Want to Live Past 100? Eat Wild Spinach and Drink Raw Milk

Inspiring Tips From the World’s Longest Lived Humans

At 128 South African Johanna Mazibuko is likely the oldest person in the world. She told News24 that she ate lots of wild spinach and drank raw milk when she was younger. She also ate live locusts which, she said, “tasted like meat.” These days her legs feel stiff but she has no interest in going to the doctor. Screenshot via News24. You can watch the interview with Mazibuko here: https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/watch-people-around-me-have-been-dying-when-will-i-die-128-year-old-north-west-woman-20220511

A few weeks ago, South African native Johanna Mazibuko celebrated her 128th birthday.

You first may be wondering if I made a typo. I did not. Mazibuko has a document that confirms that she was born in 1894. So, if you do the math, she really is 128. 

You also may be thinking, “How the heck is that possible?!”

A lot of reporters have been asking her that question. Mazibuko isn’t sure how she’s lived for almost 13 decades. But, as she’s told journalists, one reason that stands out is that she grew up eating a simple diet of “fresh milk and wild spinach.”

Mazibuko was born on a farm where she used to milk cows and make fresh butter to sell. She gave birth to 7 children and has a whopping 50 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

(As someone who hopes to live long enough to have one grandchild but isn’t sure her kids will have any kids of their own, I’m not jealous or anything.)

Isn’t It Just Good Genes?

Longevity research is fascinating and complex. It’s hard to establish cause and effect when it comes to why some people live long healthy lives and others don’t.

I have a grandfather who smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish and lived into his late 80s. But his oldest daughter (aka my mom) died of a brain hemorrhage at age 73, even though she went swimming every day, had a strong sense of purpose, wasn’t an alcoholic like her father, and was hale and vibrant throughout her life.

[Ok, so my mom also smoked as a young adult—as did her sisters (who have all outlived her)—never got enough sleep, wasn’t married, was overweight for her height, ate her fair share of crap food, and actually planned to die the minute she became enfeebled, saying to anyone who would listen that if she ever became paralyzed she would shoot herself... Some people, like the M.D./Ph.D. medical ethicist Ezekiel J. Emanuel, hope to die by 75.]

In any case, an interesting study of Danish identical twins, published in 1995, showed that the heritability of longevity is only 26% for men and 23% for women. This study suggests that genes are not a good predictor of how long someone lives.

Other research, including a plethora of data from The Blue Zones (places around the world where people tend to live long lives), also suggests that longevity is mostly influenced by our lifestyle choices and environment, not our genes.

So what lifestyle choices help you live past 100? Five centenarians weigh in.

1. Find life in a box of chocolates

Centenarian Eunice Modlin, who lives in Indiana, believes chocolate is more than just a guilty pleasure. Right after Modlin celebrated her 102nd birthday, in 2017, her granddaughter told the Today Show that her secret to living past a hundred was eating two pieces of dark chocolate a day, no more and no less.

Eunice Modlin was born on January 16, 1916. The great-great grandmother has said that eating a small amount of dark chocolate is one of the secrets to living a long healthy life. Photo courtesy of her granddaughter Tammy Modlin Gentry via the Today Show.

2. Ride your bike

At age 104, Marge Jetton was still going strong, according to longevity researcher Dan Buettner, author of a book called The Blue Zones. Jetton, a retired nurse who lived in Loma Linda, California, started every day by lifting 5-pound weights and pedaling seven or eight miles on a stationary bicycle. You can watch her bicycling in this clip from Oprah.

Buettner called Jetton a “poster girl” for the Seventh Day Adventist lifestyle, which has been connected to longevity. Jetton was also an avid volunteer, realizing after her husband died that the world wasn’t going to come to her so she needed to go out into the world.

She died in 2011 at the age of 106.

Marge Jetton rode her stationary bike daily well past age 100. Screenshot via Dan Buettner's TedTalk "How to live to be 100+" 

3. Stay sharp

Kane Tanaka was a Japanese woman who died last month, on April 19, 2022 at the age of 119, as the New York Times reported. Her strategy for living over a century was to keep her brain sharp by reading newspapers, doing math problems, and playing board games–her favorite was Othello.

Most of us believe that doing crossword puzzles is good for our brains. But board games? I love that. One of my faves is a Japanese dice and card game called Machi Koro. By the way, Tanaka hated to lose.

Since 2019 Kane Tanaka held the Guinness World Record for being the oldest living person. She died on April 19, 2022. Photo via Guinness World Records.com.

4. Drink your health

Lucile Randon is a 118-year-old French nun who is also reported to be the world’s oldest COVID-19 survivor. One of her secrets to becoming a centenarian? Randon drinks a glass of wine every day, CNN reports.

The benefits of moderate alcohol intake was something Buettner also uncovered in his research. People in all of the Blue Zones he visited—with the exception of Loma Linda, California—were in the habit of having a glass of wine at five. So much so that Blue Zones researchers consider wine at five to be one of the “Power 9”—nine things we humans can do to help us live longer.

Red wine, in particular, has been much touted for its medicinal properties. But is it the wine itself, as a 2018 peer-reviewed scientific study claims? Or is it the social aspect of getting together to enjoy a glass of wine with friends? Given that some recent research published in The Lancet shows no benefits to drinking alcohol, I think this is still very much an open—and interesting—question.

Lucile Random just before she turned 117. She is blind now and lives in Toulon, France in a care home on the Mediterranean coast. The oldest living nun in the world, she told a reporter that her 118th birthday wish was to die soon. Photo by Nicolas Tucat via Agence France-Press.

5. Be Kind

When Gertrude Weaver passed away in 2015 at the age of 116, she was thought to be the oldest-living person in America. A year before she died, Weaver told a Time magazine reporter that her secret to longevity was kindness.

“Treat people right and be nice to other people the way you want them to be nice to you,” Weaver said.

I love this simple yet inspiring advice. Kindness counts.

Screenshot from a 2015 article about Gertrude Weaver in the British paper The Guardian.

Substackers, talk to me. How old are you? How’s your health? Are you planning to live to a hundred or would you rather die at 75? What habits do you have to help you stay vibrant?

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science journalist and book author. Proceeds from this channel are used to support medical freedom and freedom of speech. Become a paid subscriber for less than a cup of coffee a month. Or, if you’d rather bypass Substack, you can donate any amount, even just $1, to support independent journalism via Venmo: @Jennifer-Margulis-2.