BUT WHAT DO YOU EAT

India’s first Mr Universe, who turned 100, recently, ate coconuts. Fauja Singh, 101, is happy with yogurt. The 103-year-old Chinese twin sisters have snacked on snakes. So, what’s the secret to good health?

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300"] Manohar Aich[/caption]

When Manohar Aich, India’s first Mr Universe turned 100 recently and cut a cake surrounded by family and friends, the bulge in his biceps could have been the envy of men decades younger than him. But ask him what he ate to carry on so long and so well and he says there was no concept of a diet for a bodybuilder in those days when he was growing up in Bangladesh.

Aich, who was born in a remote village called Dhamti in Comilla district, ate What ever he could find-coconuts, mangoes, jackfruit and vegetables. Not something your gym instructor would advise you these days. Fauja Singh, just a week away from his 101^st birthday, and perhaps the world’s oldest marathoner, on the other hand, says chappatis, dal, tea, yoghurt and milk does it for him. And for 108-year old Rajasthani folk artiste Nemi Baba, the only man who plays the Algoza (a wind instrument), nothing less than two litres each of tea and milk daily will do.

So what’s the food that keeps these centenarians going in such good health? Is there even a diet plan that anyone can hazard to recommend for a long and healthy life? Very few would come forward to take up the challenge.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="400"] Chinese twins Cao Da Qiao and Cao Xiao Qiao[/caption]

Take Chinese twins Cao Daqiao and Cao Xiaoqiao, for instance. The sisters, who live in Fanjialing village in Shandong province, claim they have eaten snakes all their lives. They are 104 now and still walk 2-3 Km every day without support. How has the snake diet helped?

“The Chinese believe that snake bile is good for gall bladder. And the meat keeps chronic respiratory diseases like bronchitis in check and the phlegm healthy,” Dr Yuliya Sharkun of Beijing Jiaotong University told.

As for Zhang Shuqing, a resident of Sichuan province, a life of excess has been the key to longevity-15 tonnes of liquor and several tonnes of tobacco to keep his clock ticking even at 105. For Georgian woman Antisa Khavichava, who thinks she is 130, guzzling vodka is what keeps her body and spirit in fine fettle.

General partition-er Dr vinay Upadhyay believes there are several factors that come into play- genetic predisposition, lifestyle, environment, and even psychology. “Some have it in their genes to live long,” he says. “But the end of the day, it is luck that makes it possible. You can lead an ideal lifestyle and still not live beyond 50, while someone who treats alcohol like Elixir con live way beyond 100,” he says.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200"] fauja singh[/caption]

But ask some of these guys how it to be hundred and happening and most miss the one thing that makes life exciting-love. Singh, for one, started running “seriously” only at 81, after the tragic loss of his wife and son. “His running kept his mind away from grief and gave him a new lease of life,” says his coach, Harmander. Today, though, the “Turbanded Tornado” has several world records to his credit, included eight in a single day.