The longest-living family in the world – total age 861 – enjoy same lunch every day & it involves booze

FOR most of us, the idea of eating the same lunch daily would bore us to tears.

But would the prospect of living longer make you think differently about what you have for your afternoon meal?

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You might want to take a page from the book of the Melis family, who hold a Guinness World Record for longevity and live in the highlands of Sardinia in the remote village of Perdasdefogu.

There were nine siblings in the family who together boasted a combined age of 861 years.

Though the eldest sister of the clan, Consolata Melis, passed away in 2015, she was the town’s oldest surviving citizen at 108 years old.

Speaking to the Guardian shortly after her 105th birthday, Consolata attributed her longevity to the soup she ate on her daily basis.

“Every day of their life they have the exact same lunch”

Dan Buettner

Her centenarian siblings partook in the ritual too. And longevity expert Dan Buettner recons this is the secret behind their very long lives.

Having coined the term Blue Zones to refer to five regions of the world where people routinely live up to the age of 100, the author and National Geographic fellow has made a career out of studying life-lengthening habits.

Though genetics might come into play, centenarians in Ikaria, Sardinia, Okinawa, Loma Linda and the Nicoya Peninsula share certain diet and lifestyle traits that see them living to a ripe old age, according to Dan.

The longevity expert spoke about the Melis family, sharing what the “the longest-lived family in the world” eats every day for lunch.

“Every day of their life they have the exact same lunch,” Dan shared in a video posted to his Instagram page.

The base of the meal is a three-bean minestrone soup.

Dan described it as “kind of a chunky minestrone” with chickpeas, pinto and white beans mixed in with seasonal vegetables.

In this thick soup, the Meli family dunk a slice of sourdough bread.

And to top it all off a small glass of red wine.

“I’m talking a two or three ounce glass of wine,” Dan noted.

The Meli family didn’t stick so closely to this set meal because they were trying to stick to a diet, the longevity expert said.

“They loved it.”

The Melis minestrone soup

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Dan Buettner shared the recipe of the Melis’ very special minestrone soup on the Blue Zones website after meeting the family himself.

“Minestrone is simply a soup made from available garden vegetables, beans, and grain, usually a type of pasta,” Dan explained.

“The combination yields a delicious one-bowl meal that is high in protein and most importantly, a potpourri of fibres and fuel your microbiome.”

Ingredients include:

• 1/3 lbs dry garbanzo beans
• 1/3 lbs dry white beans
• 1/3 lbs dry pinto or red beans
• 1.5 cups cubed potatoes
• 6-8 cups of water or vegetable stock
• a medium onion, chopped
• 5 stalks celery chopped
• 5 carrots, chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, chopped,
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp oregano
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp red or black pepper
• 1 – 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes or 5 Roma tomatoes
• Salt to taste

But you can stray a little from the recipe, according to what you have in your fridge and cupboard.

Dan recommended adding in vegetables like cabbage, courgettes, green beans, and cauliflower or broccoli.

He recommended you soak the beans overnight, but you could simply substitute with canned beans.

Start by adding the veggies to a pot a cooking them on a low heat with some oil until the onion is translucent, then add in the beans, potatoes, canned tomatoes and herbs.

Cook on a low until the beans are tender, adding water if needed to thin out the soup.

Dan previously shared the three foods that inhabitants of the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica swear by.

“Their diet is composed of three foods that I would argue are the best diet human beings have ever invented,” he stated.

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