Do Vegetarians Live to Be Over 100 years Old?
The answer is yes.
But the percentage is small. There are some randomized, controlled studies on diet, which I will post in a separately, but I have not seen a prospective, randomized, controlled study to see who lives longer: vegetarians or omnivores. Time will tell us the answer with such a study in the future.
I am in a heated debate with a surgical colleague who is a Cardiothoracic Surgeon and trained with Cooley and DeBakey at the Texas Heart Institute years ago. He says that a vegeteranian diet is not the best diet and there are very few people who live past 100 on a purely vegetarian diet.
I’ve decided to do some research and here are some people who have lived over 100 on a vegetarian diet. They likely did need Vitamin B 12 shots or some form of Vitamin B 12 intake. The reports do not say.
1. The secret of living 110 years? Britain’s oldest man says it’s all to do with a magic potion from India
- Reg Dean becomes Britain’s oldest man on Sunday
- He thanks an ‘elixir of life’ given to him by an Indian doctor during the Second World War
He has lived to see 26 prime ministers, received seven telegrams from the Queen and was alive when the Wright brothers piloted the first powered plane in 1903.
But Britain’s oldest man – who turns 110 tomorrow – says his longevity isn’t entirely down to his strict vegetarian diet or his favourite tipple, gin.
The Reverend Reg Dean instead attributes it to a ‘mysterious brown-looking’ elixir of life given to him by a doctor when he was an army chaplain in India.
Celebrations: Reg Dean celebrated his 110th birthday in November last year
‘He said to me, “I have concocted a drink that will make you live for ever”, or something like that, and would I like to take it?’ he recalled yesterday.
‘Well I’m very naive, I can’t say no, so I drank it and here I am.’
Reflecting on all he has witnessed, he said: ‘I remember before the days of Tarmac, the roads were all dust heaps.
‘I can remember hearing about the sinking of the Titanic when I was at my uncle’s farm.’
Early years: Reg Dean pictured in 1903 aged 11 months and as a choirboy aged 12
Growing up: Reg Dean ordained as a minister 1932, left, and in the 1940’s during his time with the British Army
Settled life: The minister is snapped smiling in the 1960s, left, and painting in the early 1980s
The three-times married minister, from Wirksworth, Derbyshire, has one son and two grandchildren.
He was ordained in the 1920s and later volunteered as an army chaplain in Burma and India during the Second World War.
In 1958, Mr Dean became a teacher and later served as minister at the United Reformed Churches in Wirksworth and Matlock, before retiring 29 years ago, aged 80.
Mr Dean, who received telegrams to mark his 100th and 105th birthdays and one every year since, says he wants to live until he is 120. The world’s oldest living man, aged 115, is Jiroemon Kimura from Japan.
Honour: Rev. Dean and his son Christopher with his birthday card from the Queen when he became a centenarian in 2002
2. Premsai Patel says he was born in 1896, and if confirmed he would be the world’s oldest man at 118. Patel, a native of a remote central Indian village, attributes his long, healthy life to fresh green vegetables, pulses and a strict vegetarian diet. A retired government teacher, Patel lives in Korba district of central Chhattisgarh state where he starts each day by reciting verses from the sacred Hindu scripture ‘Ramcharitmanas’
See video:
3. This person is NOT a Vegetarian and eats pigs feet.
Happy 114th Birthday to Jeralean Talley, The Oldest Living American!
What’s the supercentenarian’s secret? Be nice, worship God, and eat pigs’ feet.
Jeralean Talley and godson Tyler Kinloch pictured with one of the seven catfish she caught at the Trout Farm in Dexter, Mich., on June 16, 2012.
Be nice, worship God and eat pigs’ feet: That’s how Jeralean Talley of Inkster, Michigan says she lived to celebrate her 114th birthday today — and be crowned the oldest person in the United States. Using census records, the Gerontology Research Group verified her title after the previous oldest American, Elsie Thompson, died at 113 in March. Talley is still a youngster, relatively speaking, compared to the world’s oldest person, Jiroemon Kimura, who is 116 and lives in Japan.
In a phone conversation on the eve of her 114th birthday, Talley told TIME, “I feel okay.” These days, the supercentenarian lives with her daughter Thelma Holloway, 75, and says she passes the time by watching The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Wheel of Fortune as well as listening to baseball on the radio – though she doesn’t have a favorite team. She can stay up as late as midnight and feasts on her favorite foods: potato salad, honey buns, McDonald’s chicken nuggets and Wendy’s chili.
Holloway says her mother stayed active over the years by sewing dresses, making quilts and playing the slot machines at casinos. She also bowled until she was about 104 and her legs got too weak – but not before scoring 200 in one game. Now Talley, who sits all day, tries to work out by waving her arms in the air and kicking her feet. Twice a year, she goes fishing for catfish and trout with her friend Michael Kinloch, 54, an engineer she met at church in 1990. “She literally throws her line in, and I’ll run over and try to pull in the fish,” he says. “We do that routine until she gets tired of it, and then we’ll head home.”
Courtesy of Michael Kinloch
Jeralean Talley (center), her daughter Thelma Holloway (back), fishing buddy Michael Kinloch (right) and his son and Talley’s godson Tyler Kinloch (left), at the supercentenarian’s 113th birthday celebration last May 2012.
Jeralean Kurtz was born in rural Montrose, Georgia on May 23, 1899, on a large farm where she spent long hours picking cotton and peanuts and digging sweet potatoes out of the ground until sunset. In 1935, she moved to Michigan, and a year later, she married Alfred Talley. They lived in Inkster and were wed for 52 years before he died on October 17, 1988, at the age of 95. She boasts three grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren, four great-great-grandchildren, and is the godmother to Kinloch’s 19-year-old son Tyler. When she met Tyler for the first time as a newborn, she put a $5 bill in his tiny fist. “God told me that when your child is born, I should give him $5,” she said, according to Kinloch.
Talley always says, “do unto others as you desire them to do unto you,” and insists that’s the secret to living a long life. Also, eating plenty of pork. Every Christmas, she bakes Kinloch a Hog’s Head Cheese – which doesn’t have cheese, but is basically pigs’ ears and feet in a jelly stock. “I personally feel like it’s one of those things that kind of keeps her going,” he says. He may have a point. Last month, a 105-year-old woman in Texas claimed that bacon was her secret to longevity. Talley is also known for her sweet tooth and has made friends walnut pie with walnuts from the walnut tree in her backyard.
On Sundays, you can find the devout Christian at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church – front and center in a seat specially saved for her. In fact, this Sunday, in honor of Talley’s 114th birthday, the church will christen its driveway “Mother Jeralean Talley Drive.” After services, there will be a special luncheon at its recreation center. The White House even sent a letter to be printed in the program, says Christonna Campbell, 56, who sits on the church’s board and has been organizing Talley’s birthday parties since she was 95. No doubt the congregation will snap as many pictures of the supercentenarian as possible because, Campbell says, “the only time she will allow us to snap a picture of her is on her birthday.”