How to Live for a Century
I've seen a number of references to calorie-restricted diets
notably increasing the life spans of various animals (old news...),
with primate studies currently under way showing very promising results
(in terms of basic physiological signs of aging and whatnot, but the
studies won't be conclusive until the primates die which may be a
while...). The average life extension is around 30%, which if applicable
to humans would mean an average life expectancy of around a century.
That in mind, I've been paying more attention to where the
calories are, just to get an idea of what it would take to live on,
say, a 1500 calorie per day diet. (That's a ballpark figure appropriate
for a calorie-restricted diet for someone of average build and height.)
The interesting thing is where the calories are and aren't.
To illustrate:
As a reference, a cup of 1% milk is only, and conveniently,
100 calories. So you could have nearly a gallon of milk a day (if
nothing else, of course) on a "calorie restricted" diet.
Now try your intuition on these:
- How many Doritos would equal that cup of milk (in calories)?
- How much shrimp?
- How many cookies?
- How much cheese (Precious, low-fat motzerella)?
- How many tortillas?
- How many Balance Bars?
- How much of an artichoke?
- How much Pepsi? (Guess how many teaspoons of sugar in one soda?)
Continue to part 2...
Brandyn Webb /
brandyn@sifter.org
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