because it is simple, feasible, sustainable in the long term, and there is nothing special about it. Simple, like the lives of people who lived on a mountainside, or on a secluded coast, or perhaps on an island cut off from everything and everyone. It's a bit like smoking; I'm convinced that if it weren't available, people wouldn't do it. Or like school canteens, where if they didn't just sell junk but something with some nutritional value, people would buy that because there would be no other alternative. The problem is that we have a choice. In Ikaria, they didn't; people ate what they could, and then, voilà, they started living to 90 or 100 years old without even knowing what age-related dementia was.

Plenty of vegetables, olive oil as a base, as well as wine and honey, and small amounts of meat and fish. In Ikaria, the diet is the freest. The Ikarian diet contains the most meat, the most wine, and due to the honey, the most sweetness. The meat is fine; the beneficial flavonoids from wine and the nutritional profile of honey I've incorporated into Pyruvat to exert their beneficial effects in a dietary way. Because you see, should I include wine and honey in the diet? I'll include them in the Ikaria maintenance level, but one would have to get there first, and that can be achieved with these consumer-friendly Blue Zone ingredients.

Lemon, onion, garlic, tomato, olive oil, red wine vinegar, dill, mint, basil, oregano, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant, pepper, carrot, artichoke, peas, beans, potato, chickpeas, arugula, spinach, radish, green lettuce, rice, cabbage, beetroot, kohlrabi, lentils, parsley, orange, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, coffee, veal, lamb, seafood.

Herbal teas: chicory tea, rosemary tea, thyme, sage, cornflower.

Ikaria is my personal favorite Blue Zone because Ikaria best demonstrates the biological limits of humans. Unlike Loma Linda, without a medical safety net, completely isolated from the outside world. At least until 1960; after that, Ikaria also entered the globalized flow of the world, and nowadays Ikaria has astonishing tourist traffic, which is not a problem, unless we consider that the average life expectancy has also dropped by about 15 years.

I don't know. Maybe we're too late. Maybe the discovery came too late that there are locations on Earth where a longer life and a lower incidence of diseases are possible, but globalization has swept away these smaller and larger communities. I think there's a Pizza Hut in Okinawa now, and I'd be surprised if the pristine areas of Nicoya from before 1975 didn't have a Dunkin Donuts or a Five Guys, but it doesn't really matter.

What matters is that we have the knowledge for a long and quality life, and from now on, it's our decision whether to order churros from Wolt at 9 PM or live like those people who ate what grew within a 10-kilometer radius, or there is no or. That was it. And if they wanted to get it, they had to embark on a serious mountain hike, which provided them with daily physical activity. They weren't asked if they wanted to do this, but again, that's just how it was. By the way, this 'no choice' life isn't such a bad thing. It takes a lot of burden off your shoulders, not to mention the difficulty of making decisions. When I used to consume women a long time ago, that's why they liked coming to me. I told them what to do, what to make, what to eat, and that was it. There was no plan B or alternative. If they didn't like it, they could go somewhere else, but of course, no one went anywhere, but where would they have gone. That's why they came. So that someone would finally tell them what to do, and that's it, as long as it had results. Of course, it always did. Just as in Ikaria, the fact that people ate these things for 90-110 years was because that's how long they lived.