Eating your way to better health

That's no misprint. When nutrition researchers invited themselves into thekitchens across the globe — from Greece to Japan and then to tNorth America— they discovered a tummy-satisfying secret to good health: pile your plate high with vegetables and fruits, add respectable portions of beans and whole grains, and minimize or cut outhigh-calorie options such ascheeseburgers, cream sauces, and fatty meats.

According to Bradley Willcox, MD, of the Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu and lead researcher of the Okinawa Longevity Study, the results are fewer calories, more health-boosting antioxidants, and longer lives. Wilcox notes that"Ounce for ounce, people on Okinawa eatmorefood by weight than people who eat a Western-style diet."

He explains:"They eat a lot of produce and grains and smaller portions of higher-calorie, higher-fat foods. It's the combination of high nutrition and lower calories that gives them a tremendous health advantage: Their risk for dementia, heart attacks, strokes and cancer are among the lowest in the world."

Okinawans aren't starving. They eat about 1,800 calories a day. (In contrast, many Western cultures, the average adult eats close to 2,500.) He adds, "Slight calorie restriction seems to prime the body for survival."

He points out that "Just cutting back by 10 percent can have a dramatic effect. The theory is that this throws genetic 'master switches' so that more maintenance work gets done: Your cells invest more time and energy in repairing DNA; there's less oxidation (damage from rogue oxygen molecules called free radicals that leads to all sorts of diseases); and insulin, the hormone that tells cells to absorb blood sugar, becomes more effective."

We're not talking about starvation diets. Yes, eating extremely low-cal diets has extended the lives of earthworms in laboratories, but the jury's still out on whether this impractical, unpleasant and even dangerous practice lengthens the lives of humans.

Simply refocusing your food priorities by eating smaller portions of calorie-dense foods and copious amounts of plant-based foods is all you need to do.

The easiest way to eat more while getting fewer calories? Eat breakfast like a Greek, lunch like an Okinawan, and dinner like a Pennsylvanian.

In Greece and on Okinawa, traditional diets call for a plate filled with three-quarters fruits and veggies and the rest whole grains and lean protein. And in recent studies at Pennsylvania State University, researchers found that people who ate diets richest in veggies, fruits, and whole grains typically took in 425 fewer calories per day, yet they were able to enjoy big portions (and didn't feel deprived) because they were choosing mostly low-calorie foods."That's a tremendous dietary advantage," Dr. Willcox says. "You're loading up on the foods that provide you with the most antioxidants, which protect against free radical damage."