I’ve been thinking a lot about age lately. With the illustrious twenty first birthday nipping at my heels, I’ve looked around and found that I’m surrounded by rap music blaring out of stereos, the endless pages of my biochemistry textbook, red plastic cups aligned in a triangle, and the struggle to not trash my body with food and booze by age twenty-two. Somewhere around age thirty the signature red plastic cup will be replaced by a baby bottle and somewhere around fifty-five I will probably start listening to country music. The things that characterize those ages and my age now are fairly predictable. But what happens when I turn eighty? Since embarking on a pursuit of optimizing my chances to live until I’m at least a hundred years old, eighty is something I need to think about. And while I am living a somewhat typical college life, I’m quirky enough to say that I am by no means living in a cookie-cutter stereotype. So if I hit eighty, shouldn’t I vow to be something different? I refuse to be wearing the white sneakers or the red hat and the purple dresses. Since I’m sort of the antithesis of a sorority girl, I am betting that I won’t be a member of that crazy Red Hat Society or otherwise known as the old lady version of Delta Gamma. My hair will never be white. I will never drive an Oldsmobile. So what will I be?

      Before wasting my time planning my eighty-year-old life, I have to figure out how to get there. As you know, my nerdy nutrition obsessed nose has been stuck in Dan Buettner’s book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. Last week in The Sardinian Fountain of Youth, I followed Buettner through Sardinia and found that one of the keys to a long, healthy, vivacious life is wine and I’ve vowed to myself to drink a glass every night. Rough life, isn’t it? Buettner’s next area of interest was Okinawa, Japan or as he calls it, “the Japanese Hawaii”, which is nestled between the North Pacific and the East China Sea and belongs to a string of islands named Ryukyu. And while the cuisine is dramatically different from that of Sardinia, the same basic ideals and ways of life are in play and a pattern has begun to emerge on the quest for longevity.

      While following around Okinawa’s centenarians, Buettner found a unique diet that is centered on a low-calorie and plant-based pattern. The particular foods of interest are sweet potatoes, Goya, soy, and turmeric. Buettner claims, “Sweet potatoes are a delicious way to pack in vitamins and minerals. High in fiber, vitamin A, potassium, vitamin C, and folic acid, “sweets” are also easy to prepare. Prick one with a fork and microwave it for about five minutes, and just season with salt and pepper.” He also says that soy has the potential to lower “bad” cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart disease, and can be a great source of protein and good fats. The smoky spice called turmeric is linked with anti-inflammatory properties and is a great source of antioxidants. Lastly Buettner looks at Goya, which is a bumpy, bitter, cucumber-looking vegetable that is packed with antioxidants and has the power to regulate and lower blood sugar.

      While these power foods are beneficial and unique to the average Okinawan’s diet, Buettner identified other factors that have to potential to contribute to a long, healthy life. Beyond eating soy, sweet potatoes, Goya, and spicing things up with turmeric, Buettner’s other “longevity lessons” include; “embracing ikigai”, “planting a medicinal garden”, “maintaining moai”, “enjoying the sunshine”, “staying active”, and “having attitude”. While a few of these are fairly straightforward, some need a little more elaboration. Ikigai is the idea that life is filled with purpose and there is always a reason to get up in the morning. Moai is the Okinawan tradition of forming a social network and creating safety nets through friendships so that they can feel they have something to fall back upon if something were to go wrong. Enjoying the sunshine is a great way to get your daily requirement of vitamin D, which is linked to strong bones, healthy bodies, and preventing many chronic diseases. And lastly, the medicinal garden is the Japanese way to focus on preventing disease. The garden is a great way to stay healthy both from the activity of gardening and the foods it produces. The staples of the Okinawan medicinal garden are turmeric, mugwort, and ginger.

      As I accumulate all of these helpful tricks for living a long, energetic life, the future is beginning to look a lot longer than it used to. Time doesn’t seem to fly by so quickly because it’s all relative to age one hundred. So where will I be at eighty? Waterskiing? Hiking? Traveling? Listening to hip-hop? Who knows! But at twenty, I’m going to try my hardest to build a healthy body that can make it that far to find out.