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Cooking the RealAge (R) Way

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Cooking the RealAge Way

Control Your Genes Simply by the Way You Set Up Your Kitchen

You do not have to feel or be your calendar age. Seventy percent of premature aging is caused by the choices we make. By making some good choices, such as eating well, you can slow down or even reverse the signs of aging. And the best way to eat well is by revising key elements of the most important room in your home--the kitchen.

Just as what you eat makes a big difference in how old you feel and how old you actually are, it also amazingly makes a difference in what proteins your genes produce. As we learn more about genes, we learn how much we can modify their actions. The specific proteins they produce and the ratio of proteins any two genes make is at least partially under your control. This chapter is about how we can stock our kitchens and change what we eat to control our genes, ultimately keeping us and our families energetic and younger.

The response to our first book, RealAge, which provided consistent scientific data that you can control your rate of aging, has been overwhelming. Thousands ofe-mails have told me that knowing the effect of a healthy choice--for example, knowing that eating an ounce of nuts a day makes the average 55-year-old man more than 3.3 years younger--was empowering. Such knowledge motivated individuals to make healthier choices. For the first year after that book was published, I received an average of 1,500 e-mails a day from readers. People told me they loved having a way of measuring their rate of aging and, even better, had found some simple steps for slowing that process.

As explained in The RealAge Diet, consistent scientific data show that eating the RealAge way--great-tasting, healthy food that is colorful--can make you younger. The scientific advisory group of RealAge has a strict standard to follow: no food choice (and no other health factor, for that matter) is said to have a RealAge effect (e.g., "Enjoying a half-ounce of dark--cocoa based--chocolate before each meal can make you 1.9 years younger") unless that effect has been shown to occur in at least four studies on humans. In addition, each RealAge food choice should be (and is, as confirmed by taste tests) every bit as satisfying and delicious as the energy-sapping, aging foods so widespread in the American diet. My patients and readers love knowing that simple, easy changes in food choices make a measurable difference in their health.

This is where cooking the RealAge way comes in. Perhaps a patient story helps: Steve I. was a 52-year-old hard-driving executive. His wife, Nancy, cared deeply about him, so when he was home for dinner (he ate out or was away two or three nights every week), Nancy cooked his favorite roasts or steaks. She punctuated every meal with great vegetables and a good salad, but Nancy always had his favorite coffee ice cream (to make him feel like home was a comfortable spot); and on planes or on the road he ate whatever was being served (he traveled in first class often, owing to his frequent flyer status); Mrs. Field's cookies and ice cream for dessert were rewards. And he ate whatever everybody else was eating at meetings. He and his wife exercised two or three times a week when he was at home. But he was getting more tired, enjoying the work less, and his arthritis started to act up. So his wife forced him to see me.

We found his RealAge was thirteen years older than his calendar age; he was really 65, not 52, and he felt it. So he made small changes that made a big difference. Just changing to nuts and chocolate-covered fruit as a snack, ordering fish or vegetarian meals in advance on planes, asking for olive oil, throwing the creamy dressings out, and stocking the kitchen with a balsamic vinegar he adored, his wife making RealAge dishes he loved, and prioritizing 20 minutes of exercise a day, he transformed himself easily into someone who felt 45 not 65. Actually, he became 45 (his RealAge decreased to 45 over three years). He became vigorous and regained his zest for life, and he looked it. So did his wife, who became transformed as well.

And it was easy, they say. It started by understanding why we feel and get older, and how easy it is to deliciously transform our eating. It just started and was (and is) done with easy changes in the kitchen. Nancy looked and felt younger, too--Steve and she each lost weight (18 and 9 pounds, respectively)--but that was not their goal. They wanted to feel the zest for life and energy that had gradually slipped away. They wanted the energy to help their children build families and to enjoy their grandchildren. They just didn't know how easy it was; neither did I until I started to learn about how we can control our genes--how solid that science was--that started for me more than twenty years after I was a doctor, and more than ten years ago.

Now many of us wish we could be 9 or 18 pounds lighter, or feel and be twenty years younger. And we can. That it is easy and predictable is the great news. Steve and Nancy's story is not unique and their transformation is not unusual or different. Many others (myself and my wife included) have done it. And it is not even hard; it is even fun. I want you to learn what I've learned--it's too easy and too important not to learn it. RealAge: Are You As Young As You Can Be? and The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat reveal the scientific principles and strategies to help you make yourself younger. The goal of the first two RealAge books was to help you understand the science behind control . . .

Continues...

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Excerpted from Cooking the RealAge (R) Way by Michael Roizen Copyright © 2006 by Michael Roizen. Excerpted by permission.
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