My take on healthy 90-year-olds

People in their 90's were obviously born in the 1910's and on. They survived the flu epidemic of 1917 and the various childhood diseases that killed many. My mom was such a 95-er who died in 2001.

The food they ate, and the food I ate, was nutritious. They got exercise as they went about their daily lives. They walked to school, lived without central heat and AC...and drank clean water. They breathed cleaner air as kids - depending on where they lived - and did without radios and TVs for most of their lives.

What has changed? Even when I was a kid, a lot of what I listed above was still true. Good food, cleaner air [and I lived in NYC] no TV til I was about 10 - and clean water. But then we hit the 1950's post WWII boom and paved the country, built communities that necessitated driving and encouraged a TV for every house - then every room in every house :-).

We've killed the soil as the major corporations took over "farming," using chemicals to make food bigger with longer shelf lives - or truck lives now...Food is not ripened in the fields - it ripens in the truck or in your home - that's not nutrition - it's "filler."

I went shopping today and wanted some avocados - they were all like rocks. I won't buy them like that. By the time they ripen in my home, they are usually yukky. And that was from the "better" stores......

So how do we get healthy 90-year-olds in the future? We need to encourage healthy nutrition and life styles in women before they get pregnant and the same for children from the time they are born. To do that we need to turn around the unhealthy lifestyles we are now encouraging - lowering the obesity rate for children and adults - and going back to sustainable farming practices....plus taking food-based supplements - because most of our food, sadly, is lacking nutrition....

We can do it...